College Theatre
439 S. Hill Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
439 S. Hill Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
2 people
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Showing 26 - 38 of 38 comments
I don’t know if this has been posted, but the USC site has been changed, so here’s a good photo of the College Theater:
View link
Here is a 1917 lawsuit involving the College:
http://tinyurl.com/y8yp89
Some of the USC links have expired, so here is Joe’s 1928 photo again:
http://tinyurl.com/jp6rz
OK, thanks. I wasn’t sure where to look.
ken: It’s another case of a mislabeled photo. The view is west along Eighth Street from Broadway, and the theatre is Bard’s Eighth Street, later called the Olympic. stevebob already posted a link to this photo there in a comment on November 30th, 2005 (about halfway down the page.)
OK, Joe, I need your help again. This photo is supposed to 7th and Broadway in 1927. The theater isn’t the Town, nor is it the College, as seen in your picture above. Was there another Bard’s on Broadway? I would like to post this photo on the correct page:
http://tinyurl.com/qxn8c
The ornate front of Bard’s College Theatre can be seen in this July, 1928 photograph of Hill Street north from 5th Street, from the USC digital archive. The building to the theatre’s left is the old California Club, at the northwest corner of 5th and Hill, demolished to make way for the 1930 art deco Title Guarantee Building. The theatre may have been demolished at the same time.
UCLA was on Vermont in South Los Angeles before moving to Westwood. That campus was later occupied by Pepperdine before they moved to Malibu.
But USC isn’t anywhere near West 4th and Hill.
At one time there were at least two colleges in downtown Los Angeles. One of them, St. Vincent’s, was probably gone by the time this theatre opened. It was located on the block of 7th Street between Broadway and Hill, where Bullock’s Department store was later built in 1905 or 1906. The college left its name to the alley that ran between Bullock’s two buildings, St. Vincent’s Court.
The other college might have still been downtown, though. This was one of the California State Normal Schools (teacher’s colleges) and was originally located on the block where the central library was later built. I’m not sure when it moved, but it was relocated to the Vermont Avenue site that is now the campus of Los Angeles City College. The State Normal School became Los Angeles State College, and the two schools shared the Vermont Avenue Campus until the state college moved again, to its current site adjacent to the Long Beach and San Bernardino Freeways, where it was eventually renamed California State University at Los Angeles.
Was there ever a college near this theatre? How did it get its name?
The College Theatre was part of the Bard’s Theatre chain. The Bard’s Theatre chain included the Hill Street (later the Town)& the Olympic in Downtown Los Angeles, Vista in East Hollywood, Academy in Pasadena, Glen in Glendale, Garfield in the Alhambra area and the West Adams (Fox Adams)in Los Angeles.
Also not to be confused with the College Theatre that was located across the street from the Vista Theatre, possibly where a Blockbuster Video now sits. That College Theatre was in business in 1925.