750 Chancellor would be part of the vacant lot at the southwest corner or Chancellor and Union Avenue, just east of Michelle’s Caribbean-American Restaurant, which is at 754 Chancellor.
The Carleton Opera House is listed in the 1905-1906 Cahn guide as a ground floor theater with 850 seats. Carleton was apparently the correct spelling, which is how it is spelled in an article about Carleton Brewster, the owner of the house, from the May 28, 2009, issue of the Islip Bulletin (PDF here.) Brewster built the Carleton Opera House in 1900.
A new owner planned to remodel and double the size of the house in 1926, but the Bay Shore Theatre was built nearby instead. The Carleton was razed in 1927 and a commercial building was erected on the site. That building burned in 1957. The site is now occupied by a park with a large gazebo, on the south side of Montauk Highway a few doors west of S. Park Avenue. I would surmise the theater address to have been approximately 82 W. Main Street (surprisingly, Google Street View’s address display is just about dead on at this location.)
Here are fresh links the the April 25, 1942, Boxoffice article about the Coral and Arlington Theatres (illustrations are on the first two pages, with text only on pages three and four):
The May 27, 1926, issue of The Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, had an article saying that the contracts had been let for construction of the new Englert Theatre. It said that the new house would have 190 more seats than the old one, and the stage would also be larger. The new building was ten feet winder than the original theater. The furnishings for the theater would be installed by A. H. Blank, the Des Moines company that had the lease on the new house. Blank was the regional Paramount affiliate.
The article also said that the architectural style of the new theater would be Gothic. As the facade is not at all Gothic the style was probably used only on the interior. The extra ten feet of width probably applied only to the auditorium. Most likely the original auditorium had outdoor passages at each side for emergency exit (a fairly common feature for many older theaters, especially those built within a few years after the disaster at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago in 1903) and that space was probably built over.
The April 19, 1916, issue of The Iowa City Citizen said that the new Strand Theatre on College Street would open the following day. The building, formerly a saloon, had been remodeled for Thomas A. Brown, who had operated the first movie theater in Iowa City.
The advertisement for the Strand Theatre in the May 27, 1926, issue of The Daily Iowan boasted of the theater’s Robert Morton theater organ.
The marquee is about all that can be seen of the Strand in this photo. The movie In Old Arizona, the first talking picture to be filmed outdoors, and the first western with sound, was released in January, 1929.
On page 250 of Rick Altman’s book Silent Film Sound is this line: “In 1912, Fred E. Dever, owner of the new Pastime in Iowa City, added a 1912 Powers No. 6 projector to his 1911 Motiograph.”
Fred Dever, operator of the Pastime Theatre in Iowa City, was mentioned in the March 4, 1911, issue of The New York Clipper as the inventor of a gold screen for moving picture theaters, and he was organizing a stock company to establish a manufacturing plant for it.
The December 11 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror that same year had this item:
“Archie Hanlon has leased the Pastime Theatre, in Iowa City. Ia., taking possession Jan. 1. At the same time Fred Dever will open a new house for motion Pictures built by Dunkel Brothers at a cost of over $6,000.”
Mr. Hanlon must have operated the old Pastime under a new name, because an article in the January 19, 1912, issue of the Iowa City Press-Citizen indicates that Fred Dever took the theater name with him when he opened his new house"
“Fred E. Dever, the popular and experienced moving picture man, will dedicate his elegant new theatre, the Pastime Picture Palace, nearly opposite the Daily Press office, on College street, on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 20.”
It was probably the 1912 Pastime Theatre that later became the Capitol. An item about the groundbreaking for the new Pastime in October, 1911, had given the location as College Street near the intersection with Dubuque, which is where 205 E. College is. The entire block has been obliterated for redevelopment, so the Capitol can be marked as demolished.
There was apparently a renovation of the theater in the early 1920s, as the ads for it begin calling it the New Pastime Theatre around then. In 1926, the Press-Citizen mentions “…the new Pastime $30,000 All American Concert Grand Organ….”
A “lost and found” ad in the December 30, 1946 issue of the Press-Citizen is the latest mention of the Pastime Theatre I’ve found. The April 17, 1947, issue has the earliest mention of the Capitol I’ve found, so the name must have been changed in early 1947.
stevedenunzio: This page is for the Capitol/Paramount Theatre in Des Moines. The Wikipedia page you cite is about the Englert Theatre in Iowa City, so the Pastime/Capitol Theatre it refers to is also in Iowa City. Its Cinema Treasures page is at this link.
This comment by Ron Salters on the Capitol Theatre page says that the Capitol was to the right and the State to the left as one entered the theatre building. Street view shows that the Capitol’s auditorium is still standing and houses a CVS pharmacy, but the State’s auditorium has been demolished and its site is occupied by a strip mall and a parking lot.
A brief article about theater promoter Frank G. Hall in the April 22, 1922, issue of The Moving Picture World (scan at Archive.org) says that construction had begun on the State-Capitol twin theater project in Union City, New Jersey. Hall’s earlier project, the State Theatre at Jersey City, was then nearing completion.
A brief article about theater promoter Frank G. Hall in the April 22, 1922, issue of The Moving Picture World (scan at Archive.org) says that construction had begun on the State-Capitol twin theater project in Union City, New Jersey. Hall’s earlier project, the State Theatre at Jersey City, was then nearing completion.
Architect P. A. Vivarttas appears to have spelled his first name Percie. That is how it appears on a number of official documents of the State of New Jersey, including the tax records for his firm, and a number of other sources.
The 1928 opening of this house as the New Pert Theatre was a re-opening. The April 8, 1922, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Pert Theatre in Gillespie, Illinois, had opened the previous October. There is a photo (which I have also uploaded to the photo page,) and it shows the same building the Canna Theatre occupies now.
There is a photo of one of the Majestic Theatres in Memphis on this page of The Moving Picture World for April 8, 1922. It is a close shot showing from the soffit of the canopy down to the patterned floor. I don’t know if there’s enough there to tell which Majestic it was, so I’m linking it here as this house might have had the name around 1922.
The extensive remodeling of the Tabor Grand Opera House as the Colorado Theatre in 1921-1922 was the work of Denver architects Fisher & Fisher (brothers William Ellsworth Fisher and Arthur Addison Fisher.) Arthur R. Willet of New York was the decorator, but a number of Denver artists were involved in the project.
The rebuilt house opened on February 27, 1922, with the Colleen Moore feature Come On Over. The 71x134-foot auditorium had 2,526 seats, making it the largest moving picture theater in the Rocky Mountain region. The April 1, 1922, issue of The Moving Picture World described the house:
“With its remarkable $50,000 Robert-Morgan
organ, its excellent concert orchestra — the largest theatre orchestra in Denver — its beautiful mezzanine floors, its marble staircases, its complete picture projecting equipment, its many entrances and exits, its colored floodlights, its fixtures and furniture, its lovely draperies and curtains, its mural paintings, its ushers in uniform and other interior splendors cause the Colorado to rank with the greatest theatres of New York, Chicago or California.”
The earliest reference to the Capitol Theatre I’ve found in the trade publications comes from a notice in the August 30, 1919, issue of The Music Trades, which said that the largest organ ever built by Wurlitzer had been installed in the house. The latest mentions of the Capitol I’ve found came from 1935.
The building the New Theatre was in looked to date from the 1920s or earlier. It can be seen just beyond the Regent Theatre in this postcard view that dates from around 1960. I think Roger might be right about the Capitol having become the New Theatre, as the next building on the block is at 55 Broad, and in the vintage postcard it doesn’t look especially theater-like, while the New Theatre building does.
I don’t know what to make of the 1951 listing of the Capitol except that, if it comes from the Film Daily Yearbook’s “Circuits” section, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s wrong. The “Circuits” listings are the most unreliable part of the book. I’ve found many houses listed in it long after they had closed or had been renamed.
You can see the marquee of the New Theatre just beyond that of the Regent Theatre in the postcard photo uploaded to the Regent’s photo page by RickyRialto. Ben Hur on the Regent’s marquee dates the photo to about 1959-60. The New Theatre’s building looks like it was built long before 1941, though the earliest mentions of the house I’ve found in the trade publications come from that year.
This 1975 photo of the Regent from American Classic Images shows the marquee still on the New Theatre building, but covered with the sign for a retail store. I’m not sure if the building has since been drastically altered, or demolished and replaced by entirely new construction.
The function should be listed as church, though there appears to be a thrift shop (perhaps operated by the church) in one of the storefronts flanking the entrance.
The correct spelling of the architect’s surname is Pehrson. Gustav Albin Pehrson was born in Sweden in 1882 and immigrated to the United States in 1905, ultimately settling in Spokane. He practiced architecture there from 1913 until his death in 1968. The September 3, 1993, issue of the Spokane Spokesman-Review devoted almost a full page to Pehrson, which can be read online at Google News.
It turns out that the 1921 project for the Rivoli Theatre Corporation was not the Rivoli Theatre, but the Hempstead Theatre. An ad for a stock offering by the Rivoli Corporation in the February 10, 1921, issue of The Hempstead Sentinel (PDF here) gave the location of their project as Fulton Street, almost opposite the Long Island Railroad depot. The Hempstead opened on April 29, 1922, so there was no significant delay in the company’s 1921 project.
The Hempstead Theatre was built by the Rivoli Theatre Corporation. An ad offering stock in the company appeared in the February 10, 1921, issue of The Hempstead Sentinel (PDF here.) An item in the April 28, 1921, issue of Engineering News-Record revealed that the architects Reilly & Hall were originally connected with the project:
“N. Y., Hempstead—Theater and Stores— Rivoli Theater Corp., c/o Reilley & Hall, archts. and engrs., 405 Lexington Ave.. New York City, having sketches made for 2 story, 80 x 200 ft., brick and stone, concrete foundation, here. About $250,000.”
Although I’ve been unable to find any period source noting a change in architects from Reilly & Hall to Eugene DeRosa, neither have I found any later items mentioning Reilly & Hall in connection with the project, so it’s quite possible that either the owners (or Reilly & Hall themselves, if they were too busy) did hire DeRosa to do the final design.
An ad in the November 29, 1922, issue of Freeport’s The Daily Review gives 78-80 Main Street as the address of Forman-Hutcheson Corporation, dealers in Packard and Oakland automobiles (PDF.) The August 22, 1927, issue of The Nassau Daily Review made reference to the new State Theatre “…now under construction at Main street in the Forman-Hutchinson [sic] building….” By 1928 Foreman-Hutcheson was advertising its location as 84 Main Street, so it had moved next door. This photo from December, 1926, shows their new building under construction next door to the original showroom and garage that later became the State Theatre.
The Fulton Theatre at Fulton and Main Streets is advertised in the April 24, 1923, issue of the Hempstead Sentinal, but without a street number. As 78-80 Main was then still occupied by Foreman-Hutcheson, the Fulton had to have been an earlier theater than the State. An ad for the Fulton Theatre in 1912 says that the house would be showing Sara Bernhardt’s movie Queen Elizabeth on October 31, so this was probably the theater built around 1910 on the site shown in the “incongruous image” Ed Solero linked to.
The State Theatre built in 1927 was a different house than the Fulton Theatre, which was located farther south.
750 Chancellor would be part of the vacant lot at the southwest corner or Chancellor and Union Avenue, just east of Michelle’s Caribbean-American Restaurant, which is at 754 Chancellor.
The Carleton Opera House is listed in the 1905-1906 Cahn guide as a ground floor theater with 850 seats. Carleton was apparently the correct spelling, which is how it is spelled in an article about Carleton Brewster, the owner of the house, from the May 28, 2009, issue of the Islip Bulletin (PDF here.) Brewster built the Carleton Opera House in 1900.
A new owner planned to remodel and double the size of the house in 1926, but the Bay Shore Theatre was built nearby instead. The Carleton was razed in 1927 and a commercial building was erected on the site. That building burned in 1957. The site is now occupied by a park with a large gazebo, on the south side of Montauk Highway a few doors west of S. Park Avenue. I would surmise the theater address to have been approximately 82 W. Main Street (surprisingly, Google Street View’s address display is just about dead on at this location.)
Here are fresh links the the April 25, 1942, Boxoffice article about the Coral and Arlington Theatres (illustrations are on the first two pages, with text only on pages three and four):
Page one
Page two
Page three
Page four
Here are fresh links to the February 16, 1970, Boxoffice article about the new Esquire Theatre:
First page
Second page
The May 27, 1926, issue of The Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, had an article saying that the contracts had been let for construction of the new Englert Theatre. It said that the new house would have 190 more seats than the old one, and the stage would also be larger. The new building was ten feet winder than the original theater. The furnishings for the theater would be installed by A. H. Blank, the Des Moines company that had the lease on the new house. Blank was the regional Paramount affiliate.
The article also said that the architectural style of the new theater would be Gothic. As the facade is not at all Gothic the style was probably used only on the interior. The extra ten feet of width probably applied only to the auditorium. Most likely the original auditorium had outdoor passages at each side for emergency exit (a fairly common feature for many older theaters, especially those built within a few years after the disaster at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago in 1903) and that space was probably built over.
The April 19, 1916, issue of The Iowa City Citizen said that the new Strand Theatre on College Street would open the following day. The building, formerly a saloon, had been remodeled for Thomas A. Brown, who had operated the first movie theater in Iowa City.
The advertisement for the Strand Theatre in the May 27, 1926, issue of The Daily Iowan boasted of the theater’s Robert Morton theater organ.
The marquee is about all that can be seen of the Strand in this photo. The movie In Old Arizona, the first talking picture to be filmed outdoors, and the first western with sound, was released in January, 1929.
On page 250 of Rick Altman’s book Silent Film Sound is this line: “In 1912, Fred E. Dever, owner of the new Pastime in Iowa City, added a 1912 Powers No. 6 projector to his 1911 Motiograph.”
Fred Dever, operator of the Pastime Theatre in Iowa City, was mentioned in the March 4, 1911, issue of The New York Clipper as the inventor of a gold screen for moving picture theaters, and he was organizing a stock company to establish a manufacturing plant for it.
The December 11 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror that same year had this item:
Mr. Hanlon must have operated the old Pastime under a new name, because an article in the January 19, 1912, issue of the Iowa City Press-Citizen indicates that Fred Dever took the theater name with him when he opened his new house"It was probably the 1912 Pastime Theatre that later became the Capitol. An item about the groundbreaking for the new Pastime in October, 1911, had given the location as College Street near the intersection with Dubuque, which is where 205 E. College is. The entire block has been obliterated for redevelopment, so the Capitol can be marked as demolished.There was apparently a renovation of the theater in the early 1920s, as the ads for it begin calling it the New Pastime Theatre around then. In 1926, the Press-Citizen mentions “…the new Pastime $30,000 All American Concert Grand Organ….”
A “lost and found” ad in the December 30, 1946 issue of the Press-Citizen is the latest mention of the Pastime Theatre I’ve found. The April 17, 1947, issue has the earliest mention of the Capitol I’ve found, so the name must have been changed in early 1947.
stevedenunzio: This page is for the Capitol/Paramount Theatre in Des Moines. The Wikipedia page you cite is about the Englert Theatre in Iowa City, so the Pastime/Capitol Theatre it refers to is also in Iowa City. Its Cinema Treasures page is at this link.
Thanks, Ron. We don’t have the Colonial listed, nor any theater at 1629 Curtis, so that must be the correct address for this second Colorado Theatre.
This comment by Ron Salters on the Capitol Theatre page says that the Capitol was to the right and the State to the left as one entered the theatre building. Street view shows that the Capitol’s auditorium is still standing and houses a CVS pharmacy, but the State’s auditorium has been demolished and its site is occupied by a strip mall and a parking lot.
A brief article about theater promoter Frank G. Hall in the April 22, 1922, issue of The Moving Picture World (scan at Archive.org) says that construction had begun on the State-Capitol twin theater project in Union City, New Jersey. Hall’s earlier project, the State Theatre at Jersey City, was then nearing completion.
A brief article about theater promoter Frank G. Hall in the April 22, 1922, issue of The Moving Picture World (scan at Archive.org) says that construction had begun on the State-Capitol twin theater project in Union City, New Jersey. Hall’s earlier project, the State Theatre at Jersey City, was then nearing completion.
Architect P. A. Vivarttas appears to have spelled his first name Percie. That is how it appears on a number of official documents of the State of New Jersey, including the tax records for his firm, and a number of other sources.
1922 drawing of the State Theatre from this page of the April 22 issue of The Moving Picture World uploaded to photo page.
The 1928 opening of this house as the New Pert Theatre was a re-opening. The April 8, 1922, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Pert Theatre in Gillespie, Illinois, had opened the previous October. There is a photo (which I have also uploaded to the photo page,) and it shows the same building the Canna Theatre occupies now.
There is a photo of one of the Majestic Theatres in Memphis on this page of The Moving Picture World for April 8, 1922. It is a close shot showing from the soffit of the canopy down to the patterned floor. I don’t know if there’s enough there to tell which Majestic it was, so I’m linking it here as this house might have had the name around 1922.
The extensive remodeling of the Tabor Grand Opera House as the Colorado Theatre in 1921-1922 was the work of Denver architects Fisher & Fisher (brothers William Ellsworth Fisher and Arthur Addison Fisher.) Arthur R. Willet of New York was the decorator, but a number of Denver artists were involved in the project.
The rebuilt house opened on February 27, 1922, with the Colleen Moore feature Come On Over. The 71x134-foot auditorium had 2,526 seats, making it the largest moving picture theater in the Rocky Mountain region. The April 1, 1922, issue of The Moving Picture World described the house:
The earliest reference to the Capitol Theatre I’ve found in the trade publications comes from a notice in the August 30, 1919, issue of The Music Trades, which said that the largest organ ever built by Wurlitzer had been installed in the house. The latest mentions of the Capitol I’ve found came from 1935.
The building the New Theatre was in looked to date from the 1920s or earlier. It can be seen just beyond the Regent Theatre in this postcard view that dates from around 1960. I think Roger might be right about the Capitol having become the New Theatre, as the next building on the block is at 55 Broad, and in the vintage postcard it doesn’t look especially theater-like, while the New Theatre building does.
I don’t know what to make of the 1951 listing of the Capitol except that, if it comes from the Film Daily Yearbook’s “Circuits” section, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s wrong. The “Circuits” listings are the most unreliable part of the book. I’ve found many houses listed in it long after they had closed or had been renamed.
You can see the marquee of the New Theatre just beyond that of the Regent Theatre in the postcard photo uploaded to the Regent’s photo page by RickyRialto. Ben Hur on the Regent’s marquee dates the photo to about 1959-60. The New Theatre’s building looks like it was built long before 1941, though the earliest mentions of the house I’ve found in the trade publications come from that year.
This 1975 photo of the Regent from American Classic Images shows the marquee still on the New Theatre building, but covered with the sign for a retail store. I’m not sure if the building has since been drastically altered, or demolished and replaced by entirely new construction.
The entrance to the Regent Theatre was at 43 Broad Street, now the location of the Zarah Furniture store.
The function should be listed as church, though there appears to be a thrift shop (perhaps operated by the church) in one of the storefronts flanking the entrance.
The correct spelling of the architect’s surname is Pehrson. Gustav Albin Pehrson was born in Sweden in 1882 and immigrated to the United States in 1905, ultimately settling in Spokane. He practiced architecture there from 1913 until his death in 1968. The September 3, 1993, issue of the Spokane Spokesman-Review devoted almost a full page to Pehrson, which can be read online at Google News.
It turns out that the 1921 project for the Rivoli Theatre Corporation was not the Rivoli Theatre, but the Hempstead Theatre. An ad for a stock offering by the Rivoli Corporation in the February 10, 1921, issue of The Hempstead Sentinel (PDF here) gave the location of their project as Fulton Street, almost opposite the Long Island Railroad depot. The Hempstead opened on April 29, 1922, so there was no significant delay in the company’s 1921 project.
The Hempstead Theatre was built by the Rivoli Theatre Corporation. An ad offering stock in the company appeared in the February 10, 1921, issue of The Hempstead Sentinel (PDF here.) An item in the April 28, 1921, issue of Engineering News-Record revealed that the architects Reilly & Hall were originally connected with the project:
Although I’ve been unable to find any period source noting a change in architects from Reilly & Hall to Eugene DeRosa, neither have I found any later items mentioning Reilly & Hall in connection with the project, so it’s quite possible that either the owners (or Reilly & Hall themselves, if they were too busy) did hire DeRosa to do the final design.An ad in the November 29, 1922, issue of Freeport’s The Daily Review gives 78-80 Main Street as the address of Forman-Hutcheson Corporation, dealers in Packard and Oakland automobiles (PDF.) The August 22, 1927, issue of The Nassau Daily Review made reference to the new State Theatre “…now under construction at Main street in the Forman-Hutchinson [sic] building….” By 1928 Foreman-Hutcheson was advertising its location as 84 Main Street, so it had moved next door. This photo from December, 1926, shows their new building under construction next door to the original showroom and garage that later became the State Theatre.
The Fulton Theatre at Fulton and Main Streets is advertised in the April 24, 1923, issue of the Hempstead Sentinal, but without a street number. As 78-80 Main was then still occupied by Foreman-Hutcheson, the Fulton had to have been an earlier theater than the State. An ad for the Fulton Theatre in 1912 says that the house would be showing Sara Bernhardt’s movie Queen Elizabeth on October 31, so this was probably the theater built around 1910 on the site shown in the “incongruous image” Ed Solero linked to.
The State Theatre built in 1927 was a different house than the Fulton Theatre, which was located farther south.