Astro Theatre
320 S. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
320 S. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
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Showing 51 - 60 of 60 comments
Good eye, LM. I didn’t see that before.
That’s what I was referring to, Joe. As this is a 1908 photo, that may have been a live theater.
Ken: Did you notice the theatre’s ad just above the Owl Cigar ad on the wall of the building a few doors north? It gives the address as 344 S. Spring. The other thing I can tell from the picture is that the theatre’s name ends in “ss”, which is clear on both the wall ad and on the sign above the theatre entrance, and partly visible in the rooftop sign. I can’t make out the rest of the name though.
There is a theater on the east side of Spring, between 3rd and 4th, in this 1908 picture. The theater is not on my 1950 map, above. If anyone can fill me in on this, I would appreciate it. I chose the Cozy as the nearest in proximity:
http://tinyurl.com/pwptw
Here is a map, circa 1950, which shows the location of the theater on Broadway, next to the Central Theater:
http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/subwayarea.htm
The status of the Cozy needs to be changed to ‘Closed’. Function ‘Retail’. Other name ‘Astro’
The building appears to have been built in the 1920’s
Not demolished in the 1960s, but it was about then that the Cozy was renamed the Astro. I think that in the ‘80s, the Astro was still operating, showing Spanish language movies. I didn’t like the new marquee signs on the Astro. The old Cozy marquee was one of my Broadway favorites- very small, but with the theatre name in big chunky letters that had a very 1930-ish streamline modern quality.
It’s now a Tu Musica record shop.
The Killer That Stalked New York is a 1950 film about a woman with the bubonic plague loose in New York City. Much of it was filmed there. But the finale, in which the woman, played by Evelyn Keyes,
is out on the ledge of a building, threatening to jump, was filmed on South Broadway in Los Angeles, right above the Central Theatre,
and in the same block as the Cozy. Although the Central is not easy
to identify, the flashing neon of the Cozy is unmistakenly visible
in several scenes. There’s also a shot of emergency vehicles whipping around the corner onto Broadway and you get a glimpse of
the Million Dollar marquee as well.
The Cozy Theatre was across the street from Grauman’s Million Dollar. As noted, it was small and narrow, but it was clean and well maintained by its owner, a Mr. Levinson. In the early 1950s I met its then projectionist, an elderly gentleman named Mr. White, and he taught me to be a projectionist and coached me so that I passed the gruelling Los Angeles City propjectionist’s lilcense text in my first try! The neat-as-a-pin booth had the latest Brenkert projectors, sondheads and Enarc lamps.