I’ve never come across that one yet….I didn’t realize that Main had sunk that low in 1939. I thought the decline started after WWII was over. I knew that the movie palaces were already on Broadway, but i thought Main still had a little pride at the time.
I wonder where the buildings go after they are demolished. Are they sold to salvage yards, tossed into a dump, or go to theater heaven? I can’t imagine throwing out all of the interior decorations for these places. As I go through downtown daily on the way to work, I have to admit that the Title Guarantee building, next door to where this theater stood, is looking pretty delicious with its recent bath. I only wish I made enough money to live there.
Spiderman,Yuck….I have to warn you, Too Soon To Love is pretty bad, but its good, campy, bad. They have to go down to Main street to get an emergency abortion as a result of some teenage ‘fumblings’. The other movie on this double feature dvd is called Unwed Mother and shows a good shot of the Granada/Oriental. The pregnant girl’s jerky boyfriend robs the ticket booth…exciting!
ken mc, that picture is really interesting. I was down there the other day and I think the victorian building and the theater building are the vacant lot next to the church. The buildings to the far left are still standing and it looks like they are being restored in some way.
I watched Too Soon To Love from the suggestion above. It does have a great moving shot from a car looking at the east side of Main from about 5th to right before the Regent. The shot of the Banner is very good and you can see every other business that was there.
That clears up some confusion Joe. I just wondered if the Main Street Gym was a different structure on the same spot or if converted the same building into a gym.
Let me know when you get your card ken mc….it’s really easy and just involves a loophole workaround to access. You’re only supposed to be able to get onto the database if you’re in the central library downtown.
Ken mc….do you have a library card for Los Angeles? If so, I can tell you how to access the LA Times archives for free from any computer with a connection. You don’t have to pay for anything. Let me know if you’re interested.
Ken mc, I watched a couple more movies last night with some good theater shots. They are both from a box set called Forgotten Noir Series 1. The first movie is called Loan Shark with George Raft and has a great shootout at the end inside a theater. I would love to know what theater it is or was. I’ll post some screenshots on my blog this weekend. Maybe someone will recognize it. The second movie is called Arson Inc. and has some exterior shots during a car chase that show looking down 8th west from Broadway. You can see the Olympic and also the RKO pretty good. Even though they are supposed to be downtown, they cut to the cars driving by the El Rey also. There is another shot with a theater on a corner with a massive marquee that might be the Pantages/Warner but its too blurry to tell.
I wish there was an aerial photo I could find of this place since, from looking at that overlay map, it stood right in the middle of the block. The long hallway entrance is the only thing I’ve seen in photos. I imagine that movie was filmed in the real basement because its a pretty low budget movie and if they were already using the location it would make sense.
Ken, do you think the Main street gym was a replacemnent of the Hippodrome building on the same spot, or was the theater converted to the gym? Panorama Building, Panorama Skating Rink, Adolphus, Hippodrome, Main Street Gym, parking lot….how many different buildings do you think were on this spot?
The theater I mentioned above, according to the article, was on the NE corner of 6th & Hill in a 12 story office building. The architect is named as William Lee Woollett.
Joe, I was looking for something about the Metropol or Metropolitan that you mentioned above and found a different one called Grauman’s Metropolitan Theater which apparently was being built in 1921. Maybe the name was changed before opening because this one was at 6th & Hill with 4000 seats and done in ‘Oriental’ motif. Does anyone know what this theater was called or if it was ever finished? It almost sounds like Grauman’s Chinese was being built downtown from this article.
Ken mc…was the date on the last article supposed to be 1906? Or 1896?
Sickening.
I’ve never come across that one yet….I didn’t realize that Main had sunk that low in 1939. I thought the decline started after WWII was over. I knew that the movie palaces were already on Broadway, but i thought Main still had a little pride at the time.
I wonder where the buildings go after they are demolished. Are they sold to salvage yards, tossed into a dump, or go to theater heaven? I can’t imagine throwing out all of the interior decorations for these places. As I go through downtown daily on the way to work, I have to admit that the Title Guarantee building, next door to where this theater stood, is looking pretty delicious with its recent bath. I only wish I made enough money to live there.
Here’s another one of those overlays I put together showing the location for this theater:
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Spiderman,Yuck….I have to warn you, Too Soon To Love is pretty bad, but its good, campy, bad. They have to go down to Main street to get an emergency abortion as a result of some teenage ‘fumblings’. The other movie on this double feature dvd is called Unwed Mother and shows a good shot of the Granada/Oriental. The pregnant girl’s jerky boyfriend robs the ticket booth…exciting!
ken mc, that picture is really interesting. I was down there the other day and I think the victorian building and the theater building are the vacant lot next to the church. The buildings to the far left are still standing and it looks like they are being restored in some way.
I watched Too Soon To Love from the suggestion above. It does have a great moving shot from a car looking at the east side of Main from about 5th to right before the Regent. The shot of the Banner is very good and you can see every other business that was there.
There’s a great shot of this theater in the 1958 super-bad movie called Unwed Mother.
That clears up some confusion Joe. I just wondered if the Main Street Gym was a different structure on the same spot or if converted the same building into a gym.
Let me know when you get your card ken mc….it’s really easy and just involves a loophole workaround to access. You’re only supposed to be able to get onto the database if you’re in the central library downtown.
Ken mc….do you have a library card for Los Angeles? If so, I can tell you how to access the LA Times archives for free from any computer with a connection. You don’t have to pay for anything. Let me know if you’re interested.
Does anyone know what theater is halfway down the block with the black marquee sticking out in the photo that ken mc posted on Oct. 4, 2006?
Yeah, but then I’d have to relive my early adulthood. Anything from the 80’s sends shivers up my spine.
I was wondering where they filmed the ferry boat scenes….the movie seems too low budget to have gone to San Francisco to film on location.
Ken mc, I watched a couple more movies last night with some good theater shots. They are both from a box set called Forgotten Noir Series 1. The first movie is called Loan Shark with George Raft and has a great shootout at the end inside a theater. I would love to know what theater it is or was. I’ll post some screenshots on my blog this weekend. Maybe someone will recognize it. The second movie is called Arson Inc. and has some exterior shots during a car chase that show looking down 8th west from Broadway. You can see the Olympic and also the RKO pretty good. Even though they are supposed to be downtown, they cut to the cars driving by the El Rey also. There is another shot with a theater on a corner with a massive marquee that might be the Pantages/Warner but its too blurry to tell.
I wish there was an aerial photo I could find of this place since, from looking at that overlay map, it stood right in the middle of the block. The long hallway entrance is the only thing I’ve seen in photos. I imagine that movie was filmed in the real basement because its a pretty low budget movie and if they were already using the location it would make sense.
I wonder if all of those scenes in the basement with the secret weapons stash was really in the building. I don’t mean the weapons, just the basement.
Ken, do you think the Main street gym was a replacemnent of the Hippodrome building on the same spot, or was the theater converted to the gym? Panorama Building, Panorama Skating Rink, Adolphus, Hippodrome, Main Street Gym, parking lot….how many different buildings do you think were on this spot?
Here’s an article about this theater. I guess the plans for the office building went from 12 stories down to 6 at some point.
View link
The theater I mentioned above, according to the article, was on the NE corner of 6th & Hill in a 12 story office building. The architect is named as William Lee Woollett.
Joe, I was looking for something about the Metropol or Metropolitan that you mentioned above and found a different one called Grauman’s Metropolitan Theater which apparently was being built in 1921. Maybe the name was changed before opening because this one was at 6th & Hill with 4000 seats and done in ‘Oriental’ motif. Does anyone know what this theater was called or if it was ever finished? It almost sounds like Grauman’s Chinese was being built downtown from this article.
Thanks Lost Memory, I’ve put a bunch together of Main street here:
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There’s one that shows the Burbank and another that shows the Rosslyn.
Here is a ‘then & now’ comparison I put together that shows the Tower from 1928 and the same shot now:
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Here is a ‘then & now’ I put together that shows the Rialto from 1928 and now.
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Here is a Paramount Week advertisement from 1923. I haven’t heard of some of these.
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