The July 4, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that J. W. Jespersen and A. C. Dippo’s new, 400-seat theater on San Pablo Avenue at 27th Street was to be opened on July 27. As it is listed with 740 seats it was obviously expanded at some point. Possibly the 1915 opening gsmurph cites was a reopening after an expansion. It was not unknown for theaters to be expanded within a year or two of opening in those days.
There’s a photo of the 01 South block of El Dorado Street showing the Imperial Theatre on this web page. Scroll about 1/3 of the way down the page to the bold-type line that says “9 South El Dorado” and click the adjacent thumbnail photo. The Imperial’s marquee can be seen just left of center.
Building and Engineering News of June 27, 1919, reported that contracts had been let for a brick and steel theater to be built on N. Broadway in Turlock for A. H. and K. Arakelian. The architect for the project was A. W. Cornelius. This must have been the Turlock Theatre.
The Esquire that ran X-rated movies in the 1960s-1970s was a different theater, and this Esquire was long gone by then. The photo currently displayed above depicts the former State Theatre, which was renamed the Esquire after the original Esquire was closed in 1954, at which time it was either demolished and replaced by a department store or was converted into a department store.
Here is a 1936 photo of the State. It is a close shot, but the brickwork on the facade is recognizable as the same brick in the Esquire photo above. The photo should be moved to the State Theatre page. JasHarv’s and mjprigge’s comments, or course, also pertain to the former State.
A note that the name Esquire was moved to the former State Theatre in 1954 should probably be added to the introduction, to reduce confusion. And as the State operated as the Esquire from 1954 until at least the early 1970s, maybe that page should be renamed as well.
The front of the State Theatre had a remarkable resemblance to that of the LaSalle Theatre in Cleveland, which was also designed in 1927 by architect Nicola Petti. I think he might have used the same plans for both houses. If anyone from Toledo wants to know what the city lost with the demolition of the State, they can go to Cleveland where the LaSalle is still standing.
The front of the LaSalle Theatre bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the State Theatre in Toledo, which was also designed in 1927 by architect Nicola Petti. I think he might have used the same plans for both houses. Unfortunately, the State Theatre has been demolished.
A 1956 photo of the Sun Theatre, which was closed by that time, can be seen at this link.
A few doors down the street from the site of the Sun Theatre is the Blessed Hope Missionary Baptist Church, at 8804 Buckeye Road. Its building looks very much like a theater, complete with stage house. But if this church was ever a theater, I’ve been unable to discover what its name was. The sites of the Sun and its neighboring buildings is now a parking lot for the church. The rear portion of the church building can be seen in Street View.
The Cleveland Landmarks Commission’s list of buildings designed by Nicola Petti (click “Buildings” link on this page) gives the design date of the Sun Theatre as 1915, and it is the earliest theater on the list. The list might not be exhaustive, though.
The list also gives the Sun’s address as 8808 Buckeye rather than 8816, but the 1956 photo from Teaching & Learning Cleveland is from the city’s building inspection department, so the address given there, 8816, is probably the correct one. The stage tower-like part of the church is visible in that photo as well.
The Moreland Theatre was located at 11820 Buckeye Road, and as of 2009, when the Google camera car photographed it, the building was occupied by the Church of God in Christ. It was still easily recognizable as a former theater, despite the loss of its marquee. The building is still standing in the 2012 satellite view, though its roof looks to be in rough shape.
The NRHP nomination form for the Moreland Theatre says that the house closed in 1962, and later operated as a live dinner theater and then as a night club before finally becoming a church. It gives the interior style as “mostly Baroque” (Renaissance should be close enough.)
The form also lists four other theaters designed by Sigmund Braverman and Kurt Havermaet: the Hilliard Square (now the Lakewood) in Lakewood (already attributed at Cinema Treasures), the Pastime at Coshocton, the Falls at Cuyahoga Falls, and the Allen (later the Astor) at Akron.
The nomination form, which gives a detailed description and history of the house, plus three floor plans of the building, can be viewed at Google Documents, and can be downloaded as a PDF file from this link.
If the Allen was indeed the theater that was the subject of the 1920 Engineering News-Record item quoted in my previous comment, then it is likely that the Akron firm of Frank, Wagner & Mitchell acted only as supervising architects for the project. The NRHP nomination form for the Moreland Theatre in Cleveland lists the Allen/Astor Theatre in Akron as one of five theaters designed by the Moreland’s architects, Sigmund Braverman and Kurt Havermaet. The firm of Braverman & Havermaet had its offices in Cleveland.
Joe Vogel
commented about
Workzon
Oct 31, 2012 at 11:51 pm
The NRHP nomination form for the Moreland Theatre in Cleveland lists the Falls Theatre in Cuyahoga Falls as one of five theaters designed by the Moreland’s architects, Sigmund Braverman and Kurt Havermaet.
The NRHP nomination form for the Moreland Theatre in Cleveland lists the Pastime Theatre in Coshocton as one of five theaters designed by the Moreland’s architects, Sigmund Braverman and Kurt Havermaet.
The July 15, 1929, issue of The Film Daily said that the Strand Theatre in Caro had been sold to John E. Handy by E. J. Chapman.
There were a couple of other Chapmans associated with the theater business in Caro. The September 24, 1918, issue of Michigan Film Review mentioned a C. Chapman associated with the Temple Theatre at Caro, and another item in the same issue mentioned a Paul Chapman of Caro.
The Cleveland Landmarks Commission’s list of building designed by architect Nicola Petti includes an unnamed theater at Madison Avenue and W. 103rd Street, dated 1917. As that was only a few blocks west of this theater, perhaps it was the Madison Theatre that had the organ installed in 1921.
However, there was an earlier Madison Theatre, a 200 seat house opened in 1907 at Madison and W. 72nd Street. It seems unlikely that a 200-seat house would install a large organ, but the theater might have been expanded by 1921.
A chapter devoted to the Cameo Theatre in volume 2 of Jack Edward Shay’s Bygone Binghamton: Remembering People and Places of the Past (Google Books preview– chapter begins on page 35) says that the house opened in April, 1928. Its best-remembered proprietors, Ken and Frances Robinson, took over operation in 1954, and bought the house in 1957.
Volume 2 of Bygone Binghamton: Remembering People and Places of the Past, by By Jack Edward Shay, has an entire chapter about the Sun Theatre (Google Books preview.) The Sun opened in 1927 or 1928, and was operated by its owner, Paul Kocak, until closing in 1964. A native of Cleveland, Kocak named the Sun for a neighborhood house in the Ohio city. In addition to second run Hollywood movies, the Sun sometimes ran Czechoslovakian films for the large ethnic population in the neighborhood.
In addition to the chapter on the Sun, Shay’s book has a chapter about the Cameo Theatre, and the opening chapter covers Binghamton’s other movie theaters.
Here is an item from the April 17, 1920, issue of The American Contractor which must be about the Lyric Theatre, despite the mistaken street names:
“Theater (M. P.) & Stores (2): $75.000. 2 sty. & bas. 50x142. Nevill [sic] & Hoover [sic] sts., Beckley, W. Va. Archts. C. C. & E. A. Weber, Miller bldg., Cincinnati. Owner Messrs. Middleber & Hyman, Logan, W. Va. Gen. contr. let to Jack Freeman, Berkley. Excav.”
Christian C. and Edward A. Weber designed four other theaters already listed at Cinema Treasures, only one of which is still standing, and that converted to office space.
CSW: The 1909 picture in the book I linked to in my previous comment makes it clear that the Temple Theatre was in the taller building next door to the one with the bay window.
The cars in the photo recently uploaded here shows that there was still a theater in the building around 1940. That indicates that the proposed theater projects of 1913 and 1921 were probably never carried out (unless there was once a third theater at Caro, or if one of them was the original Strand Theatre.)
My second indented quote in the previous comment should start with “VAN LEYEN” (I want the edit function back!)
Also, I see that Street View is currently set on the Masonic Temple building, which is across the street and up the block from 137 State Street. Many towns had houses called the Temple Theatre that were located in Masonic Temple buildings, but Caro does not appear to have been one of them. The building at 137 is where the Temple Theatre was located from 1909 until at least 1913.
Maybe we don’t know where this theater was, but we now know who operated it in the 1920s and 1930s. A December 25, 1942, item in the Cass City Chronicle notes the 50th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. F. H. Schuckert, who “…came to Caro in 1920 to operate the Temple Theatre, which they sold a few years ago.” As of 1942, Mr. Schukert and his son operated the Cass Theatre in Cass City and other eastern Michigan theaters the item doesn’t name.
The February 5, 1921, issue of The American Contractor has this item about a proposed theater in Caro, but I don’t know if the project was carried out:
“Store & Theater Bldg., Abt. $20,000. 2 sty. 32x102. Caro. Mich. Archt. Van Leyen & Schilling, Detroit. Owner C. H. Schuckert, prop., Temple Theater, Caro. Brk., conc. & steel, brk., stone trim. Drawing plans.”
The January, 1921, issue of The Michigan Architect and Engineer also mentions the project:
“VAX LEYEN, SCHILLING, KEOUGH & REYNOLDS, Archts. and Engrs., Detroit. Prep, plans for theater. Caro, Mich. 30x100. Brick, stone trim, steel, comp. roof, terrazzo and hardwood floors, steam heat, elec. Owner, Temple Theater Co. Plans ready Jan. 20. Bids close Feb. 15.”
If this project was carried out, maybe the Temple Theatre moved from one location to another in 1921, which would account for the conflicting street locations. While I haven’t been able to confirm that the project was actually built, if it was built it wasn’t the building shown at Water Winter Wonderland. That building (which looks about 25 feet wide) was the original Temple Theatre, according to the caption of the photo on page 30 of The Caro Area, by Marcia M. Dievendorf, Patricia E. Frazer, and Mark O. Keller. The caption says that the Temple opened at that location in 1909, and was the first movie theater in Caro.
To add more confusion, the February 8, 1913, issue of Construction News carried another item about plans by the Temple Theatre Company:
“Caro,_Mich.—Theater. Frank & Almer Sts. The Temple Theater Co., Chas. Montague, R. S. Montague, Lucy G. Montague, G. X. Van Tine & F. B. Ransford, stockholders, contemplated the erection of a theater in Caro.”
Again, I’ve found no confirmation that this project was carried out, or, if it was, that it was not just a second theater for the same owners, in which case it most likely would have operated a different name. On the other hand, maybe the Temple operated in three different locations over the years: the building at 137 State Street from 1909 to 1913, at Frank and Almer Streets from 1913 to 1921, and another unknown location from 1921 on.
Google Street View reveals that the corner of Frank and Almer Streets is where the American Legion Hall is now located (110 W. Frank Street.) Perhaps the 1913 Temple Theatre project was carried out, but I can’t tell from Street View how old the Legion Hall building might be. It doesn’t look like it would date from 1913, but it could have been extensively remodeled.
Wherever the mysterious Temple Theatre was at the time, it suffered a fire in 1934, not 1959. It was a “25 Years Ago” feature in the January 29, 1959, issue of the Cass City Chronicle that said that an overheated furnace in the Temple Theatre had destroyed the theater’s furnishings and the household goods of the proprietor, F. H. Schuckert, who lived on the second floor. The 1934 event was noted in an issue of Michigan Manufacturer and Financial Record that year.
I’ve found no evidence that the Temple Theatre was still operating as late as 1959. The most recent mention of it I’ve found is an ad in the theater listings section of the Cass City Chronicle of March 21, 1947. It was showing two “B” pictures, a murder mystery and a western, and had a listing only for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, while the Strand listed three single-feature programs of “A” pictures over the next week. It’s likely that the Temple didn’t survive into the CinemaScope era. Small theaters, especially part-time, late-run and “B” houses in small towns, were closed by the thousands in the mid-1950s because they couldn’t afford the new wide-screen equipment, if they even had room for wide screens.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that Al Hauetter was the architect for the 1937 remodeling of the Sun Theatre. David and Noelle’s list of known Boller theaters lists the Sun Theatre in Kansas City as a 1941 remodeling project. Why the house was remodeled twice in four years I don’t know.
The 1941 project might have been a belated exterior remodeling, since in the 1937 photo from Boxoffice it looks like in Hauetter’s remodeling the old front was retained and merely given a new paint job. But without a photo from 1941 or later there’s no way of telling if the house got a new front in 1941.
The church that now occupies the building has a wooden false front that covers the upper portion of the facade, and the lower portion is mostly covered in some kind of stone veneer that might date from the 1940s but might be later.
The NRHP document lostmemory links to says that the Plaza Theatre replaced another house of the same name that had operated on the site for one year, but doesn’t say what happened to the earlier theater. If you compare the photo of the Music Box in the NRHP document with the 1940 photo of the Plaza in the Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to, the basic structure of the marquee is the same.
The Boxoffice article says that the Plaza Theatre was 25x120 feet in size, while the NRHP document says that the current Plaza is approximately 50x110 feet. It looks to me like the owners of the Plaza might have decided that they had underestimated the potential demand when they built the house in 1940, so they expanded the theater in 1942. Of course it’s also possible that some disaster befell the 1940 building, but either way it’s obvious that the 1940 marquee was retained on the 1942 Plaza.
The July 4, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that J. W. Jespersen and A. C. Dippo’s new, 400-seat theater on San Pablo Avenue at 27th Street was to be opened on July 27. As it is listed with 740 seats it was obviously expanded at some point. Possibly the 1915 opening gsmurph cites was a reopening after an expansion. It was not unknown for theaters to be expanded within a year or two of opening in those days.
kschneiderstl: Liberty was an early aka for the house listed at Cinema Treasures as the Sun Theatre.
There’s a photo of the 01 South block of El Dorado Street showing the Imperial Theatre on this web page. Scroll about 1/3 of the way down the page to the bold-type line that says “9 South El Dorado” and click the adjacent thumbnail photo. The Imperial’s marquee can be seen just left of center.
Building and Engineering News of June 27, 1919, reported that contracts had been let for a brick and steel theater to be built on N. Broadway in Turlock for A. H. and K. Arakelian. The architect for the project was A. W. Cornelius. This must have been the Turlock Theatre.
The Sierra Theatre was at 520 E. Main Street. The building is now occupied by a retail establishment, Solario’s Furniture and Jewelery.
The Esquire that ran X-rated movies in the 1960s-1970s was a different theater, and this Esquire was long gone by then. The photo currently displayed above depicts the former State Theatre, which was renamed the Esquire after the original Esquire was closed in 1954, at which time it was either demolished and replaced by a department store or was converted into a department store.
Here is a 1936 photo of the State. It is a close shot, but the brickwork on the facade is recognizable as the same brick in the Esquire photo above. The photo should be moved to the State Theatre page. JasHarv’s and mjprigge’s comments, or course, also pertain to the former State.
A note that the name Esquire was moved to the former State Theatre in 1954 should probably be added to the introduction, to reduce confusion. And as the State operated as the Esquire from 1954 until at least the early 1970s, maybe that page should be renamed as well.
The front of the State Theatre had a remarkable resemblance to that of the LaSalle Theatre in Cleveland, which was also designed in 1927 by architect Nicola Petti. I think he might have used the same plans for both houses. If anyone from Toledo wants to know what the city lost with the demolition of the State, they can go to Cleveland where the LaSalle is still standing.
The front of the LaSalle Theatre bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the State Theatre in Toledo, which was also designed in 1927 by architect Nicola Petti. I think he might have used the same plans for both houses. Unfortunately, the State Theatre has been demolished.
A 1956 photo of the Sun Theatre, which was closed by that time, can be seen at this link.
A few doors down the street from the site of the Sun Theatre is the Blessed Hope Missionary Baptist Church, at 8804 Buckeye Road. Its building looks very much like a theater, complete with stage house. But if this church was ever a theater, I’ve been unable to discover what its name was. The sites of the Sun and its neighboring buildings is now a parking lot for the church. The rear portion of the church building can be seen in Street View.
The Cleveland Landmarks Commission’s list of buildings designed by Nicola Petti (click “Buildings” link on this page) gives the design date of the Sun Theatre as 1915, and it is the earliest theater on the list. The list might not be exhaustive, though.
The list also gives the Sun’s address as 8808 Buckeye rather than 8816, but the 1956 photo from Teaching & Learning Cleveland is from the city’s building inspection department, so the address given there, 8816, is probably the correct one. The stage tower-like part of the church is visible in that photo as well.
My link to the PDF file got broken. Here is a corrected link.
The Moreland Theatre was located at 11820 Buckeye Road, and as of 2009, when the Google camera car photographed it, the building was occupied by the Church of God in Christ. It was still easily recognizable as a former theater, despite the loss of its marquee. The building is still standing in the 2012 satellite view, though its roof looks to be in rough shape.
The NRHP nomination form for the Moreland Theatre says that the house closed in 1962, and later operated as a live dinner theater and then as a night club before finally becoming a church. It gives the interior style as “mostly Baroque” (Renaissance should be close enough.)
The form also lists four other theaters designed by Sigmund Braverman and Kurt Havermaet: the Hilliard Square (now the Lakewood) in Lakewood (already attributed at Cinema Treasures), the Pastime at Coshocton, the Falls at Cuyahoga Falls, and the Allen (later the Astor) at Akron.
The nomination form, which gives a detailed description and history of the house, plus three floor plans of the building, can be viewed at Google Documents, and can be downloaded as a PDF file from this link.
If the Allen was indeed the theater that was the subject of the 1920 Engineering News-Record item quoted in my previous comment, then it is likely that the Akron firm of Frank, Wagner & Mitchell acted only as supervising architects for the project. The NRHP nomination form for the Moreland Theatre in Cleveland lists the Allen/Astor Theatre in Akron as one of five theaters designed by the Moreland’s architects, Sigmund Braverman and Kurt Havermaet. The firm of Braverman & Havermaet had its offices in Cleveland.
The NRHP nomination form for the Moreland Theatre in Cleveland lists the Falls Theatre in Cuyahoga Falls as one of five theaters designed by the Moreland’s architects, Sigmund Braverman and Kurt Havermaet.
The NRHP nomination form for the Moreland Theatre in Cleveland lists the Pastime Theatre in Coshocton as one of five theaters designed by the Moreland’s architects, Sigmund Braverman and Kurt Havermaet.
The Cleveland Landmarks Commission’s list of buildings designed by Nicola Petti also includes the Uptown Theatre.
The July 15, 1929, issue of The Film Daily said that the Strand Theatre in Caro had been sold to John E. Handy by E. J. Chapman.
There were a couple of other Chapmans associated with the theater business in Caro. The September 24, 1918, issue of Michigan Film Review mentioned a C. Chapman associated with the Temple Theatre at Caro, and another item in the same issue mentioned a Paul Chapman of Caro.
The Cleveland Landmarks Commission’s list of building designed by architect Nicola Petti includes an unnamed theater at Madison Avenue and W. 103rd Street, dated 1917. As that was only a few blocks west of this theater, perhaps it was the Madison Theatre that had the organ installed in 1921.
However, there was an earlier Madison Theatre, a 200 seat house opened in 1907 at Madison and W. 72nd Street. It seems unlikely that a 200-seat house would install a large organ, but the theater might have been expanded by 1921.
A chapter devoted to the Cameo Theatre in volume 2 of Jack Edward Shay’s Bygone Binghamton: Remembering People and Places of the Past (Google Books preview– chapter begins on page 35) says that the house opened in April, 1928. Its best-remembered proprietors, Ken and Frances Robinson, took over operation in 1954, and bought the house in 1957.
Volume 2 of Bygone Binghamton: Remembering People and Places of the Past, by By Jack Edward Shay, has an entire chapter about the Sun Theatre (Google Books preview.) The Sun opened in 1927 or 1928, and was operated by its owner, Paul Kocak, until closing in 1964. A native of Cleveland, Kocak named the Sun for a neighborhood house in the Ohio city. In addition to second run Hollywood movies, the Sun sometimes ran Czechoslovakian films for the large ethnic population in the neighborhood.
In addition to the chapter on the Sun, Shay’s book has a chapter about the Cameo Theatre, and the opening chapter covers Binghamton’s other movie theaters.
Here is an item from the April 17, 1920, issue of The American Contractor which must be about the Lyric Theatre, despite the mistaken street names:
Christian C. and Edward A. Weber designed four other theaters already listed at Cinema Treasures, only one of which is still standing, and that converted to office space.CSW: The 1909 picture in the book I linked to in my previous comment makes it clear that the Temple Theatre was in the taller building next door to the one with the bay window.
The cars in the photo recently uploaded here shows that there was still a theater in the building around 1940. That indicates that the proposed theater projects of 1913 and 1921 were probably never carried out (unless there was once a third theater at Caro, or if one of them was the original Strand Theatre.)
My second indented quote in the previous comment should start with “VAN LEYEN” (I want the edit function back!)
Also, I see that Street View is currently set on the Masonic Temple building, which is across the street and up the block from 137 State Street. Many towns had houses called the Temple Theatre that were located in Masonic Temple buildings, but Caro does not appear to have been one of them. The building at 137 is where the Temple Theatre was located from 1909 until at least 1913.
Maybe we don’t know where this theater was, but we now know who operated it in the 1920s and 1930s. A December 25, 1942, item in the Cass City Chronicle notes the 50th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. F. H. Schuckert, who “…came to Caro in 1920 to operate the Temple Theatre, which they sold a few years ago.” As of 1942, Mr. Schukert and his son operated the Cass Theatre in Cass City and other eastern Michigan theaters the item doesn’t name.
The February 5, 1921, issue of The American Contractor has this item about a proposed theater in Caro, but I don’t know if the project was carried out:
The January, 1921, issue of The Michigan Architect and Engineer also mentions the project:If this project was carried out, maybe the Temple Theatre moved from one location to another in 1921, which would account for the conflicting street locations. While I haven’t been able to confirm that the project was actually built, if it was built it wasn’t the building shown at Water Winter Wonderland. That building (which looks about 25 feet wide) was the original Temple Theatre, according to the caption of the photo on page 30 of The Caro Area, by Marcia M. Dievendorf, Patricia E. Frazer, and Mark O. Keller. The caption says that the Temple opened at that location in 1909, and was the first movie theater in Caro.To add more confusion, the February 8, 1913, issue of Construction News carried another item about plans by the Temple Theatre Company:
Again, I’ve found no confirmation that this project was carried out, or, if it was, that it was not just a second theater for the same owners, in which case it most likely would have operated a different name. On the other hand, maybe the Temple operated in three different locations over the years: the building at 137 State Street from 1909 to 1913, at Frank and Almer Streets from 1913 to 1921, and another unknown location from 1921 on.Google Street View reveals that the corner of Frank and Almer Streets is where the American Legion Hall is now located (110 W. Frank Street.) Perhaps the 1913 Temple Theatre project was carried out, but I can’t tell from Street View how old the Legion Hall building might be. It doesn’t look like it would date from 1913, but it could have been extensively remodeled.
Wherever the mysterious Temple Theatre was at the time, it suffered a fire in 1934, not 1959. It was a “25 Years Ago” feature in the January 29, 1959, issue of the Cass City Chronicle that said that an overheated furnace in the Temple Theatre had destroyed the theater’s furnishings and the household goods of the proprietor, F. H. Schuckert, who lived on the second floor. The 1934 event was noted in an issue of Michigan Manufacturer and Financial Record that year.
I’ve found no evidence that the Temple Theatre was still operating as late as 1959. The most recent mention of it I’ve found is an ad in the theater listings section of the Cass City Chronicle of March 21, 1947. It was showing two “B” pictures, a murder mystery and a western, and had a listing only for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, while the Strand listed three single-feature programs of “A” pictures over the next week. It’s likely that the Temple didn’t survive into the CinemaScope era. Small theaters, especially part-time, late-run and “B” houses in small towns, were closed by the thousands in the mid-1950s because they couldn’t afford the new wide-screen equipment, if they even had room for wide screens.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that Al Hauetter was the architect for the 1937 remodeling of the Sun Theatre. David and Noelle’s list of known Boller theaters lists the Sun Theatre in Kansas City as a 1941 remodeling project. Why the house was remodeled twice in four years I don’t know.
The 1941 project might have been a belated exterior remodeling, since in the 1937 photo from Boxoffice it looks like in Hauetter’s remodeling the old front was retained and merely given a new paint job. But without a photo from 1941 or later there’s no way of telling if the house got a new front in 1941.
The church that now occupies the building has a wooden false front that covers the upper portion of the facade, and the lower portion is mostly covered in some kind of stone veneer that might date from the 1940s but might be later.
The NRHP document lostmemory links to says that the Plaza Theatre replaced another house of the same name that had operated on the site for one year, but doesn’t say what happened to the earlier theater. If you compare the photo of the Music Box in the NRHP document with the 1940 photo of the Plaza in the Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to, the basic structure of the marquee is the same.
The Boxoffice article says that the Plaza Theatre was 25x120 feet in size, while the NRHP document says that the current Plaza is approximately 50x110 feet. It looks to me like the owners of the Plaza might have decided that they had underestimated the potential demand when they built the house in 1940, so they expanded the theater in 1942. Of course it’s also possible that some disaster befell the 1940 building, but either way it’s obvious that the 1940 marquee was retained on the 1942 Plaza.