According to an index card in this PDF from the Theatre Historical Society, the building that became the New Atlantic Theatre was in operation as the Atlantic Garden by 1870, and was altered for use as a concert hall in 1883 with plans by architect Julius Kastner.
There was an aborted plan to build a new theater and 8-story office block on the site in 1911. Instead, it was remodeled in 1916 with plans by architect Henry (the card erroneously says Harry) Regelmann (plans for this project were noted in the November 17, 1915, issue of The New York Times.) Operated during its last years by the M&S Bijou circuit, the building was demolished in March, 1929.
This PDF from The Theatre Historical Society contains index cards (possibly from library files, though it doesn’t specify) with information about Manhattan’s theaters. This is the contents of the card for the People’s Theatre on the Bowery:
“199-201 BOWERY e/s n of DELANCEY ST PEOPLE’S THEATRE, Was HOYM’s (1858), then TONY PASTOR’S OPERA HOUSE (1865-75), Became PEOPLE’S Sep 3, 1883, ALTS 692/1883, $12,000, acht Wm Graul, Owner: Henry Miner, Seats: 1454 (PHOTO: Lin Center MWEZ 7229), ALTS 1908, archt: Louis Maurer, ALTS, Sep 1916, $5000 archt: R. Thomas Short Yiddish plays presented 20’s, opera GABEL, Demolished 1945.”
A far more detailed history of the house, with several illustrations, can be found on this web page from Mapping Yiddish New York, though it doesn’t mention the period when the house ran movies (which it must have been doing when it was listed in The Film Daily Yearbook.)
A brief article in the October 1, 1932, issue of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said that plans for the new theater to be built by the Schwartz Amusement Company on Merrick Road in the village of Baldwin were being drawn by architect R. Thomas Short.
The article noted that the theater’s site, which Schwartz had purchased six years earlier, was west of the Baldwin M.E. Church. The church now displays a sign reading First Church Baldwin United Methodist.
The modern address of the theater’s lot, displayed on the front of the Baldwin Office Plaza, is 865 Merrick Road.
This web page from Brownstone Detectives says that the Halsey Theatre was built in 1912. The adjacent Arcadia Dance Hall and Broadway Arena flanking the theater were built around the same time by the same developer. The page notes that the Halsey closed in 1943 and was occupied through the late 1940s by a company that made cardboard leis and party favors. The arena next door was the boxing venue. All three structures were demolished around 1967 to make way for a New York City Housing Authority senior citizens housing project.
The caption of one of the photos in the January, 1913, issue of the trade journal Architecture and Building to which I linked in an earlier comment says that the Halsey Theatre was designed by the architectural firm Harde & Short. However, a biographical sketch of the firm says that the partnership was dissolved in 1909 (confirmed by this article in The New York Times from December 1, 2005), so unless the theater was designed some two to three years before it opened it was more likely one or the other of them who completed the project. I suppose it’s possible that the design was done late in 1909 and construction began in 1911, but I haven’t found the opening date of the theater, nor the exact date on which the partnership of Harde & Short was dissolved.
Herbert Spencer Steinhardt (later shortened to Harde) and Richard Thomas Short are remembered for a number of lavishly decorated apartment buildings completed between 1904 and 1909. Short went on to design a large number of theaters, mostly in Brooklyn, under the professional name R. Thomas Short.
There was a theater operating at Tilden in 1944, though this item from the March 4 issue of Motion Picture Herald doesn’t give its name:
“Sells Nebraska House
“Melvin Krouse has sold his theatre at Tilden, Neb., to M. T. Rethwisch, of Tilden.”
This web page has the obituary of Jean Margaret Rethwisch, M. T.’s wife, which says that the Rethwischs operated the Victory Theatre in Tilden from 1943 to 1962. I don’t know if the Victory was the Tilden rebuilt or a new theater opened after the Tilden burned.
The obituary also says that the Rethwischs were partners with another couple in operating the Tilden Bowl from 1962 until 1984, so it’s possible that the Victory was converted into a bowling alley when the theater business declined. Tilden still has a bowling alley, Bob’s Bowling, at 208 E. 2nd Street (the main commercial streets on the map in Tilden are Center Street, running north and south, and 2nd Street, running east and west, but the City of Tilden calls 2nd Street Main Street.) Bob’s has only four lanes, so is probably in a building about the same width as a 200-seat movie house would occupy.
The Granada Theatre and Allen Gardner were mentioned in the August 11, 1931, issue of Motion Picture Herald, and again in the April 2, 1932, issue of the same journal.
I’ve found more mentions of this house in the trade journals (Moving Picture World July 1, 1916; Motion Picture News April 7, 1917) and in the newspapers (The San Francisco Call October 30, 1912; Paramount Pictures ads in the Mill Valley Record various issues in June, 1916) as the Oakland Photoplay Theatre than as the Oakland Photo Theatre (San Francisco Call July 22, 1913; The Edison Kinetogram September 1, 1912.) The vintage photos do all show both “Photo” and “Play” on the marquee, separated by the name Oakland Theatre. Butt hen it did get listed as the Oakland Photo Theatre in the 1916 Polk guide. It would be helpful if someone could find one of the weekly or monthly programs the house probably issued,or at least a display newspaper ad for it.
A survey of Addison’s businesses published in 1935 (PDF here; page two, first column, paragraph six concerns the theater) indicates that the Merry Land Theatre was in the building next door to the old filling station that is still on the northeast corner of Main and Steer Streets. The narrow, free-standing theater building is also still there, though its ground floor door and windows are boarded up.
Here is an additional item about the Ritz from a later issue of Motion Picture News:
“The Farmington Entertainment Company, headed by Dr. C. A. Tatley, is taking bids on a new house for Farmington. J. Hal Lynch & Son, 412 Dolph building, St. Louis, Mo., has prepared the plans for the new theatre. It will be one story, 65 by 111 feet, and of reinforced concrete, brick and new construction.”
Though the entrance building of the Ritz Theatre had to be rebuilt following the 1964 fire, the auditorium has survived and the side of the building can be seen along South Washington Street, with the stage house extending along Harrison Street. It is occupied by a school of dance, the Ballet Arts Center, though the school uses a Jefferson Street address, with a new entrance cut into the building, facing the parking lot on that street.
The site of the theater’s former entrance and the adjacent storefront is now utilized for a music store and school called Music Makers, with multiple studios and a repair facility specializing in stringed instruments. Their web site features several photos of the theater in its heyday.
Plans for a new theater in Farmington were announced in the May 13, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News:
“The Farmington Entertainment Company of Farmington, Mo., of which Dr. C. A. Tetley is president, has had plans prepared by J. Hal Lynch & Son, 412 Dolph building, St. Louis, Mo., for a new theatre. Construction plans will be prepared at once, as preliminary sketches have been approved.”
The partnership of architects James Hallowell Lynch and his son, Hallowell H. H. Lynch, was active from 1917 until 1931. Their Farmington project must have consisted only of the theater auditorium, and alterations to accommodate the theater entrance in an existing building on Columbia Street, as historic photos show the Columbia Street buildings to have been of Victorian style.
A brief history of Harrisburg’s theaters published in the June 28, 1965, issue of the Eldorado Illinois Eldorado Daily Journal said that the Grand Theatre was originally built in 1914, opening on December 23 with 585 seats. It was remodeled and expanded to accommodate 900 seats in 1925.
Oscar L. Turner, Sr. was in the theater business in Harrisburg from September, 1908, when he and his brother W. T. Turner took over operation of the Star Theatre. S. M. Farrar’s connection with Turner began with the formation of the Colonial Amusement Company in 1912. Turner-Farrar Theatres was incorporated in 1945, the successor to several corporations Turner and/or Farrar had been involved with that had operated theaters in the region.
The rebuilt Orpheum of 1929 was actually the third Harrisburg house of that name. A history of Harrisburg’s theaters published in the June 28, 1965, issue of the Eldorado, Illinois Eldorado Daily Journal said that “[i]n 1911 the old church building housing the Orpheum was torn down and in its place was constructed a new Orpheum to seat 600 people.” The same article said that the original Orpheum had been opened by the Turner brothers in the converted church in December, 1908. It also notes that the Colonial Amusement Company expanded the second Orpheum to a seating capacity of 887 in 1917. The 1929 post-fire rebuilding is also mentioned.
This item is from the January 19, 1929, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World:
“New Theatre with Sound To Replace Fire Ruins
“(Special to the Herald-World)
“HARRISBURG, ILL., Jan. 15.— The Orpheum, which was ruined by fire several weeks ago, will be replaced by a modern picture house. The new theatre will be equipped with DeForest Phonefilm and will open in March.”
I’ve been unable to find anything else about the fire at the earlier Orpheum. The Orpheum was operated by the Colonial Amusement Company as early as 1912. Colonial was a precursor of Turner-Farrar Theatres, and Steve Farrar was manager of the chain’s Casino Theatre in El Dorado, Illinois, by 1916, as noted in the August 12 issue of The Moving Picture World that year. O. L. Turner was connected with the company from the time of its incorporation, which was noted in this item from the July 6, 1912, issue of the MPW:
“The newly incorporated Colonial Amusement Company of Harrisburg, Ill., will operate three theaters in that city in addition to the new Knell Theater, at Mt. Carmel, Ill., which has been leased. O. L. Turner will be in charge of the Mt. Carmel house.”
Harrisburg had a house called the Majestic Airdome as early as 1911, so it might have been one of the three houses there that Colonial controlled. I haven’t found the Grand theatre mentioned earlier than 1918, so the third house Colonial had at Harrisburg might have been another, as yet unidentified.
Here is a brief item describing the West End Lyric Theatre, from the November 14, 1914, issue of Motion Picture News:
“THEATRE DE LUXE IN ST. LOUIS
“THE West End Lyric Theatre, at Delmar and Euclid avenues,
St. Louis, is the dernier cri in motion picture houses. From
the embroidered cable net curtains that adorn the glass doors of the lobby back to the screen, the furnishings and equipment is characterized by elegance and good taste.
“The lobby is particularly pleasing; there are three Oriental rugs on the mosaic floor, a large Etruscan vase filled with ferns and living foliage, flanked on either side by smaller urns, and in the foreground a receptacle that is replenished daily with cut flowers.
“The house seats eleven hundred persons, and gives a program
of high class features. A five piece orchestra and a Victrola
furnish the music. Mrs. J. W. Cornelius is the manager.”
The Colonial Theatre in Waterbury was mentioned in the January 10, 1914, issue of Motion Picture News. Owner John Sheehan, who had been operating the house since its opening, had just leased the 400-seat house to George H. Beardsley of New York.
The complete destruction of the Fisk Theatre building by fire on January 5, 1951, was reported in the January 13 issue of Boxoffice. The fire was thought to have started in a grocery store next door. Though Charles Fisk said he planned to rebuild as soon as the rubble could be cleared from the site, he had carried only $10,000 of insurance on the house, so it is possible that he was unable to raise the money to rebuild. Fisk also owned the Butler Theatre, which was open at least as late as 1957. The small town also had a drive-in, so probably didn’t need another indoor theater.
This photo shows the Fisk Theatre and the adjacent building, as well as a building in the background which is still standing on the southeast corner of Dakota and Delaware Streets. The Fisk was very close to the corner, and its site in now under part of the footprint of the modern building occupied in Google street view by Butler Music. I think we can mark this theater as demolished.
Here is the current web site for the Elk Theatre. In the late 1930s and intot he 1950s this house was being operated as the Alpine Theatre. I haven’t been able to discover if it was originally built for the Alpine circuit or was one of the many older, small town theaters taken over by them.
Though the name of the new house was not given, an article in the October 10, 1914, issue of Motion Picture News said that the theater at Third And Harris Streets was one of four neighborhood movie theaters which had opened at Harrisburg in September that year. It was owned by C. E. Hanshaw, a newcomer to the theater business.
By 1925, the Rialto was being operated by Isaac Marcus, who had been in the theater business at Harrisburg for along time, having operated the Royal (later the Star) Theatre on North Third Street since at least the early 1910s. In late 1927 Marcus gave a five year lease on the Rialto and the National Theatre to Mr. and Mrs. George Krupa, theater operators from Lancaster. This deal was noted in the December 15 issue of The Evening News.
In 1914, 1205 N. 3rd Street was the address of a house called the Royal Theatre, which had been operated by Isaac Marcus for several years. According to an article in the October 10 issue of Motion Picture News, Marcus had just opened the new National Theatre at Sixth and Duaphin Street in September.
Marcus was still operating the Royal in 1927, when the December 15 issue of The Evening News noted that he had just leased two other theaters, the Rialto and the National, to Mr. and Mrs. George Krupa, theater operators from Lancaster. The article also said that it was possible that the Krupas would also lease the Royal at a later date.
The National was one of four new Harrisburg neighborhood theaters opened in September, 1914, according to an article in the October 10 issue of Motion Picture News. It was owned by Isaac Marcus, who had been operating the Royal Theatre (later the Star) on North Third Street for a number of years.
The Roxy was probably the house opened as the William Penn Theatre at Thompson and 13th Street in September, 1914. It was one of four neighborhood houses opened in Harrisburg that month, according to an article in the October 10 issue of Motion Picture News.
A January 14, 1926, article in the Harrisburg Telegraph said that the ground floor of the building, which had been converted into a garage at some point, was about the be renovated and restored to theatrical use, with a lodge hall to be installed on the upper floor.
The Grand Theatre was the largest of four neighborhood houses opened in Harrisburg in September, 1914, according to an article in the October 10, 1914, issue of Motion Picture News. Originally seating 1,200, the Grand was owned by J. M. Lenney, and was his second Harrisburg movie house, the first being Lenney’s Theatre at 5-7 S. 13th Street. The Grand was a reverse theater, with the screen at the entrance end of the auditorium.
According to an index card in this PDF from the Theatre Historical Society, the building that became the New Atlantic Theatre was in operation as the Atlantic Garden by 1870, and was altered for use as a concert hall in 1883 with plans by architect Julius Kastner.
There was an aborted plan to build a new theater and 8-story office block on the site in 1911. Instead, it was remodeled in 1916 with plans by architect Henry (the card erroneously says Harry) Regelmann (plans for this project were noted in the November 17, 1915, issue of The New York Times.) Operated during its last years by the M&S Bijou circuit, the building was demolished in March, 1929.
This PDF from The Theatre Historical Society contains index cards (possibly from library files, though it doesn’t specify) with information about Manhattan’s theaters. This is the contents of the card for the People’s Theatre on the Bowery:
A far more detailed history of the house, with several illustrations, can be found on this web page from Mapping Yiddish New York, though it doesn’t mention the period when the house ran movies (which it must have been doing when it was listed in The Film Daily Yearbook.)A brief article in the October 1, 1932, issue of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said that plans for the new theater to be built by the Schwartz Amusement Company on Merrick Road in the village of Baldwin were being drawn by architect R. Thomas Short.
The article noted that the theater’s site, which Schwartz had purchased six years earlier, was west of the Baldwin M.E. Church. The church now displays a sign reading First Church Baldwin United Methodist.
The modern address of the theater’s lot, displayed on the front of the Baldwin Office Plaza, is 865 Merrick Road.
This web page from Brownstone Detectives says that the Halsey Theatre was built in 1912. The adjacent Arcadia Dance Hall and Broadway Arena flanking the theater were built around the same time by the same developer. The page notes that the Halsey closed in 1943 and was occupied through the late 1940s by a company that made cardboard leis and party favors. The arena next door was the boxing venue. All three structures were demolished around 1967 to make way for a New York City Housing Authority senior citizens housing project.
The caption of one of the photos in the January, 1913, issue of the trade journal Architecture and Building to which I linked in an earlier comment says that the Halsey Theatre was designed by the architectural firm Harde & Short. However, a biographical sketch of the firm says that the partnership was dissolved in 1909 (confirmed by this article in The New York Times from December 1, 2005), so unless the theater was designed some two to three years before it opened it was more likely one or the other of them who completed the project. I suppose it’s possible that the design was done late in 1909 and construction began in 1911, but I haven’t found the opening date of the theater, nor the exact date on which the partnership of Harde & Short was dissolved.
Herbert Spencer Steinhardt (later shortened to Harde) and Richard Thomas Short are remembered for a number of lavishly decorated apartment buildings completed between 1904 and 1909. Short went on to design a large number of theaters, mostly in Brooklyn, under the professional name R. Thomas Short.
A spectacular photo of the Pioneer Building in flames can be seen on this web page from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
There was a theater operating at Tilden in 1944, though this item from the March 4 issue of Motion Picture Herald doesn’t give its name:
This web page has the obituary of Jean Margaret Rethwisch, M. T.’s wife, which says that the Rethwischs operated the Victory Theatre in Tilden from 1943 to 1962. I don’t know if the Victory was the Tilden rebuilt or a new theater opened after the Tilden burned.The obituary also says that the Rethwischs were partners with another couple in operating the Tilden Bowl from 1962 until 1984, so it’s possible that the Victory was converted into a bowling alley when the theater business declined. Tilden still has a bowling alley, Bob’s Bowling, at 208 E. 2nd Street (the main commercial streets on the map in Tilden are Center Street, running north and south, and 2nd Street, running east and west, but the City of Tilden calls 2nd Street Main Street.) Bob’s has only four lanes, so is probably in a building about the same width as a 200-seat movie house would occupy.
The Granada Theatre and Allen Gardner were mentioned in the August 11, 1931, issue of Motion Picture Herald, and again in the April 2, 1932, issue of the same journal.
I’ve found more mentions of this house in the trade journals (Moving Picture World July 1, 1916; Motion Picture News April 7, 1917) and in the newspapers (The San Francisco Call October 30, 1912; Paramount Pictures ads in the Mill Valley Record various issues in June, 1916) as the Oakland Photoplay Theatre than as the Oakland Photo Theatre (San Francisco Call July 22, 1913; The Edison Kinetogram September 1, 1912.) The vintage photos do all show both “Photo” and “Play” on the marquee, separated by the name Oakland Theatre. Butt hen it did get listed as the Oakland Photo Theatre in the 1916 Polk guide. It would be helpful if someone could find one of the weekly or monthly programs the house probably issued,or at least a display newspaper ad for it.
A survey of Addison’s businesses published in 1935 (PDF here; page two, first column, paragraph six concerns the theater) indicates that the Merry Land Theatre was in the building next door to the old filling station that is still on the northeast corner of Main and Steer Streets. The narrow, free-standing theater building is also still there, though its ground floor door and windows are boarded up.
According to the Ed Blank article 71dude linked to earlier, the Regent Square Theatre opened on December 15, 1936.
Here is an additional item about the Ritz from a later issue of Motion Picture News:
Though the entrance building of the Ritz Theatre had to be rebuilt following the 1964 fire, the auditorium has survived and the side of the building can be seen along South Washington Street, with the stage house extending along Harrison Street. It is occupied by a school of dance, the Ballet Arts Center, though the school uses a Jefferson Street address, with a new entrance cut into the building, facing the parking lot on that street.
The site of the theater’s former entrance and the adjacent storefront is now utilized for a music store and school called Music Makers, with multiple studios and a repair facility specializing in stringed instruments. Their web site features several photos of the theater in its heyday.
Plans for a new theater in Farmington were announced in the May 13, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News:
The partnership of architects James Hallowell Lynch and his son, Hallowell H. H. Lynch, was active from 1917 until 1931. Their Farmington project must have consisted only of the theater auditorium, and alterations to accommodate the theater entrance in an existing building on Columbia Street, as historic photos show the Columbia Street buildings to have been of Victorian style.A brief history of Harrisburg’s theaters published in the June 28, 1965, issue of the Eldorado Illinois Eldorado Daily Journal said that the Grand Theatre was originally built in 1914, opening on December 23 with 585 seats. It was remodeled and expanded to accommodate 900 seats in 1925.
Oscar L. Turner, Sr. was in the theater business in Harrisburg from September, 1908, when he and his brother W. T. Turner took over operation of the Star Theatre. S. M. Farrar’s connection with Turner began with the formation of the Colonial Amusement Company in 1912. Turner-Farrar Theatres was incorporated in 1945, the successor to several corporations Turner and/or Farrar had been involved with that had operated theaters in the region.
The rebuilt Orpheum of 1929 was actually the third Harrisburg house of that name. A history of Harrisburg’s theaters published in the June 28, 1965, issue of the Eldorado, Illinois Eldorado Daily Journal said that “[i]n 1911 the old church building housing the Orpheum was torn down and in its place was constructed a new Orpheum to seat 600 people.” The same article said that the original Orpheum had been opened by the Turner brothers in the converted church in December, 1908. It also notes that the Colonial Amusement Company expanded the second Orpheum to a seating capacity of 887 in 1917. The 1929 post-fire rebuilding is also mentioned.
The January 4, 1974, issue of the Harrisburg Daily Register said that “[t]he new Twin Cinema Theatre held its grand opening on Dec. 28….”
This item is from the January 19, 1929, issue of Exhibitors Herald-World:
I’ve been unable to find anything else about the fire at the earlier Orpheum. The Orpheum was operated by the Colonial Amusement Company as early as 1912. Colonial was a precursor of Turner-Farrar Theatres, and Steve Farrar was manager of the chain’s Casino Theatre in El Dorado, Illinois, by 1916, as noted in the August 12 issue of The Moving Picture World that year. O. L. Turner was connected with the company from the time of its incorporation, which was noted in this item from the July 6, 1912, issue of the MPW:Harrisburg had a house called the Majestic Airdome as early as 1911, so it might have been one of the three houses there that Colonial controlled. I haven’t found the Grand theatre mentioned earlier than 1918, so the third house Colonial had at Harrisburg might have been another, as yet unidentified.Here is a brief item describing the West End Lyric Theatre, from the November 14, 1914, issue of Motion Picture News:
The Colonial Theatre in Waterbury was mentioned in the January 10, 1914, issue of Motion Picture News. Owner John Sheehan, who had been operating the house since its opening, had just leased the 400-seat house to George H. Beardsley of New York.
The complete destruction of the Fisk Theatre building by fire on January 5, 1951, was reported in the January 13 issue of Boxoffice. The fire was thought to have started in a grocery store next door. Though Charles Fisk said he planned to rebuild as soon as the rubble could be cleared from the site, he had carried only $10,000 of insurance on the house, so it is possible that he was unable to raise the money to rebuild. Fisk also owned the Butler Theatre, which was open at least as late as 1957. The small town also had a drive-in, so probably didn’t need another indoor theater.
This photo shows the Fisk Theatre and the adjacent building, as well as a building in the background which is still standing on the southeast corner of Dakota and Delaware Streets. The Fisk was very close to the corner, and its site in now under part of the footprint of the modern building occupied in Google street view by Butler Music. I think we can mark this theater as demolished.
Here is the current web site for the Elk Theatre. In the late 1930s and intot he 1950s this house was being operated as the Alpine Theatre. I haven’t been able to discover if it was originally built for the Alpine circuit or was one of the many older, small town theaters taken over by them.
Though the name of the new house was not given, an article in the October 10, 1914, issue of Motion Picture News said that the theater at Third And Harris Streets was one of four neighborhood movie theaters which had opened at Harrisburg in September that year. It was owned by C. E. Hanshaw, a newcomer to the theater business.
By 1925, the Rialto was being operated by Isaac Marcus, who had been in the theater business at Harrisburg for along time, having operated the Royal (later the Star) Theatre on North Third Street since at least the early 1910s. In late 1927 Marcus gave a five year lease on the Rialto and the National Theatre to Mr. and Mrs. George Krupa, theater operators from Lancaster. This deal was noted in the December 15 issue of The Evening News.
In 1914, 1205 N. 3rd Street was the address of a house called the Royal Theatre, which had been operated by Isaac Marcus for several years. According to an article in the October 10 issue of Motion Picture News, Marcus had just opened the new National Theatre at Sixth and Duaphin Street in September.
Marcus was still operating the Royal in 1927, when the December 15 issue of The Evening News noted that he had just leased two other theaters, the Rialto and the National, to Mr. and Mrs. George Krupa, theater operators from Lancaster. The article also said that it was possible that the Krupas would also lease the Royal at a later date.
The National was one of four new Harrisburg neighborhood theaters opened in September, 1914, according to an article in the October 10 issue of Motion Picture News. It was owned by Isaac Marcus, who had been operating the Royal Theatre (later the Star) on North Third Street for a number of years.
The Roxy was probably the house opened as the William Penn Theatre at Thompson and 13th Street in September, 1914. It was one of four neighborhood houses opened in Harrisburg that month, according to an article in the October 10 issue of Motion Picture News.
A January 14, 1926, article in the Harrisburg Telegraph said that the ground floor of the building, which had been converted into a garage at some point, was about the be renovated and restored to theatrical use, with a lodge hall to be installed on the upper floor.
The Grand Theatre was the largest of four neighborhood houses opened in Harrisburg in September, 1914, according to an article in the October 10, 1914, issue of Motion Picture News. Originally seating 1,200, the Grand was owned by J. M. Lenney, and was his second Harrisburg movie house, the first being Lenney’s Theatre at 5-7 S. 13th Street. The Grand was a reverse theater, with the screen at the entrance end of the auditorium.