Senate Theatre
3128 W. Madison Street,
Chicago,
IL
60612
3128 W. Madison Street,
Chicago,
IL
60612
1 person
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Balaban & Katz Corp., Lubliner & Trinz
Architects: Walter W. Ahlschlager
Styles: Italian Renaissance
Nearby Theaters
The 3,097-seat Senate Theatre was originally opened on February 12, 1921 with Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle in “Brewster’s Millions”. Located in the Garfield Park neighborhood, the Senate Theatre was located on W. Madison Street between N. Albany Avenue & N Kedzie Avenue, close to Garfield Park itself.
It was built for the Lubliner & Trinz circuit but its management was taken over five years later by Balaban & Katz.
In its first decade or so of operation, it featured both live stage shows and movies as well as a 3 manual 18 ranks Kimball organ. Balaban & Katz remodeled and reopened the Senate Theatre on December 30, 1937 and switched to movies only, screening Warner Baxter in “Vogues of 1938” & “John Boles in "Fight for Your Lady”.
Larger and more luxurious theatres like the Paradise Theatre and Marbro Theatre nearby drew audiences away from the Senate Theatre, and by the 1950’s, it was already falling into decline.
During its last years, it screened Spanish-language films. It finally was closed in 1969, and was demolished in January 1977.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft, Ray Martinez
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Recent comments (view all 17 comments)
Thanks SBGreig for the info. It is very nice to remember such wonderful memories where our family would visit together especially after a movie. I really did think the Marbro would outlive the Senate. I couldn’t believe when the Marbro was closed for good and the Senate was still operating!
February 12th, 1921 grand opening ad with close-ups has been uploaded here.
Thanks rivest266 for the photos plus all the rest you have presented. Enjoyed them all. I still say it was hard to understand the MARBRO closing and the demolition following and the Senate still showing pictures. Madison & Crawford area wasn’t that bad yet.
From February 20, 1977, a brief article on the Senate’s demolition, treating it as an example of the many theaters torn down in the city’s neighborhoods. There’s a picture, but it’s from microfilm and so not very good. The movie listings on the page are better.
Thanks for posting Rick. Great to read all the movie ads of the day.
Just added a 1934 photo courtesy of Gregory Russell. Early marquee and blade sign.
During planning and construction, the Senate was originally to be called the Panacea. Weird name!
Held an reopening on December 30th, 1937. Grand opening ad posted.
I found a cast iron letter: N from in front of the theater shortly before demolition. I can imagine all the movie titles it spelled over the theater’s life. Still have it!
The wrecker’s ball bounces and the old Senate fades away
By Paul Gapp
Architecture critic
EVERY YEAR or two, it seems, another of Chicago’s grand old vaudeville houses falls under the wrecker’s ball.
The losses often go unnoticed because the theaters are frequently in ravaged neighborhoods rarely visited by those who remember the better times.
And so it almost went a couple of weeks ago when a demolition crew attacked the sturdy steel and masonry of the Senate Theater at 3128 W. Madison St.
This time, however, a policeman from the 11th District telephoned to give me the sad news. He just hated to see the building go.
It thus seems fitting to write a modest obituary for the Senate, and hope it also may serve as a symbolic tribute to other theaters that have slid into oblivion without a single mourner or a word in print.
Jerome Winsberg remembers the Senate well because he managed it in the 1940s and has been in show business around Chicago for a half-century.
“It was a good house, a 3,000-seater with a big balcony that booked in a lot of name acts,” recalled Winsberg, vice president of Plitt Theaters, Inc.
“They built it maybe 50 years ago. It was operated by Lubliner and Trinz Theaters until Balaban & Katz took it over, and they kept it until 1957 when business tapered off.
“I remember that Mark Fisher and Art Kahn were leaders of the pit bands. Maybe you never heard of them, but they were big around Chicago in the old days. Preston Sellers was our organist.
“Henny Youngman played there, and Ben Blue and Gil Young. One of the most unusual acts was Cantor Joseph Rosenblatt from New York. He was tops in the cantorial singing field, right up there with people like Jan Peerce.”
Many of the old “WLS Barn Dance” stars played the Senate. Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Buck Jones were among them.
Winsberg remembers vividly that only a few days after Jones took his last bow at the Senate, he was killed in the 1942 fire that left 492 dead in Boston’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub.
The Senate played movies in its waning days. It last made news in 1968, when the Black Panthers and several other street gangs rented it for a one-night rally.
The theater was no architectural triumph, although it boasted an ornately decorated facade and enough interior elegance to satisfy its audiences.
But the Senate, like its dead or dying counterparts around the city, had a personality - a kind of soul.
So call this its eulogy. Another piece of the glorious city-that-used-to-be lies in rubble.