The September 9, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World had an item about a Strand Theatre in Athens, but I’m not sure it was the same house:
“The old Palace theater has been remodeled, and is now known as the Strand. This house runs Metro pictures, and is owned by Manning & Wink, who operate several houses in Georgia and Tennessee.”
The Strand building in the various photos looks a bit too modern to have been operating in 1916, though it might have been remodeled again later, of course.
The New Victoria Theatre was built and originally operated by Mitchell Mark, and was one of several Buffalo houses that he and his brother Moe Mark owned. Mark had opened Buffalo’s first movie theater in the basement of the Ellicott Square Building in 1896, and by the time the Victoria opened the Mark brothers were among the country’s leading movie exhibitors, counting among their houses the Strand Theatre in New York City, considered by some theater historians the first true movie palace ever built. A brief article about Mitchell Mark in the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World mentions the Victoria:
“The New Victoria theater, Buffalo, one of the handsomest in the country, is Mr. Mark’s favorite, although he built the New York Strand and other magnificent theaters. It is his idea, cherished largely by himself, and is up to the minute in equipment and construction. The Victoria is located in a fine West Side residential district. In regard to this house Mr. Mark said, ‘The people out here were loyal patrons of my little Victoria theater, my former house in this neighborhood, and I decided to give them one of the handsomest theaters that could be built—the New Victoria.’”
The July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World published an article about the Aristo Theatre. It gives a detailed description of the house and is accompanied by two small photos of the building. It says that the Aristo opened in the latter part of April, 1916.
Here is an item from the August 26, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World which might be about this theater under one of its early names:
:The Evaline theater, at Penn avenue and Evaline street, has been taken over by George Logue, a well known exhibitor of the North Side. New equipment is being installed and the house redecorated in preparation for opening in the near future. The Evaline was built about two years ago by Page Brothers, a real estate firm, and was later sold out to Harry Mintz. It was conducted by Mr. Mintz until last summer; since which time the theater has been dark. The Evaline is a medium sized house and excellently located in a populous residential section.“
The building at 5139 Penn Avenue is obviously very old, so if this was the correct address of the Arcana Theatre I don’t think it has been demolished. It’s a very small building, though, and not what I would call a "medium sized house” as the MPW article called the Evaline Theatre, but perhaps the standards were different in 1916 Pittsburgh.
I’m wondering if Victoria Theatre was just another aka for the Arcana Theatre, at 5139 Penn Avenue? The address 5139 Penn exists, but the building next door to it (the white building in Street View) has the address 5145, which can be read if you zoom in. It seems possible that the address might have shifted, as there is a spread of five possible numbers for the two structures. This seems more likely than that there would have been two small theaters next door to each other.
In any case, both buildings are obviously very old, so I don’t think either the Arcana or the Victoria (assuming it even was a separate theater) has been demolished.
For anyone coming across my earlier comment, Boxoffice decided not to limit access to its archives to subscribers only after all. Anyone can see the scans of nearly 3000 back issues at The Vault.
The name Fischer is currently misspelled in the architect field.
John B. Fischer was for a time the chief designer of the Chicago office of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the Boston firm that succeeded the practice of Henry Hobson Richardson. Fisher continued to practice architecture in Chicago after the firm of Postle & Fischer was dissolved in 1920 or 1921.
According to an item in the August 10, 1921, issue of Engineering and Contracting, architect David E. Postle had recently moved to Los Angeles. He practiced architecture in Southern California for several more years, mostly in partnership with his son George R. Postle. They were especially active in the Glendale and Pasadena areas.
As the original facade of the Inter-Ocean Building was retained in the rebuilding, i’s original architect should also be credited. This blog post about the building (which includes two nice photos) gives his name as W. Carbys Zimmerman.
For some reason, Broan’s link in the previous comment now fetches a photo of the interior of the Juneau Theatre in Milwaukee. Here is a link that should get the photo of the National.
Here is an item about this theater from the March 4, 1922, issue of The Economist, a regional weekly business magazine published in Chicago:
“The National Theater at 6217 to 6223 South Halsted street, 79x124, has been purchased by Harry O. Rabe and James F. Sutter of the Printing firm of Rabe, Sutter & Co., from the Englewood Stock Company, of which Louis Rathje is president, for an indicated $160,000. In addition to the 1,200-seat theater the building contains stores and 17 offices. The National Theater & Amusement Company has the theater leased for a term having seven and one-half years yet to run.”
Thanks to RonP for uploading the current photos of the Valley Theatre’s building. The brickwork on the back wall is certainly characteristic of the 1920s rather than the 1930s, providing more evidence that this is probably the original structure from 1923.
The page still needs to be updated with the building’s modern address, 10818 Valley Mall, to note that it has not been demolished, and to credit Walker & Eisen as the architects.
A brief biography of Edward N. Brown says that he was the partner of George Budde in the opening of the Alcazar Theatre. Brown sold his interest in the project to Budde after about eight months, and then built the Fulton Theatre. In 1916, he opened the Stocking Avenue Theatre. The biography doesn’t give dates for the opening of the Alcazar or the Fulton, but as Brown operated the Fulton for four years, the Alcazar could have been opened as early as 1911, and was probably in operation within a year or two of that at most.
It says he operated the Fulton Theatre for four years before selling it, and devoted his attentions to operating the Stocking Avenue Theatre, so the earliest the Fulton Theatre would have opened was probably 1912, but it was certainly in operation before 1916.
CinemaTour gives the Fulton Theatre the AKA Fulton Vaudette. Vaudette was a popular name for theaters in Grand Rapids during the 1910s, and several houses are listed as Vaudettes in city directories of the period.
A brief biography of Edward N. Brown,original owner of Brown’s Stocking Avenue Theatre, says that he built the house in 1916. Earlier, he had been one of the original partners in the Alcazar Theatre, and had then opened the Fulton Theatre.
Volume 2 of a book in Arcadia Publishing Company’s “Images of America” series, Fostoria, Ohio, by Paul H. Krupp, says that the State Theatre was once known as the Colonial Theatre.
The August 9, 1919, issue of The American Contractor said that additions and alterations were being made to the Colonial Theatre at Fostoria, with plans by Columbus architect Fred W. Elliot.
The Michigan Theatre was apparently a bit older than the author of the 1938 Boxoffice article I cited earlier thought. Here is an item from the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“A new motion picture theater, known as the Michigan theater, and located at Michigan street and Grand avenue, N. E., Grand Rapids, Mich., was recently opened. The owners and operators, G. H. and C. W. Budde, also are owners of the Alcazar theater on Bridge street, N. W. The new picture house is one of the largest of the outlying theaters, having a seating capacity of 650. The decorations of the cosy interior are rose and steel gray, and ample provision has been made for the comfort of the patrons.”
The 1938 photo of the Vogue in Boxoffice has been moved to this link.
Here is an item about this theater from the March 8, 1919, issue of Chicago’s regional business magazine, The Economist:
“Architects Postle & Fischer, 140 South Dearborn street, have completed plans and are receiving bids on the general work for remodeling the former three-story Inter Ocean building, 69x190, Nos. 55 to 59 West Monroe street, into a thoroughly modern motion-picture theater for Harry C. Moir and Wm. S. Barbee. The entire rear portion will be wrecked, and the building reconstructed up from grade, with brick walls and reinforced concrete floor and roof. It will have a seating capacity of 1,000 persons, all on one floor. The design of the interior will be an adaptation of the Spanish renaissance style. The lobby, foyer and spectatorium will be finished in tile, twenty feet high, surmounted by ornamental plaster cornice and ceiling. Special attention has been paid to the color scheme and light effect, which will be unique. An air washing ventilation system and a costly pipe organ will be installed. The improvements are estimated to cost $115,000 to $125,000.”
Andrew Crain Morrison’s highly reliable book Theaters gives the address of the Miami Theatre/May’s Opera House as 207-209 N. Wayne Street, and says that it opened on February 10, 1903, with 1,360 seats.
Memoirs of the Miami Valley, published in 1919, mentions May’s Opera House at the corner of Wayne and Water Streets. The house was built by Charles May and was the largest theater between Dayton and Columbus.
Another source says that May’s was on the northeast corner of Wayne and Water, but this 1913 photo shows that it was on the second lot north of the corner. Today there is a parking lot at that site, so the Miami Theatre has been demolished.
Memoirs also mentions a Bijou Theatre on Ash Street, opened 1903 for vaudeville, a movie house called the Strand, opened in 1915, and the Favorite Theatre, a small movie house on N. Main Street.
The Trio Theatre opened in 1916, according to the September 30 issue of The Moving Picture World that year, though the magazine mistakenly called the theater the Triot. According to a blog post by a former patron of the Adler Theatre, the original owners of the Trio, Kliner, Lang & Scharmann, had operated a hardware business in the building before converting it into a theater. The Trio Theatre can be seen (just barely) in this photo from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
As near as I can tell, the Trio Theatre building has been demolished and replaced by either part of a J. C. Penney store (now sporting the name Penny Court on the facade) or part of the adjacent building housing an enterprise called High Street Salon, Spa, and Travel.
I don’t think that the Piqua Cinema has been demolished. The parking lot side of the building occupied by Readmore’s Hallmark Shop (430 N. Main St.) has the same stair-step pattern in the brick that the wall of the theater has in the American Classic Images photo Chuck linked to in the first comment.
If you move Street View to the Greene Street side of the Hallmark shop, there is a back door to the alley that looks like a theater’s emergency exit. The decorative brickwork on the Main Street facade might be recent, with a retro style, or it might be the original brickwork of the theater, uncovered and restored when the 1969 aluminum false front in the ACI photo was removed.
Unfortunately, the 1970 Boxoffice article about the remodeling of the Piqua Theatre (fresh link here) doesn’t have a “before” photo of the theater. The current facade certainly has a very theater-like configuration, though, as does the whole building, and its style is certainly very 1920s, though I think the parapet is probably a re-creation rather than original, which was probably lost in the 1969 remodeling.
The Wigwam must have been in operation prior to 1921, when the March 18 issue of The Film Daily published the following item:
“To Open Nickel Show
“Muskogee, Okla. — Motion pictures at five and ten cents admission are promised by O. G. Bradshaw, who recently closed a three year lease on the Wigwam. The theater will be remodeled before opening under his management.”
The 1920 rebuilding of the Lorin designed by James Plachek took even longer than the 1916 rebuilding, so it must have been quite extensive. The March 1, 1921, issue of The Film Daily said that the Lorin Theatre had reopened on January 27 after having been closed for four months for rebuilding.
The following item appeared in the February 26, 1921, issue of The Film Daily:
“A 2,500-seat theater and roof garden will be built at 2176-2180 3rd Ave. by Jonas King. The site is 50 by 185 ft. on the southwest corner of E. 119th St. The project will cost $150,000. The structure will be in three stories and will contain meeting rooms and stores. Eugene De Rosa is the architect.”
lostmemory’s comment of July 15, 2008, cits the property record giving the build date of the building as 1921, so it most likely was the Stadium that the item referred to.
In views taken from Third Avenue, Google Street View shows a nearly new building on the southwest corner of the intersection, while in views taken from 119th Street it still shows the old building, which has obviously been demolished since those views were taken. The Stadium is no more.
This theater was in operation prior to 1921. The February 19 issue of The Film Daily that year reported on the start of construction on the house that became the Century Theatre, saying that it was located in between the Highland Theatre in Audubon and the Haddon Heights Theatre, about eight blocks distant.
Here is a 1948 photo of the Strand.
The September 9, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World had an item about a Strand Theatre in Athens, but I’m not sure it was the same house:
The Strand building in the various photos looks a bit too modern to have been operating in 1916, though it might have been remodeled again later, of course.The New Victoria Theatre was built and originally operated by Mitchell Mark, and was one of several Buffalo houses that he and his brother Moe Mark owned. Mark had opened Buffalo’s first movie theater in the basement of the Ellicott Square Building in 1896, and by the time the Victoria opened the Mark brothers were among the country’s leading movie exhibitors, counting among their houses the Strand Theatre in New York City, considered by some theater historians the first true movie palace ever built. A brief article about Mitchell Mark in the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World mentions the Victoria:
Here is a direct link to the PDF file with a photo of the Victoria mentioned in LouB’s comment.The July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World published an article about the Aristo Theatre. It gives a detailed description of the house and is accompanied by two small photos of the building. It says that the Aristo opened in the latter part of April, 1916.
Scan at Google Books.
Here is an item from the August 26, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World which might be about this theater under one of its early names:
The building at 5139 Penn Avenue is obviously very old, so if this was the correct address of the Arcana Theatre I don’t think it has been demolished. It’s a very small building, though, and not what I would call a "medium sized house” as the MPW article called the Evaline Theatre, but perhaps the standards were different in 1916 Pittsburgh.I’m wondering if Victoria Theatre was just another aka for the Arcana Theatre, at 5139 Penn Avenue? The address 5139 Penn exists, but the building next door to it (the white building in Street View) has the address 5145, which can be read if you zoom in. It seems possible that the address might have shifted, as there is a spread of five possible numbers for the two structures. This seems more likely than that there would have been two small theaters next door to each other.
In any case, both buildings are obviously very old, so I don’t think either the Arcana or the Victoria (assuming it even was a separate theater) has been demolished.
For anyone coming across my earlier comment, Boxoffice decided not to limit access to its archives to subscribers only after all. Anyone can see the scans of nearly 3000 back issues at The Vault.
The name Fischer is currently misspelled in the architect field.
John B. Fischer was for a time the chief designer of the Chicago office of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the Boston firm that succeeded the practice of Henry Hobson Richardson. Fisher continued to practice architecture in Chicago after the firm of Postle & Fischer was dissolved in 1920 or 1921.
According to an item in the August 10, 1921, issue of Engineering and Contracting, architect David E. Postle had recently moved to Los Angeles. He practiced architecture in Southern California for several more years, mostly in partnership with his son George R. Postle. They were especially active in the Glendale and Pasadena areas.
As the original facade of the Inter-Ocean Building was retained in the rebuilding, i’s original architect should also be credited. This blog post about the building (which includes two nice photos) gives his name as W. Carbys Zimmerman.
For some reason, Broan’s link in the previous comment now fetches a photo of the interior of the Juneau Theatre in Milwaukee. Here is a link that should get the photo of the National.
Here is an item about this theater from the March 4, 1922, issue of The Economist, a regional weekly business magazine published in Chicago:
Thanks to RonP for uploading the current photos of the Valley Theatre’s building. The brickwork on the back wall is certainly characteristic of the 1920s rather than the 1930s, providing more evidence that this is probably the original structure from 1923.
The page still needs to be updated with the building’s modern address, 10818 Valley Mall, to note that it has not been demolished, and to credit Walker & Eisen as the architects.
A brief biography of Edward N. Brown says that he was the partner of George Budde in the opening of the Alcazar Theatre. Brown sold his interest in the project to Budde after about eight months, and then built the Fulton Theatre. In 1916, he opened the Stocking Avenue Theatre. The biography doesn’t give dates for the opening of the Alcazar or the Fulton, but as Brown operated the Fulton for four years, the Alcazar could have been opened as early as 1911, and was probably in operation within a year or two of that at most.
A brief biography of Edward N. Brown says that he opened the Fulton Theatre. Earlier, he had been one of the original partners in the Alcazar Theatre, and later, in 1916, he opened the Stocking Avenue Theatre.
It says he operated the Fulton Theatre for four years before selling it, and devoted his attentions to operating the Stocking Avenue Theatre, so the earliest the Fulton Theatre would have opened was probably 1912, but it was certainly in operation before 1916.
CinemaTour gives the Fulton Theatre the AKA Fulton Vaudette. Vaudette was a popular name for theaters in Grand Rapids during the 1910s, and several houses are listed as Vaudettes in city directories of the period.
A brief biography of Edward N. Brown,original owner of Brown’s Stocking Avenue Theatre, says that he built the house in 1916. Earlier, he had been one of the original partners in the Alcazar Theatre, and had then opened the Fulton Theatre.
Volume 2 of a book in Arcadia Publishing Company’s “Images of America” series, Fostoria, Ohio, by Paul H. Krupp, says that the State Theatre was once known as the Colonial Theatre.
The August 9, 1919, issue of The American Contractor said that additions and alterations were being made to the Colonial Theatre at Fostoria, with plans by Columbus architect Fred W. Elliot.
The Michigan Theatre was apparently a bit older than the author of the 1938 Boxoffice article I cited earlier thought. Here is an item from the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World:
The 1938 photo of the Vogue in Boxoffice has been moved to this link.Here is an item about this theater from the March 8, 1919, issue of Chicago’s regional business magazine, The Economist:
Here is a slightly better view of the Trio Theatre, though its still partly hidden by the Blodgett Hotel’s entrance portico.
Andrew Crain Morrison’s highly reliable book Theaters gives the address of the Miami Theatre/May’s Opera House as 207-209 N. Wayne Street, and says that it opened on February 10, 1903, with 1,360 seats.
Memoirs of the Miami Valley, published in 1919, mentions May’s Opera House at the corner of Wayne and Water Streets. The house was built by Charles May and was the largest theater between Dayton and Columbus.
Another source says that May’s was on the northeast corner of Wayne and Water, but this 1913 photo shows that it was on the second lot north of the corner. Today there is a parking lot at that site, so the Miami Theatre has been demolished.
Memoirs also mentions a Bijou Theatre on Ash Street, opened 1903 for vaudeville, a movie house called the Strand, opened in 1915, and the Favorite Theatre, a small movie house on N. Main Street.
The Trio Theatre opened in 1916, according to the September 30 issue of The Moving Picture World that year, though the magazine mistakenly called the theater the Triot. According to a blog post by a former patron of the Adler Theatre, the original owners of the Trio, Kliner, Lang & Scharmann, had operated a hardware business in the building before converting it into a theater. The Trio Theatre can be seen (just barely) in this photo from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
As near as I can tell, the Trio Theatre building has been demolished and replaced by either part of a J. C. Penney store (now sporting the name Penny Court on the facade) or part of the adjacent building housing an enterprise called High Street Salon, Spa, and Travel.
I don’t think that the Piqua Cinema has been demolished. The parking lot side of the building occupied by Readmore’s Hallmark Shop (430 N. Main St.) has the same stair-step pattern in the brick that the wall of the theater has in the American Classic Images photo Chuck linked to in the first comment.
If you move Street View to the Greene Street side of the Hallmark shop, there is a back door to the alley that looks like a theater’s emergency exit. The decorative brickwork on the Main Street facade might be recent, with a retro style, or it might be the original brickwork of the theater, uncovered and restored when the 1969 aluminum false front in the ACI photo was removed.
Unfortunately, the 1970 Boxoffice article about the remodeling of the Piqua Theatre (fresh link here) doesn’t have a “before” photo of the theater. The current facade certainly has a very theater-like configuration, though, as does the whole building, and its style is certainly very 1920s, though I think the parapet is probably a re-creation rather than original, which was probably lost in the 1969 remodeling.
The Wigwam must have been in operation prior to 1921, when the March 18 issue of The Film Daily published the following item:
A.H. Blank had recently opened the Strand at Des Moines, according to the March 1, 1921, issue of The Film Daily.
The 1920 rebuilding of the Lorin designed by James Plachek took even longer than the 1916 rebuilding, so it must have been quite extensive. The March 1, 1921, issue of The Film Daily said that the Lorin Theatre had reopened on January 27 after having been closed for four months for rebuilding.
The following item appeared in the February 26, 1921, issue of The Film Daily:
lostmemory’s comment of July 15, 2008, cits the property record giving the build date of the building as 1921, so it most likely was the Stadium that the item referred to.In views taken from Third Avenue, Google Street View shows a nearly new building on the southwest corner of the intersection, while in views taken from 119th Street it still shows the old building, which has obviously been demolished since those views were taken. The Stadium is no more.
This theater was in operation prior to 1921. The February 19 issue of The Film Daily that year reported on the start of construction on the house that became the Century Theatre, saying that it was located in between the Highland Theatre in Audubon and the Haddon Heights Theatre, about eight blocks distant.
The Film Daily of February 9, 1921, said that the Palace Theatre in Athens had opened on February 1. The Palace was a Loew’s house.