Star Theater
1415 W. Fullerton Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60614-2011
1415 W. Fullerton Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60614-2011
1 person
favorited this theater
This small neighborhood movie theater, across the street from the similar and similarly sized Arrow Theatre between Southport Avenue and Janssen Avenue, was built around 1913 by Harold A Hill.
It later became the St. Paul Billiards and has now become a bistro bar. Two attractive stained glass windows showing a lyre and a violin are still in its facade, denoting its earlier use, although the lower facade is all glass block.
Contributed by
Brian Wolf
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
As the sign (now gone) from the front notes, this was used as a filming location in The Color Of Money during its billiard days. I believe it is to be converted to a bar; the interior is entirely gutted.
You can see a good amount of the interior during The Color Of Money. It’s the scene where Tom Cruise recieves a beating. After languishing on the Real Estate market for a few years, it now has a “Build to Suit” banner up, so its days may be numbered.
Here are photos of this theater.
It did indeed become a billiard hall after closing as a theater in the early 20s. I also have the clip from “The Color of Money” in which this was featured.
It seems to have sold again, and it no longer reads build to suit; it is instead up for lease. It seems that the property might just be too narrow to redevelop unless the adjacent Burger King was incorporated into the property.
A acquaintance of mine looked into buying this place quite some time ago.
I think he said the “revised” license was going to require that it include food. Since it had already closed, the bar only status was no longer an option.
The building’s small size & having to keep a food certified employee on site at all times, made it not viable to him.
Plus he was a bit of a heavy drinker. So this was a blessing in disguise.
“Never inhale the retail.”-Kevin Spacey as Mel Proffit in TV’s “Wiseguy”.
One of the stained glass windows is missing now.
That’s too bad. I think the Burger King was torn down and rebuilt once already in the same spot. Wonder why they didn’t just take it over then.
Or why DePaul didn’t buy it just to have it on hand. A family friend owned another bar & a few buildings just East of there across from Milito’s. DePaul bought everything from them all at once.
I don’t see an original number of seats posted for the Star. But from what I remember on the size of this place, if it could have sat more than 200 people I’d be surprised. It’s pretty tiny.
The stained glass has reappeared and the building has now been reused as SmallBar. http://www.thesmallbar.com/fullerton/