Gaslight Cinema
302 Petoskey Street,
Petoskey,
MI
49770
302 Petoskey Street,
Petoskey,
MI
49770
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Temple Theatre
Nearby Theaters
News About This Theater
- Jul 14, 2012 — Petoskey to conduct downtown theater study
The Temple Theatre was opened by June 1916. It was renamed Gaslight Cinema in December 1973.
The owners, who also have theaters in nearby Bellaire, Gaylord, Cheboygan and Mackinaw City, claimed parking problems and space made the Gaslight Cinema impossible to expand. Already converted into a five-screen theater, the 950-seat Gaslight Cinema was reportedly too small for their profit margins and no additional auditoriums could be added. It was closed at the end of 2001.
The Chamber of Commerce has tried to keep the theater downtown, but the owners decided to move elsewhere after six months of talks. The city looked for new owners for the theater in an effort to keep the downtown landmark from demolition. But this proved negative, and the Gaslight Cinema was demolished in 2006. A new $3.5 million eight screen multiplex was opened down the road.
Contributed by
Ross Melnick
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
Why would you want to close down a historical landmark? New isn’t always better
This theater is, unfortunately, shortly to be demolished for a combination condominium/retail/hotel project, according to this article http://www.record-eagle.com/2005/dec/17hotel.htm Although there was an attempt to save it, Petoskey voters gave the OK to the projet last year, dooming the theater.
Originally called the Temple Theater (the name used to remain visible in the outer lobby tiles before additional screening rooms were added and the entrance and lobby redesigned), the theater had been “modernized” over its lifetime.
In the 1990s, four small, non-descript screening rooms were added adjacent to the original auditorium. The expansion of the theater into a muliplex also included a modern, functional, but bland lobby area and entrance that essentially obliterated any traces of the original.
Little remained though of the original decor in the original auditorium except for some wall lighting fixtures and the stage; Soundfold drapery and a drop ceiling made it look much like hundreds of other cinemas around the country.
Not only was this theater demolished a few years ago, but the condominium/retail/hotel project that was supposed to occupy the site never happened. The site of the former Gaslight is now just a large hole in the ground in downtown Petoskey. Shame!
Nice 1979 photo,too bad its gone now.
The Temple Theatre was listed at 300-302 Petoskey Street in a 1926 directory, and could be the same Temple Theater mentioned in the July 29, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World. The item concerned Norman J. Feldman, former manager of the Temple, who had just become manager of the new Palace Theater on Howard Street.
The Temple might have been one of the theaters owned by F. M. Cory, whose obituary in the April, 1916, issue of the trade journal The Grand Rapids Furniture Record said that, in addition to his furniture business, Mr. Cory had operated three movie theaters in Petoskey, the first of which he had opened in 1908.
In addition to its page for the Gaslight Cinemas, Water Winter Wonderland has this page featuring a photo of the house as the Temple Theatre. It gives the location as Lake Street, but the theater was on Petoskey at the corner of Lake.
Can’t find the actual opening date, but opened sometime in October 1940.
The Temple changed its name to the Gaslight Cinema in December 1973.
The Temple Theatre was open long before 1940. It was listed in the 1926 city directory at the address above, and was listed in the 1926 and 1929 FDYs with 666 seats. The earliest photo of the house at Water Winter Wonderland shows a theater front characteristic of the 1910s. As the Temple was mentioned in Moving Picture World in 1916, but not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, a 1915 opening is possible.