It’s possible. The trade journals did sometimes just announce a “new theater” when the house was only renovated and renamed, perhaps with a new owner. The Vogue was opened by Wally Johnson, who operated it until 1957.
Friend being a very small town it’s likely that the Plaza closed in 1940 when a new, 252-seat house called the Vogue was opened. The Vogue’s opening was noted in the November 22 issue of The Film Daily.
An item in the November 20, 1940, issue of The Film Daily said that Greenville’s new Lake Theatre, then under construction, was expected to open around December 1. The 400-seat house was being built on the site of another theater called the Bijou, but the item didn’t say what had become of the Bijou, so it might only have been a rebuilding of an existing theater. The opening advertisement in the December 22 issue of the Greenville Delta Democrat-Times gave the address as 224 Washington Avenue.
The Lake Theatre built in 1940 lasted only 20 years. The December 18, 1960, issue of the Greenville Delta Democrat-Times said that demolition of the theater was underway, and that Gulf State Theatres would build a new, larger Lake Theatre on the site. Local architect H. E. Norwood was drawing the plans.
The article also indicated that the Bijou had dated back to the silent era and was a reverse theater. Other articles in other issues of the paper indicate that the Bijou was in operation by 1914.
The November 22, 1940, issue of The Film Daily had a brief item saying that Doris Meyer and Harry Schwartz had opened their new, 500-seat Clark Theatre at Winchester, Kentucky.
The June 10, 1916, issue of The American Contractor had this item about the Poli Theatre in New Haven:
“Theater (alts. & add.): $100,000. 3 sty. 150x125. Church St., New Haven, Conn. Archt. Thomas W. Lamb, 644 8th av., New York City, & 112 Water st.,. Boston. Owner Sylvester Z. Poli, 23 Church St., New Haven. Plans to be revised. Brick (fireproof constr.), struct. & orn. iron, gravel rfg.”
The alterations and additions were to a theater that had been built in 1905. This notice appeared in the February 18, 1905, issue of The American Architect and Building News:
“NEW HAVEN, CONN.—J. O. Loughlin, Hartford, has received the contract for the erection of new theater at 23 Church St. New Haven. E. W. Maynard, Arch., 226 Tremont St., Boston. Cost, $90,000.”
Another item in another issue of the same magazine said that the theater was being built behind 23 Church Street, so the office building probably predated the theater. Page 94 of Legendary Locals of New Haven, by Colin M. Caplan, has a c.1905 photo of Poli’s Theatre (Google Books preview.) The house was advertised as Poli’s New Theatre to differentiate it from an earlier Poli’s Theatre in New Haven.
The theater was virtually gutted for Thomas Lamb’s rebuilding in 1917. The only photo I can find depicting any of E. W. Maynard’s original 1905 design is on a postcard that is displayed on this page of a stamp collecting web site. As the card is for sale I don’t know how long the link will last.
This edition of Skip Finley’s “Oak Bluffs Town Column” in the March 6 issue of the Vinyard Gazzette says that the Strand Theatre was opened by Michael J. Keegan in the former Odd Fellows Hall. Keegan’s Strand Theatre at Oak Bluffs was given a rating of “Good” in the 1922 edition of the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety’s annual report.
Four theaters are listed at Oak Bluffs in The New England Business Directory and Gazetteer for 1918, but the Strand is not among them.
The January 6, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had an obituary for New Bedford exhibitor Thomas J. Charette, and noted that the Strand in Oak Bluffs was one of the houses he operated.
Have you been able to find the double-page opening ad that the Brick and Clay Record article made reference to? Opening ads sometimes list the name of the architect of the theater.
In 1941, the owners of the Apex were in a clearance dispute with Loew’s, as reported in the July 18 issue of The Film Daily:
“K-B Arbitration Hearing Under Way in Washington
“Washington Bureau of THE FILM DAILY
“Washington — Arbitration case of K-B Amusement Co., Washington, against Loew’s, Inc. got under way here yesterday, with routine testimony setting the stage for major arguments to come. The K-B Company is contending against clearance the Calvert and Uptown theaters over its Apex Theater, in the same neighborhood.
“James V. Hayes and Robert Sher, former D of J attorneys who worked on the New York consent decree represent K-B Amusement Co. C. Stanley Thompson is attorney for Loew’s while Warner Brothers, an intervenor in case, is represented by Howard Levinson and Harold Berkowitz.
“Apex owners contend that seven days' clearance granted nearby Calvert is unreasonable. Much of yesterday’s testimony concerned real estate values in the neighborhood. Rudolph Berger, district manager for Loew’s, also was called in to testify.”
The K-B Amusement Company was a partnership of Fred S. Kogod and Max Burka. They controlled several theaters in the greater Washington D.C. region.
I think the opening date of 1930 for the Pictorial Theatre probably comes from the advertisement shown on this page at Kilduff’s. The Pictorial was showing Mae Murray’s Peacock Alley. The thing is that Mae Murray starred in both the 1930 musical version of the film and in the 1921 silent version, and from the upcoming films in the ad (Dustin Farnum in Iron to Gold, Tom Mix in Chasing the Moon, both released in 1922) it must have been the 1921 version that the Pictorial was showing. The ad most likely dates from 1922, and the Pictorial might have been in operation for a considerable time before that.
I don’t think this house was ever actually called the Wilson Avenue Theatre. Brick and Clay Record was published in Chicago, and Chicago had a house called the Wilson Avenue Theatre, opened in 1909. Whoever wrote the item probably just added Avenue to the name of the Youngstown house because he was thinking of the Chicago house when he wrote it.
A paragraph about the Wilson Avenue Theatre appears in the November 3, 1914, issue of Brick and Clay Record:
“Two Youngstown material concerns, the Youngstown Supply Company and the Youngstown Ice Company, furnished face and hollow-brick for the new Wilson Avenue theater, in that city, and participated in the advertising which marked the opening of the house. The theater is the largest and most up-to-date motion picture house in the city, and the Youngstown papers carried a double page advertisement announcing the opening and featuring the part the various contractors and material men had played in its construction. The two brick concerns had their share of the space, and benefited by the publicity which it afforded.”
Why an outfit called the Youngstown Ice Company was supplying brick I don’t know, but the name was not a typo. It was mentioned in other construction journals of the period. And yes, they also dealt in ice.
The mention of a double-page opening ad for the theater is tantalizing. It must have appeared prior to November 3, but there’s no indication how long before.
The Alvin and the Lyric were both operated by the partnership of Hartzell & Pitzer according to their listings in the 1908 report of the Ohio Department of Inspections.
In April, 1908, Hartzell & Pitzer also began operating a house in Youngstown called the Empire Theatre as a burlesque stand.
The Andrews Theatre opened in early 1912, as noted in this item from the July 31 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror:
“Andrews Theatre in Salamanca, N. Y., owned and managed by Max Andrews, built in 1911 and opened Jan. 22, 1912, with ‘The Country Boy,’ has been doing a capacity business since that time. It is furnished throughout with the latest improvements. Gas and electricity are used for lighting. The building is heated by steam and the system of ventilation is of service both Winter and Summer. In addition to fireproof construction, there are fire-escapes and automatic devices to open the doors. The seating capacity of the theatre is about one thousand, and the stage is ample in every respect.”
The 1913-1914 Cahn guide listed the Andrews Theatre as a ground floor house with 911 seats. The 1909-1910 guide lists only a 550-seat Teck Theatre at Salamanca, operated by Max Andrews. The Teck opened in December, 1908, according to an item in the December 25 issue of The Billboard. It appears to have been destroyed by a fire in January, 1910. Perhaps the Andrews Theatre was its replacement.
The Gayety was a fairly large theater. The 1907 annual report of the Ohio Department of Inspection listed it with 1,500 seats, the same capacity the report listed for the Park Theatre.
A Youngstown burlesque house called the Gayety was mentioned in the September 19, 1942, issue of The Billboard, but without an address there’s no way of telling if it was the same Gayety that was operating in 1906-07.
The Gayety of 1942 was on the Empire Burlesque Circuit. Earlier, the Grand had been on that circuit, and returned to it in 1943, so the circuit might have been using the Gayety to get some leverage over the owners of the Grand. The Gayety was mentioned in Billboard in both 1946 and 1950 as part of Johnny (or Jack) Kane’s Ohio Circuit, which also booked burlesque. By 1953, the Park was on the Kane circuit.
I believe three theaters are conflated in the current description. The theater built in the 1880s must have been the Red Bank Opera House, which opened in 1883 and burned to the ground in 1905. It was located on the south side of Front Street just west of Maple Avenue.
Frick’s Theatre was better known as Frick’s Lyceum, and it opened in September, 1906, in a converted tomato cannery on the waterfront. The site is now part of Marine Park. An article about it appeared in the August 29, 1906, issue of the Red Bank Register (upper left corner of this PDF.) The Lyceum was listed in the 1912 Cahn guide with the notation “This theater is still in existence but has been closed for some time.” It does not appear in the 1913-1914 guide.
The theater at Front Street and Wharf Avenue was, as teecee said, built in 1912. The Red Bank Register of October 23, 1912, had an article about it (top right corner of the first page of this PDF.) Stockholders in the Red Bank Amusement Company were Fred H. VanDorn, Thomas Williams, and John J. Travers. The theater featured a long lobby, 13 feet wide and 71 feet long, which led from Front Street to the theater proper, which backed up to Union Street and was 56x128 feet. The Lyric was erected by local builder George W. Sewing, who also acted as architect.
The article said that the owners hoped to have the house open by Thanksgiving, but they missed the date. The January 22, 1913, issue of the Register said that the installation of the furnishings and equipment of the theater was well underway and the opening was to be on or about February 1.
The Lyric was remodeled in early 1920 and reopened as the Palace Theatre on April 5, according to the April 7 issue of the Register. The Palace was first operated by N. E. McNulty. In September, 1928, the house had another name change, becoming the Hunting Theatre, which was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Tony Hunting. The theater closed in 1930, but reopened later that year under the previous name Palace Theatre. On January 9, 1931, the Palace Theatre was completely destroyed by a fire.
The January 16, 1912, issue of The Troy Times had this item:
“Boyer and Rosenthal, who will shortly open the Majestic Theatre at 103 Third Street—the Shyne property—took out a license to-day. They expect to be ready the latter part of this week or early next week.”
The January 18, 1945, issue of The Times Record said that the Majestic Theatre was to be converted into facilities for the local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The auditorium floor was to be leveled and a second floor installed in the space to accommodate lounges, a recreation room, rest rooms, and offices. The ground floor would house a meeting hall and kitchen facilities. Although the Majestic closed in the mid-1920s, the rebuilding plans indicate that auditorium was still intact in 1945.
Joe Masher’s description of the State Theatre says that it was designed by the same architect as the American Theatre, and the description of this house says that it was a twin of the State. If that’s so, then the architect of this theater was Abraham K. Mosley, who was noted as the architect of the Rose (State) Theatre in The American Contractor of April 29, 1922.
The Rose/State Theatre was definitely on Fourth Street, not Fourth Avenue. Here is an item about it from the April 29, 1922, issue of The American Contractor:
“TROY, N. Y.
“Theatre (Rose, movie): $30,000. 2 sty. 60x120. 4th St., bet. Ferry & Congress sts. Archt. A. K. Mosely. Franklin sq. Owner J. C. Rosenthal. 20 Locust av. Cone. ext. walls. Gen. contr. let to C. P. Boland. 30 4th st.”
Abraham K. Mosley was a native of England who came to the United States in 1904. He was commissioned to work on the Emma Willard School in 1910 and settled in Troy where he practiced for many years, though he designed buildings as far away as Kansas City, Kansas (St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church on 18th Street.) He died in 1951.
The Louvee Theatre was designed and built by the F & Y Building Service of Columbus, Ohio. It was on a list of eleven of the compnay’s recent projects that was published in the October 27, 1938, issue of the Boone County Recorder.
The Avalon Theatre was designed and built by the F & Y Building Service of Columbus, Ohio. It was one of eleven theaters on a list of the company’s projects in an ad that was published in the October 27, 1938, issue of the Boone County Recorder.
An ad for the F & Y Building Service in the Boone County Recorder of October 27, 1938, listed the Arlington Theatre as one of five houses in Columbus that the firm had designed and built by that time. The others were the Westmont, the Fifth Avenue, the Cleve, and the Indianola.
It’s possible. The trade journals did sometimes just announce a “new theater” when the house was only renovated and renamed, perhaps with a new owner. The Vogue was opened by Wally Johnson, who operated it until 1957.
Friend being a very small town it’s likely that the Plaza closed in 1940 when a new, 252-seat house called the Vogue was opened. The Vogue’s opening was noted in the November 22 issue of The Film Daily.
An item in the November 20, 1940, issue of The Film Daily said that Greenville’s new Lake Theatre, then under construction, was expected to open around December 1. The 400-seat house was being built on the site of another theater called the Bijou, but the item didn’t say what had become of the Bijou, so it might only have been a rebuilding of an existing theater. The opening advertisement in the December 22 issue of the Greenville Delta Democrat-Times gave the address as 224 Washington Avenue.
The Lake Theatre built in 1940 lasted only 20 years. The December 18, 1960, issue of the Greenville Delta Democrat-Times said that demolition of the theater was underway, and that Gulf State Theatres would build a new, larger Lake Theatre on the site. Local architect H. E. Norwood was drawing the plans.
The article also indicated that the Bijou had dated back to the silent era and was a reverse theater. Other articles in other issues of the paper indicate that the Bijou was in operation by 1914.
The November 22, 1940, issue of The Film Daily had a brief item saying that Doris Meyer and Harry Schwartz had opened their new, 500-seat Clark Theatre at Winchester, Kentucky.
Looks like Warner Film Center let the domain name lapse and it has been taken over by a spam site.
The June 10, 1916, issue of The American Contractor had this item about the Poli Theatre in New Haven:
The alterations and additions were to a theater that had been built in 1905. This notice appeared in the February 18, 1905, issue of The American Architect and Building News:Another item in another issue of the same magazine said that the theater was being built behind 23 Church Street, so the office building probably predated the theater. Page 94 of Legendary Locals of New Haven, by Colin M. Caplan, has a c.1905 photo of Poli’s Theatre (Google Books preview.) The house was advertised as Poli’s New Theatre to differentiate it from an earlier Poli’s Theatre in New Haven.The theater was virtually gutted for Thomas Lamb’s rebuilding in 1917. The only photo I can find depicting any of E. W. Maynard’s original 1905 design is on a postcard that is displayed on this page of a stamp collecting web site. As the card is for sale I don’t know how long the link will last.
This edition of Skip Finley’s “Oak Bluffs Town Column” in the March 6 issue of the Vinyard Gazzette says that the Strand Theatre was opened by Michael J. Keegan in the former Odd Fellows Hall. Keegan’s Strand Theatre at Oak Bluffs was given a rating of “Good” in the 1922 edition of the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety’s annual report.
Four theaters are listed at Oak Bluffs in The New England Business Directory and Gazetteer for 1918, but the Strand is not among them.
The January 6, 1926, issue of Motion Picture News had an obituary for New Bedford exhibitor Thomas J. Charette, and noted that the Strand in Oak Bluffs was one of the houses he operated.
A Capawock Theatre at Vineyard Haven is listed in the 1918 New England Business Directory and Gazetteer.
Have you been able to find the double-page opening ad that the Brick and Clay Record article made reference to? Opening ads sometimes list the name of the architect of the theater.
Linkrot repair: The May 3, 1952, Boxoffice article about the Langley Theatre has moved again:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
In 1941, the owners of the Apex were in a clearance dispute with Loew’s, as reported in the July 18 issue of The Film Daily:
The K-B Amusement Company was a partnership of Fred S. Kogod and Max Burka. They controlled several theaters in the greater Washington D.C. region.Linkrot repair: The December 14, 1935, Boxoffice article about the Ambassador Theatre can now be found at this link.
I think the opening date of 1930 for the Pictorial Theatre probably comes from the advertisement shown on this page at Kilduff’s. The Pictorial was showing Mae Murray’s Peacock Alley. The thing is that Mae Murray starred in both the 1930 musical version of the film and in the 1921 silent version, and from the upcoming films in the ad (Dustin Farnum in Iron to Gold, Tom Mix in Chasing the Moon, both released in 1922) it must have been the 1921 version that the Pictorial was showing. The ad most likely dates from 1922, and the Pictorial might have been in operation for a considerable time before that.
I don’t think this house was ever actually called the Wilson Avenue Theatre. Brick and Clay Record was published in Chicago, and Chicago had a house called the Wilson Avenue Theatre, opened in 1909. Whoever wrote the item probably just added Avenue to the name of the Youngstown house because he was thinking of the Chicago house when he wrote it.
A paragraph about the Wilson Avenue Theatre appears in the November 3, 1914, issue of Brick and Clay Record:
Why an outfit called the Youngstown Ice Company was supplying brick I don’t know, but the name was not a typo. It was mentioned in other construction journals of the period. And yes, they also dealt in ice.The mention of a double-page opening ad for the theater is tantalizing. It must have appeared prior to November 3, but there’s no indication how long before.
The Alvin and the Lyric were both operated by the partnership of Hartzell & Pitzer according to their listings in the 1908 report of the Ohio Department of Inspections.
In April, 1908, Hartzell & Pitzer also began operating a house in Youngstown called the Empire Theatre as a burlesque stand.
The Andrews Theatre opened in early 1912, as noted in this item from the July 31 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror:
The 1913-1914 Cahn guide listed the Andrews Theatre as a ground floor house with 911 seats. The 1909-1910 guide lists only a 550-seat Teck Theatre at Salamanca, operated by Max Andrews. The Teck opened in December, 1908, according to an item in the December 25 issue of The Billboard. It appears to have been destroyed by a fire in January, 1910. Perhaps the Andrews Theatre was its replacement.The Gayety was a fairly large theater. The 1907 annual report of the Ohio Department of Inspection listed it with 1,500 seats, the same capacity the report listed for the Park Theatre.
A Youngstown burlesque house called the Gayety was mentioned in the September 19, 1942, issue of The Billboard, but without an address there’s no way of telling if it was the same Gayety that was operating in 1906-07.
The Gayety of 1942 was on the Empire Burlesque Circuit. Earlier, the Grand had been on that circuit, and returned to it in 1943, so the circuit might have been using the Gayety to get some leverage over the owners of the Grand. The Gayety was mentioned in Billboard in both 1946 and 1950 as part of Johnny (or Jack) Kane’s Ohio Circuit, which also booked burlesque. By 1953, the Park was on the Kane circuit.
I believe three theaters are conflated in the current description. The theater built in the 1880s must have been the Red Bank Opera House, which opened in 1883 and burned to the ground in 1905. It was located on the south side of Front Street just west of Maple Avenue.
Frick’s Theatre was better known as Frick’s Lyceum, and it opened in September, 1906, in a converted tomato cannery on the waterfront. The site is now part of Marine Park. An article about it appeared in the August 29, 1906, issue of the Red Bank Register (upper left corner of this PDF.) The Lyceum was listed in the 1912 Cahn guide with the notation “This theater is still in existence but has been closed for some time.” It does not appear in the 1913-1914 guide.
The theater at Front Street and Wharf Avenue was, as teecee said, built in 1912. The Red Bank Register of October 23, 1912, had an article about it (top right corner of the first page of this PDF.) Stockholders in the Red Bank Amusement Company were Fred H. VanDorn, Thomas Williams, and John J. Travers. The theater featured a long lobby, 13 feet wide and 71 feet long, which led from Front Street to the theater proper, which backed up to Union Street and was 56x128 feet. The Lyric was erected by local builder George W. Sewing, who also acted as architect.
The article said that the owners hoped to have the house open by Thanksgiving, but they missed the date. The January 22, 1913, issue of the Register said that the installation of the furnishings and equipment of the theater was well underway and the opening was to be on or about February 1.
The Lyric was remodeled in early 1920 and reopened as the Palace Theatre on April 5, according to the April 7 issue of the Register. The Palace was first operated by N. E. McNulty. In September, 1928, the house had another name change, becoming the Hunting Theatre, which was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Tony Hunting. The theater closed in 1930, but reopened later that year under the previous name Palace Theatre. On January 9, 1931, the Palace Theatre was completely destroyed by a fire.
The January 16, 1912, issue of The Troy Times had this item:
The January 18, 1945, issue of The Times Record said that the Majestic Theatre was to be converted into facilities for the local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The auditorium floor was to be leveled and a second floor installed in the space to accommodate lounges, a recreation room, rest rooms, and offices. The ground floor would house a meeting hall and kitchen facilities. Although the Majestic closed in the mid-1920s, the rebuilding plans indicate that auditorium was still intact in 1945.Joe Masher’s description of the State Theatre says that it was designed by the same architect as the American Theatre, and the description of this house says that it was a twin of the State. If that’s so, then the architect of this theater was Abraham K. Mosley, who was noted as the architect of the Rose (State) Theatre in The American Contractor of April 29, 1922.
The Rose/State Theatre was definitely on Fourth Street, not Fourth Avenue. Here is an item about it from the April 29, 1922, issue of The American Contractor:
Abraham K. Mosley was a native of England who came to the United States in 1904. He was commissioned to work on the Emma Willard School in 1910 and settled in Troy where he practiced for many years, though he designed buildings as far away as Kansas City, Kansas (St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church on 18th Street.) He died in 1951.The Louvee Theatre was designed and built by the F & Y Building Service of Columbus, Ohio. It was on a list of eleven of the compnay’s recent projects that was published in the October 27, 1938, issue of the Boone County Recorder.
The Avalon Theatre was designed and built by the F & Y Building Service of Columbus, Ohio. It was one of eleven theaters on a list of the company’s projects in an ad that was published in the October 27, 1938, issue of the Boone County Recorder.
An ad for the F & Y Building Service in the Boone County Recorder of October 27, 1938, listed the Arlington Theatre as one of five houses in Columbus that the firm had designed and built by that time. The others were the Westmont, the Fifth Avenue, the Cleve, and the Indianola.