Arcade Airdome
4030-50 West Pine Boulevard,
St. Louis,
MO
63108
4030-50 West Pine Boulevard,
St. Louis,
MO
63108
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Chuck Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
This theatre was actually called the Arcade Airdome which was an open air theatre with 604 seats. The Airdome was located at 4030-50 W Pine Blvd in St. Louis.
Arcade Airdome operated from 1924 until 1950…one of the last (but not the last) airdome to operate in St. Louis.
Located at the southeast corner of West Pine and Sarah…at 4260 W. Pine. St. Louis Star in 1927 said it had room for 1764 patrons.
I would say that JAlex has most of the statistics correct for this theatre except for the address. The 1764 seating appears correct. This was as large outdoor theatre as the spread in the address numbers would indicate. There were many Airdomes in Saint Louis. I will list a few of them for you.
Armba Airdome, Armo Skydome, Baden Airdome, North Grand Airdome, West End Lyric Airdome, Zelphia Airdome. Maybe someone could investigate these further.
Correction to my above post. The seating of 604 is correct and the 1764 seating is too excessive.
Indeed, the 4260 address was incorrect for Sarah & West Pine. That 1764 capacity was from the paper—perhaps they got the year of St. Louis' founding confused with seating capacities!
Here are some more airdomes: Kings, Grand-Florissant, Lindell,
Manchester, Shenandoah, Russell, Crystal, Webster, Viginia, Aubert, Cinderella, Hi-Pointe, Kingsland, Powhatan, Ozark, Melba, Retina, White Way, Ashland, American, Peerless, Mogler…and many, many more.
Bear in mind the airdomes did not have “opera seats” as inside theatres, but patrons usually sat on benches. So, even though the seating capacity may seem amplified to hardtop eyes, they could cram a lot of people into these facilities.
It was not on the S/E corner of Sarah + West Pine, rather about 200 feet east of Sarah on the south side of West Pine. They had wood folding seats similar to those at Sportsman’s Park but did have benches in the first 4 to 5 rows…a concession stand w/ projection room above, toilet facilities and lost/found/ofice area adjacent. The entire area was unpaved but have a compacted crushed stone surface that sloped from north to south [entry to screen] and a 10 to 12 foot high wood/metal fence on both the east and west sides. I recall attending several times during the summer 1940’s.