Biograph Theater
2433 N. Lincoln Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60657
2433 N. Lincoln Avenue,
Chicago,
IL
60657
33 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 136 comments
The marquee is now up and windows are in. The re-lighting ceremony will be tonight. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is quite historically accurate. These are the issues I saw: The new typeface for ‘Biograph’ is correct, but the outer ribbon as shown in Dillinger-era photos was evidently two distinctly colored thin ribbons, as opposed to the one thick one it is now. I’m guessing one ribbon was likely red and one yellow. The underside of the canopy is done in black semi-corrugated metal, as in the last iteration, but old photos as well as uncoverings during the removal of the old marquee show it was smooth and white. The Essaness lettering was neonized; the Victory Gardens lettering is not. The lettering boards are white movable lettering where the originals were reverse lettering. The new box office is in again and looks pretty good. So do the windows. The poster area is dark gray textured cement over sheetrock where vintage photos show what is likely glazed brick and poster cases. Maybe they’ll be putting up poster cases over that tomorrow, but that wouldn’t be accurate to the Dillinger-era anyway. The bases of the support piers should be green pulsichrome terra cotta to look like granite, but are instead painted. Overall it looks nice, and fresh, and certainly a major improvement, but it’s disingenuous to call it historically accurate, because it just isn’t.
I remember going here to see that Eddie Murphy/Red Fox gangster movie. Can’t remember the name now. It was after Cineplex Odeon spent some money on the place. Lobby was modernized (with smooth surfaces and lots of neon decoration) but the large auditorium still retained it’s original details (albeit under grey paint). New seating, new carpet. I think they added two cinemas in what had been a ballroom upstairs. Classic marquee and box office were still there. Sound was good in the main auditorium. One of my better movie-going recollections from the old days.
Well as it turned out there was only ever on front face of the marquee, it was just painted over again and again. The sides and bottom were basically added onto twice, and punched through to get to the electrical feed. Those seem to have been recreated pretty close to what was there before, looking the same, but making the marquee wider and lower. The interior was very badly damaged from years of faulty roof drainage running through it. There was quite a lot of rust and it was structurally unsound. Interestingly, it was not actually attached to the building. It was mainly held up by the cables from above and the whole marquee slid into a pocket in the face of the building and just rested there.
The statue is in the electrical room in the south east corner of the building. We did not have a certificate of occupancy for that portion of the building, so you couldn’t get to it. It will not be in a public area, but I could walk you through if you’d like. And yes, that is the same area as the photos.
Sorry to have missed you Saturday, I was there from 3:30 on.
The facade is already looking far better with the cleaning and tuckpointing. Could you tell us a little more about what was found with the three marquees? The first one I assume was a plain canopy, and the third the one that is familiar to us, but what was the second? I was volunteering there saturday and no one seemed to know. I also somehow missed the Terra Cotta statue, where is that located? And is the blacked-out ceiling moulding in the entry vestibule one of the pieces in the above photos? Thanks.
Also, if you e-mail me i’d be happy to provide you with the photos I have.
It’s too bad there wasn’t more to be salvaged, but there are at least a handful of similar theaters around that are more or less still there, like the Calo, Lakeshore, Logan, Lakeside, Rosewood, Pickford, and Peerless.
It is true that the interior has been completely redone and those features are gone (except for the two pieces Brian refers to above – the terra cotta statue he refers to is the last link he included in his comment, the lady with the shield – it is still in it’s original location. The facade is a different story – we are working to restore it in a historically accurate manner to the 1930s look. We are replacing the black tile that was added in the eighties with storefront as it originally was. The rest will be cleaned and repaired as needed to get us back to that 30s look.
Here is a set of photos on flickr taken during the demolition. I think these are the features Tracy N referred to earlier. I think one part of these is still there, although now hidden partially by black paint and a ‘cloud’ ceiling decoration. Otherwise none of the original interior remains except for a terra cotta statue that was salvaged.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/47636110@N00/5591005/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47636110@N00/5591004/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47636110@N00/5590995/
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Here is an article with one of the better historical views of it that i’ve seen.
Here is a story about the work. Looks like they’re at least going to try fixing some historic features. I just don’t really even care anymore.
Brian, the photos at that link looks like it was taken before CO took over.
Just receved news about the Biograph the marquee(as seen in picture in description) is being removed and the theatre is to be renamed something like Victory Gardens At the Biograph. A new marquee is to be installed work crews were out their to day removing it.
I saw it on WGN-TV ch9 on the 9pm news cast.
The Chicago Historical Musueium from what i understand is in talkes to buy the marquee. The Biograph is on the National Regestary of Historical Places. Just thought you might want to know that information thank you for you time :)
Here is a profile from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency’s HAARGIS system. It includes a small picture. Make sure to click the background information link to fully understand WHY it was put on the Register. Here is another that seems to be describing another building entirely but includes another picture.
Here is a profile from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency’s HAARGIS system. It includes a small picture.Here is another that seems to be describing another building entirely but includes another picture.
This really was the best turn of events for the long term future of the theater. There was no practical way that anyone was going to be able to keep it as a movie theater. Sure, they could restore it as a movie theater, but it would of cost a fortune to do so, and once the novelty wore off, it would of gone right back to being a failing business. Noone was going to take that on.
As for the inside being gutted, it’s not like there was all kinds of ornate interiors to be saved. The place had been done over so many times, there really wasn’t even anything left to save. The marquee was really the only thing that was ever that striking about the place, and as long as that is restored and maintained, I feel it’s a win-win-win, for the Theater, for the Victory Gardens, and for the neighborhood. To me, the only options were for a project such as the current one to be undertaken or for the theater to have remained vacant and continued to fall into further and further disrepair.
For those who were talking about Village’s short reign, my favorite part was when they left after their half-ass rennovation, they took everything they could with them — even the lightbulbs. If you look at the marquee today, you can see that all of the lightbulbs except for the top few rows were pulled out. The only reason that the top row’s still there is that the workers they had doing it couldn’t reach them from their scaffolding. It was pretty funny, I was watching them doing it.
This has nothing to do with the Biograph, but since we’re discussing chicago landmarks, I think it’s appropriate. I think I found the house you were talking about. The first designated landmark demolished, the 1851 Rincker house, which stood opposite of Superdawg – now a parking lot for a dunkin donuts, I think – was demolished in 1980 following a suspicious, probably-arson fire (which only destroyed the interior of the salvageable building). It was the second-oldest in the city, and the only remaining example of German Gothic Revival architecture in Chicago, built of thick mud brick faced in timber. Interestingly, the demo permit for that was only issued as a result of an address mix-up, the same thing that happened with the Hayes-Healy gym on depaul last year (although that was not a landmark). 25 years, and they still haven’t figured out to list every concievable address of landmarks. As a footnote, prior to the present landmarks commission, an earlier 1957 organization with no enforcement power had designated 38 landmarks, 7 of which were later destroyed (Sullivan’s Garrick, Sullivan house, Meyer, and Stock Exchange; the Edison shop; the Cable building; and the Leiter I.)
Oh, they will. They’ve always used the marquee in their campaigns, etc, and continue to. And that is also protected under the landmarking. I’ll look into the farm house thing, that sounds totally unfamiliar to me. And I suppose i’ll drop my objection to the remodeling of the entrance, because poking my head inside I now see an ornate metal ceiling (or maybe just part of the original marquee) is visible where that had been.
Brian W, I am sure that more than one Chicago Landmark has bitten the dust. One was a farm house that was on the NW side near Devon and Milwaukee. It was about as old as the Clarke House on Indiana Ave. It actually had an “Indian Escape” room. In the late 1970s, it was bulldozed in the middle of the night so that the property owners could build a Dominick’s Foods.
But I digress. On another note, do you know if Victory Gardens is going to keep the Biograph name and the marquee? I think we can agree that at least THAT should be retained.
As far as I know, the only declared Chicago Landmark that has been demolished was the McCarthy building on Block 37. The Chicago landmarking should prevent issuance of permit without review to certify that it would not destroy the character of a landmark (which I would argue has happened here, which i’ll explain shortly). The interior of the Biograph, for whatever reason, is NOT among the protected interiors list [url=http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/Tours/Interiors.html]here[/url}. Notice the Chicago, Uptown, and New Regal are. National Register protections prevent federal or state encroachment on historic properties, I believe. But in any case, the exterior should be protected. One of the things removed when the lobby was gutted inculded a deco “BIOGRAPH” sign above the doorway, which had been enclosed in the 80s when the doorway was moved forward to include the box office. It was an exterior component, though, and I think that may constitute an exterior alteration.
Brian Wolf,
I see your point, and yes there is a lot of history attached to the Biograph. And I’ll not dispute you that Soldier Field looks terrible (it looks like somebody plopped one stadium down into another).
But as your message states, there probably was a lot of political wheeling and dealing going on. This same sort of wheeling and dealing has done in other supposedly landmark buildings too and my point was that I’d rather see the place used as a performing arts facility of some sort rather than be demolished or turned into condos.
Also a lot of former cinemas have enjoyed successful second lives as live theatres.
In an earlier message by you, you state that the ownership shuffle didn’t help either. As you know, the place went from Cineplex Odeon to Loews-Cineplex to Meridien to Village.
Here is the article from when it was recieving city landmark status.
No, it is not. It is on both the National Register of Historic Places (since 1984) and is a designated Chicago Landmark, giving it two layers of protection for the exterior, so it could not have been torn down easily at all, and earlier plans for its city landmarking would have landmarked the lobby as well. Who knows what political deals led to that part being dropped. Who cares if it’s used for theatrical purposes? The Biograph was always first and foremost a movie house. Biograph, after all, was one of the top silent film studios. If it’s gutted either way, with nothing left of the old interior, what’s the difference? Look again at The Chicago Landmark page. It says that in addition to the Dillinger connection (though the building he was actually shot at was torn down in the last 5 years; there’s a Qdoba there now) it was chosen as typical of early theater construction. For the Natipnal Register, it was named as significant in the areas of Performing Arts (as an early movie house) and Social History (Dillinger). The Biograph has lost what made it historically interesting as a movie house and now Zacek wants to ignore anything that made it historic in the gangster era. So I ask again, why move into a historic landmark if you’re only interest is in destroying that history? It’s almost the same thing as what happened at Soldier Field.
Because if Victory Gardens didn’t move in, it would be likely that the former Biograph would be torn down or gutted for retail use (i.e. not used for theatrical purposes).
The Depaulia newspaper printed an article on the Biograph project this week; it is not online yet, but it included several photos showing the project. The theatre is indeed 100% gutted. Quote VG’s head, Dennis Zacek, “We are doing our best to move forward past this particular period in Chicago history.” Which begs the question, Why move into a historic landmark?
The poster cases, concession stand, and marble tile are also very CO.
Yeah, I remember that carpet at Burnham Plaza and McClurg Court. I was going to go to the Biograph a few years ago, but it never happened.
And here’s a 2003 photo from the Cinematour website. The carpet definitely says “1980s Cineplex-Odeon.”
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