The December, 2011, issue of Queen Anne Cobblestone, the newsletter of the Queen Anne Historical Society, said that the Uptown Theatre was designed by architect Victor W. Voorhees. The Uptown opened on May 26, 1926, with 749 seats. The original auditorium lost 234 seats in 1984, when the lobby was expanded to serve two new auditoriums that were built adjacent to the original theater that year.
The current marquee of the Uptown was installed as part of a 1953 renovation which was designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca.
This house was not the first Bloomington theater to have the name Castle. An earlier house of that name was under construction in 1904, when it was a subject of a petition from its owner that was read at the November 4 meeting of the Bloomington City Council. Mr. J. G. Gillingham was petitioning the Council to consider lowering the license fee for his theater, which he said would present vaudeville at low prices. Bloomington’s license fee for “Opera Houses” was $200 a year.
The petition notes that the Castle Theatre would be located in a remodeled building at the corner of Washington and East Streets, though it doesn’t specify which corner. The Majestic Theatre would open at the southwest corner of that intersection in 1910, and the Castle was still in operation at that time, so it was one of the other corners. I’ve been unable to discover whether or not it continued operating under a different name after this Castle Theatre opened in 1916.
The April 2, 1910, issue of The Billboard said that the new Majestic Theatre in Bloomington was nearing completion and the owners hoped to open on April 11. Guy Martin, manager of the Castle Theatre, was slated to be the manager of the new house. The theater actually opened on April 18, according to the article btkrefft linked to earlier.
The Castle Theatre mentioned in the Billboard item was not the house of that name built in 1916, but an earlier theater which opened in 1904 in a remodeled building on the corner of East and Washington Streets. The fact that the manager of the Majestic was coming from the Castle Theatre raises an interesting possibility. The two houses might have been under the same ownership, and thus it is possible that the Majestic was a new “Castle Theatre” that was a subject of discussion at the December 17, 1909, meeting of the Bloomington City Council. This is from the text of the minutes of that meeting:
“His Honor, the Mayor, called the attention of the Council to the presence of the contractor and architect for the building of the new Castle Theatre.
“On motion of Ald. Kerrick, the rules were suspended and Mr. Solomon, the contractor, addressed the council stating the construction of the building was not in accordance with section 1201 of the Building Ordinances, as the new mode of constructing buildings is to carry all roof trusses on pilasters and the walls are known as curtain walls and only carrying their own weight. Mr. Cooney, the architect, spoke on the same strain, saying, that the construction was of a better nature than called for by the City Ordinances.
“Ald. Costello offered a motion to allow the contractor to proceed with the building under the supervision of the Superintendent of Buildings and Board of Inspection of Buildings.
“Carried.”
The timing of the opening of the Majestic is compatible with a project that was getting underway in late 1909, and the fact that a new Castle Theatre actually was built in 1916 would suggest that the 1909 Castle Theatre project was either left unbuilt, or was opened under a different name- the Majestic. Photos showing the east wall of the Majestic show that it did indeed have pilasters, as discussed in the Council meeting.
I’ve been unable to find any other references to an architect named Cooney operating in the Bloomington area during this period, so I have no first name for him, but I’ll keep looking.
Thanks for the update, Terri51. I did think that the Moose Lodge seen in the Street View was too modern to have been the Yale Theatre.
It turns out that CinemaTour has a very small, very contrasty photo of the Yale Theatre on this page I don’t know why I never thought to check CinemaTour’s listing before.
John, as far as I know I had no relatives in Pennsylvania during that period (nor any now, for that matter.) Vogel is actually a fairly common surname though. My great-grandfather, Jacob Vogel, emigrated from Switzerland to California in 1883 with two of his daughters, joining his eldest son, who was already here. His wife and five younger children, including my grandfather, followed in 1884. Most of his descendants still live in California.
The Bay Station Theatre is listed at 1206 Lincoln in the 1916 Polk-Husted Oakland-Berkeley-Alameda city directory. The directory also lists a Lincoln Theatre, with the location given as Lincoln av west of Bay. As Lincoln is listed here as an aka for the Bay Station, I don’t know if that means that this theater was listed in the directory twice that year under two different names, or if they were two different theaters.
If the theater was originally built in 1932, the 1937 project by Budina must have been alterations of some sort. My problem is that I made the comment identifying Messerschmidt as the architect in 2006, and I can’t find anything on the Internet that’s dated earlier and declares Messeschmidt to be the architect. That means the other sites posting more recently could have been using my 2006 comment as their source.
The other problem is that my new source, saying that Budina was the architect, is this document from Virginia Heritage, which has abstracts of building permit records for dozens of theater projects in Richmond, and the only record it gives for the Bellevue is the one from 1937. True, the list might not be exhaustive, but I’d be more comfortable if it had a 1932 permit for the Bellevue listed.
I wish I had cited the source for the claim in my comment of May 5, 2006, that Henry Carl Messerschmidt was the architect of the Bellevue Theatre. I’d like to double check it, but I can’t find it now. Instead, I’ve found that the 1937 permit for the Bellevue Theatre building lists A. O. Budina as the architect.
A permit for the Broadway Theatre was issued in 1918. The theater was designed by Carneal & Johnston, and commissioned by A. L. Strauss. The contractor was the J. T. Wilson Company.
A permit for a “New Theatre” for Mr. B. Bear was issued in 1914. The location given is the north side of Broad Street between 2nd and 3rd. The architect of record was William C. West, but a drawing of the house exists labeled “New Theatre for Mr. M. F. Hofheimer, Richmond Va., Designed by Atlantic Terra Cotta Company, 1170 Broadway New York.” It is presumed that Bear obtained the drawing from Hofheimer after the latter abandoned the project, and had West design the rest of the building.
A permit for the Hippodrome Theatre at 530 N. Second Street was issued by the City of Richmond in 1912. The architect for the project was Charles H. Fisher of Fisher & Rabenstein, Architects. The project was commissioned by Mrs. A. E. Thorp.
The history section of the Hippodrome’s official web site says that the house opened in 1904. If that’s the case, then the 1912 permit must have been for alterations to the theater.
A permit was issued in 1910 for a theater located on Broad Street between Jefferson and Brook Avenue, but the name on the permit was Star Theatre. Still, it was being built for M. L. Hofheimer, who was the original owner of the Empire Theatre. The project was designed by C. K. Howell of the firm of Scarborough & Howell, Engineers & Architects.
Howell also designed the smaller movie theater next door, now the Walker Theatre, for Hofheimer the following year. It is very likely that the 1910 Star Theatre project was the house that opened in 1911 as the Empire.
The permit to build this theater was issued to M. L. Hofheimer. The architect for the project was C. K. Howell, and the contractor was A. C. Houston. A description of Howell’s drawings says that the “…facade features Corinthian columns, masks and garlands, and statuary.” The modern photos linked earlier show that quite a bit of this decoration survived into recent times.
The Temple Theatre was an impressive structure, as seen in this vintage postcard. It was built by impresario James H. Moore, who chose the Rochester firm of Leon H. Lempert & Son to design the house (Lempert Sr., had already semi-retired by 1909, and died that year, so the lead architect was Leon H. Lempert, Jr.)
The Temple originally operated as a vaudeville house, but movies were occasionally shown even in its early years. In 1913, Moore presented at the Temple an early form of talking pictures with the sound recorded on discs.
A former resident of Ozark has informed me that the Brackin Theatre was located at what is now 176 Andrews Avenue. That entire block is currently the location of a CVS pharmacy and its parking lot. The theater was still in operation when he moved to Ozark in 1971.
Ozark did renumber its lots some years ago. However, it appears that Google Maps has not discovered the change. It mis-locates the correct modern address several blocks west of its actual location (Bing Maps gets the right block, at least.)
It looks like the Brackin Theatre closed in the 1970s. This web page about the Flowers Center for the Performing Arts (you’ll have to click on the “more” link) says that the building had been vacant since the 1970s when it was reopened to be used for Carroll High School’s musical productions in 1982, 1983, and 1984.
Although the current Dale County courthouse was built in 1969, the square block it is on was already public land. An earlier courthouse stood on the block from 1902 to 1968. The Brackin Theatre, which wasn’t demolished until 1999, must have been somewhere else.
The December, 2011, issue of Queen Anne Cobblestone, the newsletter of the Queen Anne Historical Society, said that the Uptown Theatre was designed by architect Victor W. Voorhees. The Uptown opened on May 26, 1926, with 749 seats. The original auditorium lost 234 seats in 1984, when the lobby was expanded to serve two new auditoriums that were built adjacent to the original theater that year.
The current marquee of the Uptown was installed as part of a 1953 renovation which was designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca.
If the former auditorium now houses an Old Navy store, then the theater hasn’t been demolished, merely dismantled.
Here is a 1967 photo from the University of Oregon library.
This house was not the first Bloomington theater to have the name Castle. An earlier house of that name was under construction in 1904, when it was a subject of a petition from its owner that was read at the November 4 meeting of the Bloomington City Council. Mr. J. G. Gillingham was petitioning the Council to consider lowering the license fee for his theater, which he said would present vaudeville at low prices. Bloomington’s license fee for “Opera Houses” was $200 a year.
The petition notes that the Castle Theatre would be located in a remodeled building at the corner of Washington and East Streets, though it doesn’t specify which corner. The Majestic Theatre would open at the southwest corner of that intersection in 1910, and the Castle was still in operation at that time, so it was one of the other corners. I’ve been unable to discover whether or not it continued operating under a different name after this Castle Theatre opened in 1916.
The April 2, 1910, issue of The Billboard said that the new Majestic Theatre in Bloomington was nearing completion and the owners hoped to open on April 11. Guy Martin, manager of the Castle Theatre, was slated to be the manager of the new house. The theater actually opened on April 18, according to the article btkrefft linked to earlier.
The Castle Theatre mentioned in the Billboard item was not the house of that name built in 1916, but an earlier theater which opened in 1904 in a remodeled building on the corner of East and Washington Streets. The fact that the manager of the Majestic was coming from the Castle Theatre raises an interesting possibility. The two houses might have been under the same ownership, and thus it is possible that the Majestic was a new “Castle Theatre” that was a subject of discussion at the December 17, 1909, meeting of the Bloomington City Council. This is from the text of the minutes of that meeting:
The timing of the opening of the Majestic is compatible with a project that was getting underway in late 1909, and the fact that a new Castle Theatre actually was built in 1916 would suggest that the 1909 Castle Theatre project was either left unbuilt, or was opened under a different name- the Majestic. Photos showing the east wall of the Majestic show that it did indeed have pilasters, as discussed in the Council meeting.I’ve been unable to find any other references to an architect named Cooney operating in the Bloomington area during this period, so I have no first name for him, but I’ll keep looking.
Thanks for the update, Terri51. I did think that the Moose Lodge seen in the Street View was too modern to have been the Yale Theatre.
It turns out that CinemaTour has a very small, very contrasty photo of the Yale Theatre on this page I don’t know why I never thought to check CinemaTour’s listing before.
John, as far as I know I had no relatives in Pennsylvania during that period (nor any now, for that matter.) Vogel is actually a fairly common surname though. My great-grandfather, Jacob Vogel, emigrated from Switzerland to California in 1883 with two of his daughters, joining his eldest son, who was already here. His wife and five younger children, including my grandfather, followed in 1884. Most of his descendants still live in California.
The Bay Station Theatre is listed at 1206 Lincoln in the 1916 Polk-Husted Oakland-Berkeley-Alameda city directory. The directory also lists a Lincoln Theatre, with the location given as Lincoln av west of Bay. As Lincoln is listed here as an aka for the Bay Station, I don’t know if that means that this theater was listed in the directory twice that year under two different names, or if they were two different theaters.
Here is a closer view of the Strand from Lincoln Park, taken in 1950.
This page has two photos of the Strand taken on June 19, 1952 (click the thumbnail in the right-hand column to enlarge the second photo.)
The University of Louisville’s collection of digitized photos includes two depicting this house as the Scoop Theatre.
This one is dated circa 1942.
Here is a closer view from the same period.
Here is a 1947 photo showing the Strand Theatre from across the short-lived Lincoln Park.
If the theater was originally built in 1932, the 1937 project by Budina must have been alterations of some sort. My problem is that I made the comment identifying Messerschmidt as the architect in 2006, and I can’t find anything on the Internet that’s dated earlier and declares Messeschmidt to be the architect. That means the other sites posting more recently could have been using my 2006 comment as their source.
The other problem is that my new source, saying that Budina was the architect, is this document from Virginia Heritage, which has abstracts of building permit records for dozens of theater projects in Richmond, and the only record it gives for the Bellevue is the one from 1937. True, the list might not be exhaustive, but I’d be more comfortable if it had a 1932 permit for the Bellevue listed.
A building permit for alterations to this house, under the name State Theatre, was issued in 1948, with A. O. Budina listed as the architect.
I wish I had cited the source for the claim in my comment of May 5, 2006, that Henry Carl Messerschmidt was the architect of the Bellevue Theatre. I’d like to double check it, but I can’t find it now. Instead, I’ve found that the 1937 permit for the Bellevue Theatre building lists A. O. Budina as the architect.
Here is a photo of the Ginter Theatre dated 1938.
Another permit was issued for the Hippodrome Theatre in 1946. The architect for this rebuilding, commissioned by Lichtman Theatres, was John J. Zink.
The permit for the Brookland Theatre was issued in 1924. It was designed by architect Fred A. Bishop.
A permit for the Broadway Theatre was issued in 1918. The theater was designed by Carneal & Johnston, and commissioned by A. L. Strauss. The contractor was the J. T. Wilson Company.
A permit for a “New Theatre” for Mr. B. Bear was issued in 1914. The location given is the north side of Broad Street between 2nd and 3rd. The architect of record was William C. West, but a drawing of the house exists labeled “New Theatre for Mr. M. F. Hofheimer, Richmond Va., Designed by Atlantic Terra Cotta Company, 1170 Broadway New York.” It is presumed that Bear obtained the drawing from Hofheimer after the latter abandoned the project, and had West design the rest of the building.
A permit for the Hippodrome Theatre at 530 N. Second Street was issued by the City of Richmond in 1912. The architect for the project was Charles H. Fisher of Fisher & Rabenstein, Architects. The project was commissioned by Mrs. A. E. Thorp.
The history section of the Hippodrome’s official web site says that the house opened in 1904. If that’s the case, then the 1912 permit must have been for alterations to the theater.
A permit was issued in 1910 for a theater located on Broad Street between Jefferson and Brook Avenue, but the name on the permit was Star Theatre. Still, it was being built for M. L. Hofheimer, who was the original owner of the Empire Theatre. The project was designed by C. K. Howell of the firm of Scarborough & Howell, Engineers & Architects.
Howell also designed the smaller movie theater next door, now the Walker Theatre, for Hofheimer the following year. It is very likely that the 1910 Star Theatre project was the house that opened in 1911 as the Empire.
The permit to build this theater was issued to M. L. Hofheimer. The architect for the project was C. K. Howell, and the contractor was A. C. Houston. A description of Howell’s drawings says that the “…facade features Corinthian columns, masks and garlands, and statuary.” The modern photos linked earlier show that quite a bit of this decoration survived into recent times.
The Temple Theatre was an impressive structure, as seen in this vintage postcard. It was built by impresario James H. Moore, who chose the Rochester firm of Leon H. Lempert & Son to design the house (Lempert Sr., had already semi-retired by 1909, and died that year, so the lead architect was Leon H. Lempert, Jr.)
The Temple originally operated as a vaudeville house, but movies were occasionally shown even in its early years. In 1913, Moore presented at the Temple an early form of talking pictures with the sound recorded on discs.
A former resident of Ozark has informed me that the Brackin Theatre was located at what is now 176 Andrews Avenue. That entire block is currently the location of a CVS pharmacy and its parking lot. The theater was still in operation when he moved to Ozark in 1971.
Ozark did renumber its lots some years ago. However, it appears that Google Maps has not discovered the change. It mis-locates the correct modern address several blocks west of its actual location (Bing Maps gets the right block, at least.)
It looks like the Brackin Theatre closed in the 1970s. This web page about the Flowers Center for the Performing Arts (you’ll have to click on the “more” link) says that the building had been vacant since the 1970s when it was reopened to be used for Carroll High School’s musical productions in 1982, 1983, and 1984.
Although the current Dale County courthouse was built in 1969, the square block it is on was already public land. An earlier courthouse stood on the block from 1902 to 1968. The Brackin Theatre, which wasn’t demolished until 1999, must have been somewhere else.