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Center for Living Arts
226 19th Street,
Rock Island,
IL
61201
226 19th Street,
Rock Island,
IL
61201
5 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 27 of 27 comments
My best friend is from the Quad Cities and he and I frequently visit to see his family. The last time we were there was this past Labor Day. We stayed at the Sheraton in downtown Rock Island and went for a walk the morning before we left to see the sites. By the way – one reason downtowns are dying is because they can’t draw people away from the malls with bankers' hours – everything we walked past was closed for Labor Day.
We went past a small, empty theater that my friend said was the old Capri Cinema. I recognized it from this site. The old marquis and outside lighting are in bad shape, but the inside lobby looked salvageable. I didn’t see any “for sale” signs anywhere, so I assume the owner is just leaving it sit perhaps waiting for an offer.
I’m curious about this property and wonder if anyone knows the building’s owner, what condition the interior is in and what it might take to rehab and re-open it. Upon seeing the building and reading about it here, The gears started turning in my head. I’m picturing it re-opening as The Rocket Theater with a retro-30’s sci-fi serial motif a-la Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon and showcasing classic films. Maybe have midnight sceenings on Fridays and/or Saturdays? Anyone from the Quad Cities area like the idea or am I out of my gourd?
When I managed this theatre in about 1964, it was called the Rocket. It generally played 2nd run features behind the Movie Palace RKO Orpheum (these days called the Adler)across the Mississippi River in Davenport. On occasion, it played a roadshow (reserved seats, 10 shows a week) attraction, such as shown on it’s marquee, pictured above. The Rocket had two distinctive features: Paintings on curved walls on either side of the screen that were lighted by “black light”. It also had “love seats” in the middle of the center seating section and on the wall ends of the side sections. Seating capacity of the Rocket was about 500.