Kim Theatre
6219 S. Halsted Street,
Chicago,
IL
60621
6219 S. Halsted Street,
Chicago,
IL
60621
3 people
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Showing 26 - 31 of 31 comments
Quixote,
Thanks for answering. I remember the China Clipper. (We could never afford to go in it.) I also remember that Clipper airplane painted on the side of the building. It was one of many of the really nice restaurants in Englewood. There was another at the NE corner of 63rd & Normal Blvd.; can’t remember the name but very plush. Down the street from China Clipper was a White Castle and next to it was a Wimpy’s Hamburgers. As for Chinese food, we used to go to Ying Lee’s (strictly take-out) at 79th & Morgan.
I actually remember the night of the fire you mention. It was the Fish Furniture Store (they had a neon sign of a big fish in front that went from the top of the ground floor to the fourth floor). We also went to see it. At that time, we lived at 60th & Union. I can still see it in my mind. Big news around the neighborhood for a long while.
As for the Southtown Theater, I wrote that blurb about the Murder Castle. I’ve even heard rumors that there’s a movie in the works about it. I drove by that post office last year while visiting Chicago. I almost didn’t recognize it because there were so many trees in front of it.
In 1954, we moved to 64th & Green St., fairly close to you. We used to swim at Ogden Park pool; boys' days: Mon., Weds., and Fri. Only lived there a year before moving to 65th & Stewart Ave.
Back in the fall of 1979 or ‘80, I went back to Chicago for a visit (I’ve lived in So. Calif. since 1969) and again, visited Englewood. I parked my rented car and walked up Englewood Ave. towards Halsted St. What do I see before my eyes but a wrecking ball tearing up the Empress Theater. I watched for a few minutes and left. Thomas Wolfe was right, you can’t go home. All those theaters are gone.
Tell me more about your Englewood experiences.
Hi Gerry!
The LINDEN… THAT one is WAY before my time. I don’t remember it at all.
One thing I DO remember about the SOUTHTOWN; just a bit west of it was The China Clipper restaurant, the BEST place (and about the ONLY place) for Chinese in Englewood. As a kid, I LOVED the place because of the advertising painting on an outside wall… a huge mural of a Boeing 337 amphibian, the plane that Pan Am used on the China Clipper route.
Apparently The Clipper had been there during the Vaudeville days; next to the cash register was a photo of Eddie Cantor having a meal there!
On the KIM tho… I vividly remember something from the time I was about 4 or 5 years old (early 1950s, probably about 1953). There was a large multistory building a few doors down the street, toward 63rd street. The building caught fire one night… VERY spectacular, totally out of control. I guess it lit up the sky & got the attention of my mother & sister; they walked 6 or 8 blocks to see it (we lived at 66th & Aberdeen street), and they took me along. BIG crowd watching the blaze… and suddenly mass retching from the crowd because of a horrible smell that went up. It seems that some of the occupants had tried to escape thge building when it caught fire, and they made a bad mistake; they used the elevator. Power went off, trapping them there… and the fire eventually reached it.
BTW, on another somewhat grotesque note… whoever did comments on the SOUTHTOWN confirmed something I’ve recently gotten interested in.
Across 63rd street from the SOUTHTOWN is a huge post office. I couldn’t place it precisely before, but the post office is built on the site of the old Mudgett “Murder Castle” from before the turn of the 20th century. Somebody here confirmed my suspicion that it’s the exact location.
I’ve since found information that the post office has a LONG reputation for supernatural activity… it’s haunted!
I remember as a kid that I was NEVER comfortable in that place; nothing specific, but uneasy, sort of. I suppose that kids are more sensitive to that sort of thing, and it SURE threw up red flags with me!
Quixote
QUIXOTE,
I also grew up in Englewood in the 1950s. The Kim did have that ‘down at the heels’ look. In today’s parlance, that condition would be known as ‘deferred maintenance.’ The REAL dump was the Linden Theater, across from the Englewood.
As for the Stratford Theater, it was there in the 50s. It was a beautiful theater. Trouble was it would open for a few months and close for a couple of years. It didn’t help that the films it showed weren’t first-run—or even second run, for that matter. That, and it was kind of away from the main shopping district just a bit. It was on the south side of 63rd St., about four doors west of Union Avenue.
At the point of repeating my earlier post about this theater: Bob Hope. During the 1920s, when he was nobody, he had just come from a booking agent’s office in the Loop, looking for work. He found none. He later stated that at that moment, he decided to give up and go back to Cleveland and go into some other line of work. As luck would have it, he ran into a fellow performer on the street who recommended that he try the West Englewood Theater at 63rd and Ashland Ave., (later to become the Ogden Theater). There, he caught a couple of weeks' work. The theater said they could really use him at their other vaudeville theater, the Stratford. He remained at the Stratford Theater for about a year as the emcee and honed his act. The rest, as they say, is history. I’ve heard him state that where he really got his start was at the Stratford Theater in Chicago.
Gawd… I remember the KIM very well (to quote Bette Davis, “What a dump!”), and the EMPRESS, and the ENGLEWOOD, and I even saw a few films at the SOUTHTOWN before they wrecked it… err… turned it into Carr’s Department Store.! I grew up in Englewood in the 1950s. Oddly tho, I don’t remeber the STRATFORD at all.
They may have called the Kimbark the Kim colloqually (sp?) but they were definitely two different theaters. The theater at Halsted St. between 62nd St. and Englewood Ave. was definitely marqueed as the Kim. One theory: the marquee for the Kim held just three letters, like the Ace.
Incidentally, a possible reason it was named the Ace might be that down the street, on the (NW)corner of 63rd & Halsted, stood the Ace Department Store. (Not exactly an upscale department store.) They might’ve owned it.
I remember it having the largest and steepest balcony I’d ever seen, must’ve went up three or four stories. None of the other theaters in the area had anything comparable to it. If the Kim had seating for 1100 patrons, 1000 would have easily fit in their balcony.
Thanks for the response. We must discuss the Englewood-area in detail some time.
During the 1950s, the Ace became the Kim Theater. It was the type of movie theater that salesmen went to sleep in during the afternoons. Cheap, air-conditioned, and always showed three features.