Roseland Theatre

Ahhh, what memories. The Roseland theater is the first theater I can remember going to as a kid. The first movie that I watched was Boots & Saddles starring Gene Autry and the first serial was the Phantom starring Tom Tyler…from the first movie I was hooked and I got my money from finding pop bottles, milk bottles and getting the deposit on them, or selling newspapers to the salvage yard. For a dime, I could stay in there all day. I was there during the war years 1941-45 and I remember a neon sign over the exit door that read buy bonds. I went back to Roseland to see the old theater and it was very sad to see the condition of the theater and the once really beautiful business area. It brought tears to my eyes. Gone were the State, Parkway, Ridge, Normal and Verdi theaters….but they really left some wonderful memories.
Doug Bruton Denison, Texas

Memories! Used to go to the Roseland on Saturday mornings as a kid in the 1940’s. 9 cents for admission, popcorn 5 cents and a soda from the machine another 5 cents (soda was 10 cents at concession stand). If I walked both ways from 110th place instead of taking the street car down Michigan Avenue I would have enough left for a candy bar also. 10 cartoons, a serial like Rocket Man which continued from week to week, and a shootem up cowboy movie which was sometimes mixed in with a science fiction movie like The Lost World.
Plus “Two Ton Bakers” double seat on right hand side, middle area of the theater.
John Stitnizky

You might want to add the Normal Theater on 119th St. and Normal Ave., the Ridge Theater at 120th St. near Lowe Ave., and how can we forget the Verdi on Kensington Ave. just west of Indiana Ave. The Verdi became a Moose Lodge in the late ‘50s, and then later an AME Church. The Normal went to the Missionary Baptists, and the Ridge became a store of some sort.

Cartoons and 3 features for a quarter in 1965 on Saturdays