If the Alvin closed as early as 1940 it was vacant for quite some time before being dismantled. Boxoffice of December 15, 1951, reported that the Alvin was one of five Detroit area houses being dismantled. Seats and other equipment from the Alvin had been sold to a theater in Savannah, Georgia.
This article dated June 9, 2012, says that Ralph Bevington and Harry Osborne bought the Roxy Theatre in Minerva, Ohio, in the mid-1960s and renamed it the Mohawk, installing in it all the equipment from their house of that name in Waynesburg, including the marquee.
Another source I found but lost track of said that the Mohawk in Waynesburg was converted into Cibo’s Restaurant in 1971. That means the restaurant has now occupied the building about three times as long as the theater did.
This article from the November 27, 2013, issue of The Monett Times is about the building the Strand was in, but it has some pretty serious inaccuracies in it. It notes that the 1917 Sanborn map shows a movie theater on the site of the Strand, but incorrectly says that it was the Bijou. The Bijou was on Broadway.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists at Monett the Bijou, at 417 Broadway, and the Gem Theatre, with no address. It seems likely that the Gem, which I’ve found mentioned as early as 1911 and which is listed in the Film Daily Yearbook as late as 1928, was the house that later became the Strand. The Gem 375 seats, and in the 1929 FDY had been replaced by a house called the Lindy Theatre, also with 375 seats.
Only the Rialto is listed at Monett in 1930, but in 1931 the Lindy is back, listed as a silent house. After that the Lindy vanishes, and then the Strand first appears in the 1938 Yearbook, with 400 seats. My surmise would be that this theater was indeed built as part of the Martin Hotel project in 1910, then operated under three names before closing.
The Bijou operated two locations. The February 12, 1915, issue of The Monett Times said the the Bijou’s owner, W. S. Sevier, had leased two buildings on Broadway and planned to throw them together, while also extending them at the rear to create a theater of 50x100 feet. The Bijou had moved into its new quarters by April.
I am assuming that the address 417 E. Broadway was for the first Bijou, as the description doesn’t indicate that it contains any information later than 1914. The second Bijou was remodeled in 1920, and I suspect that it was the house that became the Rialto, for reasons I will put in a comment on the Rialto’s page.
The February 12, 1915 issue of The Monett Times reported that the Bijou Theatre was moving to a new location on Broadway. In its issue of April 2, 1920, the Times said that the recently closed Bijou Theatre on Broadway, which had opened at that location in 1915, would be remodeled, expanded, and reopened. Plans for the project were being drawn by local architect Bert Robbins. Although the article didn’t give the rebuilt theater’s name, I’m fairly certain that it was the Rialto.
This article from the November 27, 2013, issue of the Times is rather muddled, and erroneously says that the second Bijou was on the site later occupied by the Strand, but we know that the Strand was on Fourth Street. The article also says that “…the Bijou was replaced by the Rialto….” I think this line must have been the accurate part of the article. The writer just got the long-gone and probably forgotten Rialto conflated with the Strand somehow.
Kit43: Wikipedia says that Chero-Cola was first produced in Columbus, Georgia, in 1905, and was rebranded as Royal Crown Cola in 1934, so your poster must come from that period. The would eliminate the Kozy in Granite, which wasn’t listed with that spelling until after 1941. As there were quite a few early theaters that used the spelling Kozy (I found six with a quick Google search of The Moving Picture World, only three of which are among the nine currently listed at Cinema Treasures) it might be hard to discover which one was advertised on your poster.
Rjack: There are scans of a large collection of theater industry trade journals at The Internet Archive, and your grandfather is mentioned in several issues. He was an active contributor of capsule movie reviews to the “What the Picture Did for Me” feature of Exhibitors Herald in the early 1920s. I’ve found him mentioned as early as June, 1919, but he must have begun operating the Strand in 1917, as this item appeared in the April 20, 1959, issue of Motion Picture Daily:
“ATLANTA, April 19.-Lane Hebson, for 20 years with Martin Theatres, is the new owner of the Strand Theatre, Alexander City, Ala., having purchased it from Mack Jackson, who had operated the house for 41 years.”
You should be able to find quite a few mentions of your grandfather by Googling his name (in quotes) along with the names of the various trade journals (also in quotes- but just search one journal name at a time.) In addition to Exhibitors Herald he is mentioned several times in the successor publication Motion Picture Herald
and in Film Daily.
The vintage photo uploaded by elmorovivo shows that the Seville was in the same building (or at least on the same site) as the Queen Theatre. The ornate building to the left of the theater can also be seen in the vintage photo on the Queen’s photo page.
There is no street called Main Street in Owensboro, but I believe I have found the location of the Queen Theatre, as the front portion of the ornate building seen next door to it in the vintage photo uploaded by Granola is still standing in the 100 block of W. Third Street.
The site of the Queen is now occupied by part of a glassy, modern bank building to which the remaining portion of the old bank building serves as an entrance. The bank uses the address 100 w. Third, but a Verizon office directly across the street from what was the theater’s lot is at 115 W. Third. I would expect the theater most likely used the address 114 W. Third Street.
The first few seconds of this video, dated 1965, show the marquee of the Art Theatre with Spanish language movies featured on it.
The Art was catering to a Hispanophonic audience at least as early as 1944, when the “Theater Deals” Column of the April 14 issue of The Film Daily reported that T&J Theatres had taken a long term lease on the house and would follow a policy of films in Spanish.
The Art Theatre was mentioned in the January 18, 1921, issue of The Film Daily. At that time it had 1,402 seats.
The Art Deco style Bushnell Memorial Theatre opened on January 13, 1930, and was designed by the New York architectural firm of Corbett, Harrison, & MacMurray, one of the three associated firms that designed Rockefeller Center (Harvey Wiley Corbett and Wallace Kirkman Harrison. I’ve been unable to find MacMurray’s given names.)
The video wouldn’t run for me, but it might be just a video of a high school in Gary anyway. The makers of the video have a YouTube channel, but I’ve been unable to find any among their hundreds of videos that is about the Palace. It would probably be part of their LOSTtoTIME series, and their Playlists page says there are currently 83 videos in that series. I haven’t scrolled through them to see if the theater is there, though I did see their video for the Town Theatre in Highland, Indiana, which I’ve linked on that theater’s page.
YouTube does have a few videos of the Palace by other users, though. Just Google Palace Theatre Gary IN.
The Academy of Music suffered a serious fire sometime around the beginning of 1926. Repairs were underway, according to this item in the January 23 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“SOON TO REOPEN
“The work of repairing the damage done by fire to the Academy of Music in Newburgh is progressing rapidly and it looks as though the house would reopen within a few weeks. The theatre is one of several acquired by the Famous Players, which also has the Bardavon and the Stratford in Poughkeepsie, as well as the second-run Liberty. There is a stiff fight on in Poughkeepsie for patronage between the Famous Players group and another group of three houses run by George Cohen.”
This web page has a few photos of the Academy (click arrow next to visible thumbnails) including a couple showing the aftermath of the 1956 fire that led to the theater’s demolition.
The vintage photo shows the marquee over the bay on the right. The other two bays were probably always storefronts. Except for one suite with an entrance on Third Street, access to the offices in the former auditorium is from a parking lot north of the building.
If you use the address 19 Preakness Shopping Center at Google Maps, the pin icon fetches up exactly in front of the theater entrance, and you can get this street view.
This article from the Farquier Times, February 5, 2017, says that the Farquier Theatre opened on January 10, 1931. Pitts Theatres operated the house until 1969, when the chain was sold to R/C Theaters. The house was closed on May 12, 1974. The auditorium, which backed up to Third Street, was subsequently gutted and filled with three floors of offices.
Boxoffice of February 16, 1970, said that Mid-Atlantic Theatres, new owners of the Pitts-Madison Theatre in Orange, Virginia, which had been in operation since 1936, had closed the house on December 31, 1969, due to lack of business. Mid-Atlantic planned extensive improvements at the Pitts Drive-In, which continued in operation on weekends.
R/C Theatres, of Randallstown, Maryland, had bought the sixteen remaining theaters in the Pitts chain in November, 1969. As far as I’ve been able to discover, Mid-Atlantic was a subsidiary of R/C.
The Pitts Drive-In was still in operation in 1970, when the February 16 issue of Boxoffice reported that extensive improvements were planned by the new owners, the Mid-Atlantic Theatre Corporation. Pitts Theatres had been taken over by R/C Theatres of Randallstown, Maryland, in November, 1969. This page at Drive-Ins.org says that the theater was renamed the Orange Drive-In after being taken over by R/C Theatres, and says that it was closed in 1979. Mid-Atlantic appears to have been a subsidiary of R/C.
Boxoffice of February 16, 1970, reported that Fabian Management Corporation would not be renewing its lease on the Embassy Theatre in Reading, and that the house would be shuttered on March 31.
The east wing of Plymouth Meeting Mall— about a third of the entire center, including this theater— was destroyed by a fire on January 10, 1970. Rebuilding took close to a year, and when the theater reopened on December 25 it was as a twin.
Victor Gruen Associates designed the mall itself, but the firm responsible for designing virtually all of General Cinema’s theaters during this period was William Riseman Associates.
This must be the Art Theatre that an item in Boxoffice of December 15, 1951, reported was one of five Detroit area houses being dismantled.
If the Alvin closed as early as 1940 it was vacant for quite some time before being dismantled. Boxoffice of December 15, 1951, reported that the Alvin was one of five Detroit area houses being dismantled. Seats and other equipment from the Alvin had been sold to a theater in Savannah, Georgia.
Boxoffice of December 15, 1951, reported that the Oliver Theatre was one of five Michigan houses being dismantled.
This article dated June 9, 2012, says that Ralph Bevington and Harry Osborne bought the Roxy Theatre in Minerva, Ohio, in the mid-1960s and renamed it the Mohawk, installing in it all the equipment from their house of that name in Waynesburg, including the marquee.
Another source I found but lost track of said that the Mohawk in Waynesburg was converted into Cibo’s Restaurant in 1971. That means the restaurant has now occupied the building about three times as long as the theater did.
This article from the November 27, 2013, issue of The Monett Times is about the building the Strand was in, but it has some pretty serious inaccuracies in it. It notes that the 1917 Sanborn map shows a movie theater on the site of the Strand, but incorrectly says that it was the Bijou. The Bijou was on Broadway.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists at Monett the Bijou, at 417 Broadway, and the Gem Theatre, with no address. It seems likely that the Gem, which I’ve found mentioned as early as 1911 and which is listed in the Film Daily Yearbook as late as 1928, was the house that later became the Strand. The Gem 375 seats, and in the 1929 FDY had been replaced by a house called the Lindy Theatre, also with 375 seats.
Only the Rialto is listed at Monett in 1930, but in 1931 the Lindy is back, listed as a silent house. After that the Lindy vanishes, and then the Strand first appears in the 1938 Yearbook, with 400 seats. My surmise would be that this theater was indeed built as part of the Martin Hotel project in 1910, then operated under three names before closing.
The Bijou operated two locations. The February 12, 1915, issue of The Monett Times said the the Bijou’s owner, W. S. Sevier, had leased two buildings on Broadway and planned to throw them together, while also extending them at the rear to create a theater of 50x100 feet. The Bijou had moved into its new quarters by April.
I am assuming that the address 417 E. Broadway was for the first Bijou, as the description doesn’t indicate that it contains any information later than 1914. The second Bijou was remodeled in 1920, and I suspect that it was the house that became the Rialto, for reasons I will put in a comment on the Rialto’s page.
The February 12, 1915 issue of The Monett Times reported that the Bijou Theatre was moving to a new location on Broadway. In its issue of April 2, 1920, the Times said that the recently closed Bijou Theatre on Broadway, which had opened at that location in 1915, would be remodeled, expanded, and reopened. Plans for the project were being drawn by local architect Bert Robbins. Although the article didn’t give the rebuilt theater’s name, I’m fairly certain that it was the Rialto.
This article from the November 27, 2013, issue of the Times is rather muddled, and erroneously says that the second Bijou was on the site later occupied by the Strand, but we know that the Strand was on Fourth Street. The article also says that “…the Bijou was replaced by the Rialto….” I think this line must have been the accurate part of the article. The writer just got the long-gone and probably forgotten Rialto conflated with the Strand somehow.
Kit43: Wikipedia says that Chero-Cola was first produced in Columbus, Georgia, in 1905, and was rebranded as Royal Crown Cola in 1934, so your poster must come from that period. The would eliminate the Kozy in Granite, which wasn’t listed with that spelling until after 1941. As there were quite a few early theaters that used the spelling Kozy (I found six with a quick Google search of The Moving Picture World, only three of which are among the nine currently listed at Cinema Treasures) it might be hard to discover which one was advertised on your poster.
Rjack: There are scans of a large collection of theater industry trade journals at The Internet Archive, and your grandfather is mentioned in several issues. He was an active contributor of capsule movie reviews to the “What the Picture Did for Me” feature of Exhibitors Herald in the early 1920s. I’ve found him mentioned as early as June, 1919, but he must have begun operating the Strand in 1917, as this item appeared in the April 20, 1959, issue of Motion Picture Daily:
You should be able to find quite a few mentions of your grandfather by Googling his name (in quotes) along with the names of the various trade journals (also in quotes- but just search one journal name at a time.) In addition to Exhibitors Herald he is mentioned several times in the successor publication Motion Picture Herald and in Film Daily.The vintage photo uploaded by elmorovivo shows that the Seville was in the same building (or at least on the same site) as the Queen Theatre. The ornate building to the left of the theater can also be seen in the vintage photo on the Queen’s photo page.
There is no street called Main Street in Owensboro, but I believe I have found the location of the Queen Theatre, as the front portion of the ornate building seen next door to it in the vintage photo uploaded by Granola is still standing in the 100 block of W. Third Street.
The site of the Queen is now occupied by part of a glassy, modern bank building to which the remaining portion of the old bank building serves as an entrance. The bank uses the address 100 w. Third, but a Verizon office directly across the street from what was the theater’s lot is at 115 W. Third. I would expect the theater most likely used the address 114 W. Third Street.
The first few seconds of this video, dated 1965, show the marquee of the Art Theatre with Spanish language movies featured on it.
The Art was catering to a Hispanophonic audience at least as early as 1944, when the “Theater Deals” Column of the April 14 issue of The Film Daily reported that T&J Theatres had taken a long term lease on the house and would follow a policy of films in Spanish.
The Art Theatre was mentioned in the January 18, 1921, issue of The Film Daily. At that time it had 1,402 seats.
The Art Deco style Bushnell Memorial Theatre opened on January 13, 1930, and was designed by the New York architectural firm of Corbett, Harrison, & MacMurray, one of the three associated firms that designed Rockefeller Center (Harvey Wiley Corbett and Wallace Kirkman Harrison. I’ve been unable to find MacMurray’s given names.)
The restored NorShor Theatre reopened as a live performance venue on February 1, 2018.
Here is the official web site.
Here is video of the Town Theatre shortly before its demolition.
The video wouldn’t run for me, but it might be just a video of a high school in Gary anyway. The makers of the video have a YouTube channel, but I’ve been unable to find any among their hundreds of videos that is about the Palace. It would probably be part of their LOSTtoTIME series, and their Playlists page says there are currently 83 videos in that series. I haven’t scrolled through them to see if the theater is there, though I did see their video for the Town Theatre in Highland, Indiana, which I’ve linked on that theater’s page.
YouTube does have a few videos of the Palace by other users, though. Just Google Palace Theatre Gary IN.
The Academy of Music suffered a serious fire sometime around the beginning of 1926. Repairs were underway, according to this item in the January 23 issue of The Moving Picture World:
This web page has a few photos of the Academy (click arrow next to visible thumbnails) including a couple showing the aftermath of the 1956 fire that led to the theater’s demolition.The vintage photo shows the marquee over the bay on the right. The other two bays were probably always storefronts. Except for one suite with an entrance on Third Street, access to the offices in the former auditorium is from a parking lot north of the building.
If you use the address 19 Preakness Shopping Center at Google Maps, the pin icon fetches up exactly in front of the theater entrance, and you can get this street view.
This article from the Farquier Times, February 5, 2017, says that the Farquier Theatre opened on January 10, 1931. Pitts Theatres operated the house until 1969, when the chain was sold to R/C Theaters. The house was closed on May 12, 1974. The auditorium, which backed up to Third Street, was subsequently gutted and filled with three floors of offices.
Boxoffice of February 16, 1970, said that Mid-Atlantic Theatres, new owners of the Pitts-Madison Theatre in Orange, Virginia, which had been in operation since 1936, had closed the house on December 31, 1969, due to lack of business. Mid-Atlantic planned extensive improvements at the Pitts Drive-In, which continued in operation on weekends.
R/C Theatres, of Randallstown, Maryland, had bought the sixteen remaining theaters in the Pitts chain in November, 1969. As far as I’ve been able to discover, Mid-Atlantic was a subsidiary of R/C.
The Pitts Drive-In was still in operation in 1970, when the February 16 issue of Boxoffice reported that extensive improvements were planned by the new owners, the Mid-Atlantic Theatre Corporation. Pitts Theatres had been taken over by R/C Theatres of Randallstown, Maryland, in November, 1969. This page at Drive-Ins.org says that the theater was renamed the Orange Drive-In after being taken over by R/C Theatres, and says that it was closed in 1979. Mid-Atlantic appears to have been a subsidiary of R/C.
Boxoffice of February 16, 1970, reported that Fabian Management Corporation would not be renewing its lease on the Embassy Theatre in Reading, and that the house would be shuttered on March 31.
The east wing of Plymouth Meeting Mall— about a third of the entire center, including this theater— was destroyed by a fire on January 10, 1970. Rebuilding took close to a year, and when the theater reopened on December 25 it was as a twin.
Victor Gruen Associates designed the mall itself, but the firm responsible for designing virtually all of General Cinema’s theaters during this period was William Riseman Associates.
The Morgan Theatre was on the northwest corner of S. Main and W. 7th Street. The site is now part of a public plaza.