The September 6, 1913, issue of Real Estate Record and Builders Guide said that architect L. F. Schillinger was taking bids for a brick motion picture theater to be built for Edward Butt and Henry Freise. The 45x113-foot building was to be on the south side of Fulton Street, 57 feet east of Hale Avenue. That’s the location of the Norwood Theatre, but the date doesn’t match up with the November, 1914, building permits mentioned in previous comments. If the project was delayed for a year, it’s possible that Schillinger’s original plans were abandoned.
The Webster Theatre originally had seating all on one floor. About 1919, a balcony was added. The expansion led to a demand from the city fire commissioner for increased fire protection, and architect Harry T. Howell filed an appeal with the Board of Appeals on behalf of the owners, Wardwin Realty Company, on January 16, 1920. The minutes of the meeting at which the appeal was granted include this description of the theater:
“…the building is fireproof, one story and balcony in height, 57 ft. 6 in. by 150 ft. in area, occupied as a theatre for moving pictures with 881 seats in the first story and 287 seats in the balcony, a total of 1,168 seats….”
From Google Street View, it looks like the upper portion of the building that contained the balcony has been demolished.
It looks like A. Stockhammer’s involvement in this theater project ended soon after the notice in the April issue of The American Architect was published, and the new developer, Isaac Miller, switched architects.
Minutes of a May 27, 1919, meeting of the NYC Board of Appeals say that permission was granted for a theater to be built on the property at 1408-1420 St. Johns Place, Brooklyn. The application had been made on May 5 by R. Thomas Short, on behalf of owner Isaac Miller.
The minutes of a December 9, 1919, meeting of the Board of Appeals establish that R. Thomas Short was the architect of the theater then under construction at 1408-1420 St. Johns Place.
The April 11, 1914, issue of Real Estate Record and Builders Guide has an item that must be about this theater:
“WASHINGTON ST, e s, 27 n High st. 1-sty brick stores and moving picture show, 37x100, gravel roof: cost, $10,000 ; owner, Jacob Somers, East 3d st and Neptune av: architect, Geo.
Suess, 2966 West 29th st. Plan No. 1949.”
Cezar Del Valle’s post about the Pearl Theatre at Theatre Talks cites an April 11, 1914, Brooklyn Eagle item saying that a theater was to built on Broadway 75 feet east of Eastern Parkway for Herman Weingarten. Del Valle’s Brooklyn Theatre Index identifies the architect as Albert Kunzi, and says the house operated as the Pearl Theatre from August, 1914, until 1929. The post includes a photo of the building that currently has the address 1903-1905 Broadway, but I don’t think the theater was in that building. I suspect that the address 1903 has been shifted to that building at some point.
The “Theatres” section of the April 11, 1914, issue of Real Estate Record and Builders Guide has this item about the same project:
“BROADWAY, n s, 35 e Eastern Parkway, 1-sty brick moving picture show, 42.8x100, slag roof; cost, $10,000; owner, Herman Weingarten,
676 Humboldt st; architect, Albert C. Kunzi, 182
Harman st. Plan No. 1973.”
Both publications appear to have gotten the exact location of the building wrong. 1901 Broadway is west of Eastern Parkway, east of DeSalles Place. I doubt there would have been a theater east of Eastern Parkway, as a spur of the elevated railroad runs across the property at that location.
A 1919 item in The American Contractor, about another theater being built for Herman Weingarten, gives his address as 1901 Broadway. Perhaps he had his office in the Pearl Theatre at that time.
After some digging, I’ve discovered that the Parthenon was designed by architect Harry A. Yarish. Yarish designed a couple of projects for Weingarten, but so far the Normandy/Carver is the only Weingarten house I’ve found attributed to Montrose Morris Sons.
The 1920 edition of the Bulletin of the Board of Standards and Appeals of the City of New York contained an item about the theater at 329-339 Wyckoff Avenue in (then) Brooklyn. The architect, Harry A. Yarish, had filed an appeal on behalf of the owner, Herman Weingarten, seeking a modification in the fire commissioner’s demands about a standpipe in the theater. The item includes a partial description of the building:
“…the building is fireproof, one story and mezzanine in height, 104 ft. 3 5/8 in. by 123 ft. 4 l/2 in. in area in the first story and 73 ft. 3 5/8 in. by 123 ft. 4 ½ in. in area
above; occupied as a motion picture theatre, the auditorium seating 1,700 persons; with three stores on Wyckoff avenue separated from the auditorium by fire walls, and a store on Palmetto street at the screen end of the theatre having an entrance into the lobby; occupied in the mezzanine for toilet rooms, offices and picture booth; there being located at the rear of the theatre, a platform with a toilet room on one side and an organ room on the other, with a doorway to the platform from each room… appellant claims there is no stage or scenery….”
Yarish’s appeal was dated June 26, 1920. As the item says that the building was “…occupied as a… theatre….” it had most likely opened earlier that year.
The Lorin Theatre was completely rebuilt in 1916. That year’s September 23 issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Lorin had opened on Saturday, June 24. The old theater had been closed on March 5 and demolished.
An article about Spokane’s movie theaters in the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World had this to say about the Casino Theatre:
“The Casino theater was opened in 1907 by the late John H. Clemmer, a pioneer in the moving picture industry in the northwest. Upon his death in 1911, Dr. Howard S. Clemmer, his son, took it over and managed it until last year when he opened the new Clemmer theater. Will T. Reed is now managing the place, which is owned by the Clemmer estate.”
A 1919 issue of The American Architect said that Columbus architect F. L. Packard was designing a theater and store building for H. A. Marting, to be built at Ironton, Ohio. The project was to cost $100.000. Putting this together with the other information I cited in my earlier comment, I’d say this item surely referred to the Marlow Theatre project.
An earlier comment mentioned William R. Walker & Sons as architects for the conversion of the church into the Scenic Theatre. The same firm designed an expansion and alterations for the theater in 1919, according to an item in one issue of The American Architect that year. The Google Books scan is missing the page with the issue date on it, but the page with the item is marked as Vol. CXV, No. 2250, which should have been published in February.
This 2010 article in The Day gave the name of the architect of the Capitol Theatre as W. H. Lowe. I’ve been unable to find anything about Connecticut architects named either W. H. Lowe or W. H. Lane on the Internet, but I suspect that the author of the article got the name right.
This page from the Brownstoner weblog provides a brief history of the Normandy Theatre, which was built for Herman Weingarten in 1919, and was designed by the architectural firm Montrose Morris Sons.
The Utica is the only theater in the neighborhood that fits the timing and description of the proposed house mentioned in an April, 1919 issue of The American Architect:
:“A. Stockhammer, 1368 St. Johns Place, is having plans prepared by Carlson & Wiseman, Architects, 226 Henry Street, for two story theater, 100 x 120 ft., brick and steel, on St. Johns Place and Schenectady Avenue. $150,000.”
An item in the July 30, 1910, issue of The American Contractor said that Cincinnati architectural firm C. C. & E. A. Weber were working on plans for a theater at 6th and Monmouth Streets in Newport for J. J. Ryan. The project was to cost $45,000.
An earlier issue of the same publication had listed a smaller version of the same project, to cost only $10,000 and seat fewer than 500, but the plans were apparently scaled up. The Weber’s firm designed a number of theaters, including the Orpheum (RKO Orpheum) in Cincinnati and the Hiland Theatre in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. In 1910, they were also designing a theater at St. Louis for Ryan & Cornelius, the same brokerage firm behind the Temple Theatre project, but I’ve been unable to track down which St. Louis house this was. In 1917, the firm designed a theater at Bluefield, West Virginia, but again I’ve been unable to discover its name, or whether it was actually built.
There’s no evidence that either of the Weber brothers had any formal architectural training, and it is known that at least some of their major works were designed by employees or associates of the firm. This might have been the case with these theaters as well.
The July 16, 1910, issue of The American Contractor said that construction contracts had been let for a 7-storey office building and theater on South Salina Street in Syracuse. This had to have been the Empire Theatre.
The item said that the architects and engineers for the project were Taber & Baxter. I’ve found references to architect Wellington W. Taber, but haven’t found Mr. Baxter’s full name, or discovered if he was also an architect or was the engineer with the firm.
From what I’ve been able to puzzle out from a number of fragments in a long list of sources, a theater called the Temple was built on this site by a William Cahill in 1914, and was designed by a local architect named James A. Randall. In the late 1920s, it was leased to the Schine circuit, and in 1929 it was either remodeled or rebuilt to plans by Thomas Lamb, and became the Paramount.
The office building in front of the theater was called the Cahill Block, and dated from 1913-1914. The Temple Theatre’s auditorium seated about 1,200, so at the very least it had to have been expanded if it was converted into the larger Paramount. At least one source implies, though doesn’t state explicitly, that the Temple was demolished and replaced, while other sources imply, but don’t explicitly state, that the Temple was only remodeled.
I’m hoping somebody will be able to come up with other sources that solve this puzzle. I’ve pretty much exhausted the sources available on the Internet.
Various 1910 issues of The American Contractor had news about this theater, which was an existing music hall that was being remodeled and expanded. Some of the items mention J. B. Harris of Pittsburgh and Daniel Butler of Cincinnati being involved in the Family Theater & Amusement Company. Architects for the $25,000 project were Kennedy & Adkins.
The photo of the facade I uploaded was originally part of the biennial exhibit of the Washington State chapter of the AIA, held in Seattle in April, 1922. It was included in a portfolio of photos from the exhibit published in the May, 1922, issue of the San Francisco-based journal The Architect and Engineer. The magazine is in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library, which scanned and uploaded the issue to the Internet Archive.
This was the only photo of the Pantages in the portfolio, though there might have been others in the exhibit itself. The magazine does not credit the source of the photo, but it was most likely provided for the exhibit by the office of the architect, B. Marcus Priteca, who was a member of the Washington chapter of the AIA.
If you’d like a larger version of the scan, go to this link. You can enlarge the scan by clicking on the + icon in the toolbar at the lower right corner of the page. The scan can be made quite large before printing or digital artifacts begin showing up.
The Film Daily of March 9, 1925, said that Charles Ferguson had opened the new, 1500-seat Copeland Theatre. The only location given was Pittsburgh, though.
North Braddock, which Google Maps places southeast of Braddock, doesn’t appear to have a Fourth Street. Google Maps is fetching a street view of Fourth Street in Turtle Creek, some distance east of North Braddock. I’ve been unable to figure out where the theater was, but I’m guessing it was somewhere around either Braddock Avenue or Hawkins Avenue, in the northern part of Braddock, as most of the rest of Fourth Street appears to be residential. The name of a cross street near the theater would be a big help.
The October 11, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World said that F. E. and W. S. Ketter, managers of the recently-opened Cozy Picture Palace in Bellefontaine, also had the “picture privilege” at the Grand Opera House.
Volume 1 of Memoirs of the Miami Valley, published in 1919, says that the Opera House opened on December 23, 1880, and was designed by Toledo architect D. W. Gibbs.
The design of this theater is usually attributed to architect Philip Edmunds, but the book A Guide To the Gilded Age in Westchester, published by the Hudson River Museum, cites an item in a contemporary issue of New York Real Estate Record and Guide which names Theodore W. E. De Lemos and Ernest W. Cordes as the actual architects. The firm of De Lemos & Cordes was formed in 1884.
The Grace Theatre presented vaudeville as well as movies in its early years. In her 1959 memoir Early Havoc, actress June Havoc recalled the Grace Theatre as one of the venues her family’s vaudeville act played. Havoc’s older sister achieved fame in her own right as stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and young June was immortalized in the musical Gypsy as Baby June and Dainty June, the star of the struggling vaudeville act put together by her ambitious mother, Rose.
I’ve found a passing reference to the State Theatre in Winona from 1927, and an item about the reopening of the Winona Theatre in the November 30, 1929, issue of Movie Age said that improvements costing $5,000 were being made to the projection room of “…the atmospheric State Theatre in Winona.”
The September 6, 1913, issue of Real Estate Record and Builders Guide said that architect L. F. Schillinger was taking bids for a brick motion picture theater to be built for Edward Butt and Henry Freise. The 45x113-foot building was to be on the south side of Fulton Street, 57 feet east of Hale Avenue. That’s the location of the Norwood Theatre, but the date doesn’t match up with the November, 1914, building permits mentioned in previous comments. If the project was delayed for a year, it’s possible that Schillinger’s original plans were abandoned.
The Webster Theatre originally had seating all on one floor. About 1919, a balcony was added. The expansion led to a demand from the city fire commissioner for increased fire protection, and architect Harry T. Howell filed an appeal with the Board of Appeals on behalf of the owners, Wardwin Realty Company, on January 16, 1920. The minutes of the meeting at which the appeal was granted include this description of the theater:
From Google Street View, it looks like the upper portion of the building that contained the balcony has been demolished.It looks like A. Stockhammer’s involvement in this theater project ended soon after the notice in the April issue of The American Architect was published, and the new developer, Isaac Miller, switched architects.
Minutes of a May 27, 1919, meeting of the NYC Board of Appeals say that permission was granted for a theater to be built on the property at 1408-1420 St. Johns Place, Brooklyn. The application had been made on May 5 by R. Thomas Short, on behalf of owner Isaac Miller.
The minutes of a December 9, 1919, meeting of the Board of Appeals establish that R. Thomas Short was the architect of the theater then under construction at 1408-1420 St. Johns Place.
The April 11, 1914, issue of Real Estate Record and Builders Guide has an item that must be about this theater:
Cezar Del Valle’s post about the Pearl Theatre at Theatre Talks cites an April 11, 1914, Brooklyn Eagle item saying that a theater was to built on Broadway 75 feet east of Eastern Parkway for Herman Weingarten. Del Valle’s Brooklyn Theatre Index identifies the architect as Albert Kunzi, and says the house operated as the Pearl Theatre from August, 1914, until 1929. The post includes a photo of the building that currently has the address 1903-1905 Broadway, but I don’t think the theater was in that building. I suspect that the address 1903 has been shifted to that building at some point.
The “Theatres” section of the April 11, 1914, issue of Real Estate Record and Builders Guide has this item about the same project:
Both publications appear to have gotten the exact location of the building wrong. 1901 Broadway is west of Eastern Parkway, east of DeSalles Place. I doubt there would have been a theater east of Eastern Parkway, as a spur of the elevated railroad runs across the property at that location.A 1919 item in The American Contractor, about another theater being built for Herman Weingarten, gives his address as 1901 Broadway. Perhaps he had his office in the Pearl Theatre at that time.
After some digging, I’ve discovered that the Parthenon was designed by architect Harry A. Yarish. Yarish designed a couple of projects for Weingarten, but so far the Normandy/Carver is the only Weingarten house I’ve found attributed to Montrose Morris Sons.
The 1920 edition of the Bulletin of the Board of Standards and Appeals of the City of New York contained an item about the theater at 329-339 Wyckoff Avenue in (then) Brooklyn. The architect, Harry A. Yarish, had filed an appeal on behalf of the owner, Herman Weingarten, seeking a modification in the fire commissioner’s demands about a standpipe in the theater. The item includes a partial description of the building:
Yarish’s appeal was dated June 26, 1920. As the item says that the building was “…occupied as a… theatre….” it had most likely opened earlier that year.The Lorin Theatre was completely rebuilt in 1916. That year’s September 23 issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Lorin had opened on Saturday, June 24. The old theater had been closed on March 5 and demolished.
An article about Spokane’s movie theaters in the July 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World had this to say about the Casino Theatre:
A 1919 issue of The American Architect said that Columbus architect F. L. Packard was designing a theater and store building for H. A. Marting, to be built at Ironton, Ohio. The project was to cost $100.000. Putting this together with the other information I cited in my earlier comment, I’d say this item surely referred to the Marlow Theatre project.
An earlier comment mentioned William R. Walker & Sons as architects for the conversion of the church into the Scenic Theatre. The same firm designed an expansion and alterations for the theater in 1919, according to an item in one issue of The American Architect that year. The Google Books scan is missing the page with the issue date on it, but the page with the item is marked as Vol. CXV, No. 2250, which should have been published in February.
This 2010 article in The Day gave the name of the architect of the Capitol Theatre as W. H. Lowe. I’ve been unable to find anything about Connecticut architects named either W. H. Lowe or W. H. Lane on the Internet, but I suspect that the author of the article got the name right.
This page from the Brownstoner weblog provides a brief history of the Normandy Theatre, which was built for Herman Weingarten in 1919, and was designed by the architectural firm Montrose Morris Sons.
The Utica is the only theater in the neighborhood that fits the timing and description of the proposed house mentioned in an April, 1919 issue of The American Architect:
An item in the July 30, 1910, issue of The American Contractor said that Cincinnati architectural firm C. C. & E. A. Weber were working on plans for a theater at 6th and Monmouth Streets in Newport for J. J. Ryan. The project was to cost $45,000.
An earlier issue of the same publication had listed a smaller version of the same project, to cost only $10,000 and seat fewer than 500, but the plans were apparently scaled up. The Weber’s firm designed a number of theaters, including the Orpheum (RKO Orpheum) in Cincinnati and the Hiland Theatre in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. In 1910, they were also designing a theater at St. Louis for Ryan & Cornelius, the same brokerage firm behind the Temple Theatre project, but I’ve been unable to track down which St. Louis house this was. In 1917, the firm designed a theater at Bluefield, West Virginia, but again I’ve been unable to discover its name, or whether it was actually built.
There’s no evidence that either of the Weber brothers had any formal architectural training, and it is known that at least some of their major works were designed by employees or associates of the firm. This might have been the case with these theaters as well.
The July 16, 1910, issue of The American Contractor said that construction contracts had been let for a 7-storey office building and theater on South Salina Street in Syracuse. This had to have been the Empire Theatre.
The item said that the architects and engineers for the project were Taber & Baxter. I’ve found references to architect Wellington W. Taber, but haven’t found Mr. Baxter’s full name, or discovered if he was also an architect or was the engineer with the firm.
From what I’ve been able to puzzle out from a number of fragments in a long list of sources, a theater called the Temple was built on this site by a William Cahill in 1914, and was designed by a local architect named James A. Randall. In the late 1920s, it was leased to the Schine circuit, and in 1929 it was either remodeled or rebuilt to plans by Thomas Lamb, and became the Paramount.
The office building in front of the theater was called the Cahill Block, and dated from 1913-1914. The Temple Theatre’s auditorium seated about 1,200, so at the very least it had to have been expanded if it was converted into the larger Paramount. At least one source implies, though doesn’t state explicitly, that the Temple was demolished and replaced, while other sources imply, but don’t explicitly state, that the Temple was only remodeled.
I’m hoping somebody will be able to come up with other sources that solve this puzzle. I’ve pretty much exhausted the sources available on the Internet.
Various 1910 issues of The American Contractor had news about this theater, which was an existing music hall that was being remodeled and expanded. Some of the items mention J. B. Harris of Pittsburgh and Daniel Butler of Cincinnati being involved in the Family Theater & Amusement Company. Architects for the $25,000 project were Kennedy & Adkins.
The photo of the facade I uploaded was originally part of the biennial exhibit of the Washington State chapter of the AIA, held in Seattle in April, 1922. It was included in a portfolio of photos from the exhibit published in the May, 1922, issue of the San Francisco-based journal The Architect and Engineer. The magazine is in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library, which scanned and uploaded the issue to the Internet Archive.
This was the only photo of the Pantages in the portfolio, though there might have been others in the exhibit itself. The magazine does not credit the source of the photo, but it was most likely provided for the exhibit by the office of the architect, B. Marcus Priteca, who was a member of the Washington chapter of the AIA.
If you’d like a larger version of the scan, go to this link. You can enlarge the scan by clicking on the + icon in the toolbar at the lower right corner of the page. The scan can be made quite large before printing or digital artifacts begin showing up.
The Film Daily of March 9, 1925, said that Charles Ferguson had opened the new, 1500-seat Copeland Theatre. The only location given was Pittsburgh, though.
North Braddock, which Google Maps places southeast of Braddock, doesn’t appear to have a Fourth Street. Google Maps is fetching a street view of Fourth Street in Turtle Creek, some distance east of North Braddock. I’ve been unable to figure out where the theater was, but I’m guessing it was somewhere around either Braddock Avenue or Hawkins Avenue, in the northern part of Braddock, as most of the rest of Fourth Street appears to be residential. The name of a cross street near the theater would be a big help.
The March 9, 1925, issue of The Film Daily said that the new Maryland Theatre at Blawnox had been opened. It was owned by David and Muyra Boyd.
The October 11, 1913, issue of The Moving Picture World said that F. E. and W. S. Ketter, managers of the recently-opened Cozy Picture Palace in Bellefontaine, also had the “picture privilege” at the Grand Opera House.
Volume 1 of Memoirs of the Miami Valley, published in 1919, says that the Opera House opened on December 23, 1880, and was designed by Toledo architect D. W. Gibbs.
Here is an early postcard featuring the Opera House Block. Here is a photo from 2006.
Here is the first of five pages of photos depicting the Tarrytown Music Hall.
The design of this theater is usually attributed to architect Philip Edmunds, but the book A Guide To the Gilded Age in Westchester, published by the Hudson River Museum, cites an item in a contemporary issue of New York Real Estate Record and Guide which names Theodore W. E. De Lemos and Ernest W. Cordes as the actual architects. The firm of De Lemos & Cordes was formed in 1884.
The Grace Theatre presented vaudeville as well as movies in its early years. In her 1959 memoir Early Havoc, actress June Havoc recalled the Grace Theatre as one of the venues her family’s vaudeville act played. Havoc’s older sister achieved fame in her own right as stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and young June was immortalized in the musical Gypsy as Baby June and Dainty June, the star of the struggling vaudeville act put together by her ambitious mother, Rose.
I’ve found a passing reference to the State Theatre in Winona from 1927, and an item about the reopening of the Winona Theatre in the November 30, 1929, issue of Movie Age said that improvements costing $5,000 were being made to the projection room of “…the atmospheric State Theatre in Winona.”