Tracy Theatre
219 E. Seaside Way,
Long Beach,
CA
90802
219 E. Seaside Way,
Long Beach,
CA
90802
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 57 comments
LA Times reported that the Ritz was close to opening on 4/26/25. Architect was Carl Boller. Seating capacity was 1500.
The Tracy is at the end of Seaside in this 1961 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/276p44
OK, I stand corrected. The Long Beach Independent had an ad on 5/13/48 for a full bill at the Tracy:
“Vigilante Returns"
"Buck Privates Come Home"
"Shoot to Kill"
plus 3 cartoons
plus "Sugarchile Robinson” – 8th Wonder of the World.
ML & Ken: no, the Tracy is a different theatre from the Ritz on 7th Street, which was a small neighborhood house. The Tracy wasn’t called the Ritz for very long.
It’s the same theater. Here is a photo of the marquee. Perhaps the webmaster can fix or delete my post of last November which screwed up the layout.
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater1/00014907.jpg
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater1/00014906.jpg
Is this a different Ritz Theatre from the one that was on 7th Street?
From the Pomona Public Library:
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Thanks, Ken, for those GREAT pictures — particularly the interior shots. By the time I got to it, the Tracy had been fitted with one of those angled marquees — but the inside looked just like your photos.
From the California State Library:
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Here is a picture from the 1920s, courtesy of the LA Library:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater1/00014843.jpg
glad to read more about this theater. I was named after it! My dad, who eventually wound up in the movie business himself (as a title designer), grew up in Long Beach. I visited what was left of it around 1972, still a kid back then, and have photos somewhere of myself with the marquee in the background — daylight, and it was a dusty deteriorated brown … the b/w picture on this page seems to do it more justice!
There were plans in the early 1960s for the Long Beach Civic Light Opera to take over the (long) closed Tracy for their productions, which were then presented in the Concert Hall of the old (second) MVNICIPAL AVDITORIVM. I remember participating in the cleaning of the theater, where a demonstration (sales presentation) performance was to be given. We rented arc spotlights for the projection booth (the projectors were gone, as I recall). I remember particularly the good acoustics of the Tracy — we were all amazed and pleased that we weren’t going to need a lot of amplification for the performances.
Announcing the completion of Carl Boller’s plans for this theater, Southwest Builder and Contractor of June 13th, 1924, said that the there would be six stores and the theater entrance on the ground floor, and that the third floor would be used as a cafe. It also says that the theater would have 1400 seats.
A Los Angeles Times article of April 26th, 1925 (part V, p.5.) contains an illustration of the theater.
The Long Beach Press-Telegram of May 24th, 1925, has an article headlined “Newly erected Ritz Theater to open doors at noon today.”
Gary-There were two brothers and one made his office in Southern California. He designed several houses in the Southwest states. Stadium on Pico in LA and Kimo in Albuquerque most famous.
Thanks for the info, Fred. Boller Bros. in Southern California! That’s quite a surprise. I’ve never actually seen photos of the inside. I’d be interested in checking that out.
I too was always fascinated by this theatre. In the Console Magazine of October 1983 (Pasadena, now defunct) there is a photo of the exterior (same of shown here) and a beautiful shot from the balcony showing the full stage and sides and ceiling. Easily the most ornate ever in Long Beach. Article states: “One of the few western states theatres that were designed by the midwest theatre architectural firm of Boller Brothers was this handsome house…Opened in January 1925 as the Ritz Theatre…Later in 1925 the name was changed to the Capitol. The name survived until 1934 it was again changed-this time to The Tracy. The theatre originally seated 1,158, according to early records. In 1941 this figure was increased to l,200.”
Actually, the HOBBY SHOW letters were painted vertically on a section of wall immediately to the right of the boarded-up entrance, but still beneath the marquee. This was in 1973, when the photo I have of a ten-year-old me was taken in front of the theatre. In the photo, the reader board panels are missing from the marquee, exposing the interior wiring, much of the neon is broken, and there’s abundant rust on the marquee (due to proximity to the salt air of the ocean).
My grandfather Eugene V. Tracy also owned the Laughlin on Pine Av.
What year was it that the Hobby Show was on the billboard and I can check with my Aunt Marie Tracy. She would most likely know.
They had both movies and vaudville in the old days and during the depression they gave away depression glass to movie attendees for coming to the theater.
If the theater was boarded up,the signs may have been up for some other event nearby. Because after the closure I use to see posters etc.
I have a brass sprinkler head from inside the theater and an old exit sign.
I use to attend the United Artist, the West Coast, the State, the Towne, the Rivoli etc. I grew up in Belmont Shore and wish they had never removed the Theater. Now a health club, just not the same.
In the one photo I have of ten-year-old me standing in front of the Tracy (which was the first closed old theatre to ever capture my imagination), there is a painted sign right next to the boarded-up entrance which reads, “HOBBY SHOW.” Can Tracy or anyone else shed light on what this sign signified?
At that age, I was fascinated by the murals in the theatres I attended at that time of life; the Bay in Seal Beach (where I lived), the Crest in Long Beach, and the Belmont, in Belmont Shores, as well as in the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium. Because of this, I wished at the time I could get past those plywood barriers and broken windows and get inside the Tracy.
In the archives at the Library – where the micro fish are they have ads from the forties about the Tracy and lots of others.
I will check to see if any pictures exist. My Aunt Eugenia Miller died recently and they did an article in the Press Telegram about her and the family and theater. The picture of the Theater was the same as in this posting. However I have a picture somewhere of the Theater just before they tore it down.
tracy thank you again for your response…my dad was in the navy in lb in 35 and remembers the place the way you decribed it…a wonderful place…I walked around inside it a lot just days before it came down…sure wish I had taken pics of the interior…doug sarvis
The design of the Theater was Art Deco. It had a huge sitting room upstairs where my grandmother Kate Tracy would look after her six children. Eugenia, Madeline, Joseph, Catherine, Marie and Ann.
all Saint Anthony’s grads. Eugene Tracy had a brother Art Tracy who use to be the projectionist at the West Coast Theater. The Tracy had a gorgeous balcony.
Frank Ellsworth a police officer at the time use to give my grandfather a lift home in the police car late at night. Frank’s son was also a police officer in Long Beach.
Neil Simpson ran the Theater when I was about 3 or 4 years old. He and he was tied up and robbed several times. In the late 40’s and early 50’s my father Johnny Johnston took over both the Tracy Theater to continue to run it and the old Tracy Cafe at the Pico Navy Landing because Eugene Tracy was ill.
Vaudville was also performed at the Tracy. There was definately an orchestra pit. You were right.
I use to go to the Theater as well as a child. That steep hill next to the Theater was so steep that we use to dream that we were falling down it. It looked much bigger as a child.