As Bryan Krefft’s description of the Shadowland Theatre says that it opened in 1920, I think that the following item from March 20 issue of The American Contractor that year probably concerns this theater:
“Contract Awarded. Theater (M. P.): $25,000. 1 sty. 50x 80. Ellenville. N. Y. Archt. G. W. Betz, 61 John St., Kingston. Owner Ellenville Theater Corp., M. L. Shurter. pres., Ellenville. Gen. contr. let to N D. Higginson Co.. Middletown. N. Y.”
The photos lostmemory linked to show that the theater has a facade in an architectural style common in the 1850s and 1860s. I’d guess that the 50x80 building erected in 1920 was the auditorium, built behind the existing older building, which was adapted as an entrance. Google’s satellite view shows that the dark roof of what must be the auditorium is about 50x80, though it looks like a bit was added to the rear of it,probably when the house was converted for live theater. That part has a white roof.
The correct address for the Norbury Theatre is 73 Center Street. The current occupant of the building is Abe’s Taxi Services, the same outfit that was there in the 1988 photo lostmemory linked to.
A book called “Wawarsing,” by Pamela Kuhlmann, has a postcard photo of this theater postmarked 1913, when it was called Norbury Hall.
The caption says that it became a movie theater in later years, but it doesn’t give the dates. However, the brick and tile front seen in the 1988 photo wasn’t on the building in 1913. The tile looks art deco, and as it was quite likely installed when the hall was converted into a movie house, that probably happened during the late 1920s or early 1930s.
This building is probably very old. The 1913 era facade is of a style that was popular in the 1859s and 1860s, but it looks like it was added onto an even earlier wooden building that could easily date from the late 18th or early 19th century.
I, too, miss the comment preview function, but I miss the ability to search for theaters specifically by their previous names even more.
Google Maps still puts the pin icon for this theater on the wrong stretch of Storey Lane, about half a mile from its actual location, which is way over by Denton Drive. I managed to move the Street View to the theater anyway (take that, Google,) though I got lost in the interchange twice. Had I been actually driving, I’d have have been in a collision for sure.
Florida Memory says that the State Theatre was on the north side of College Avenue between Adams and Monroe. That’s the 100 E. block, and the historical photos show that it was on the lot west of the alley between those two streets. Today the lot is occupied by a tall office building called Highpoint Center, for which LoopNet gives an address of 106 E. College Avenue. That must have been the theater’s address as well.
Florida Memory also says that the second State Theatre opened on September 27, 1934. From the old photos it looks like the Daffin Theatre had actually been next door to the new theater’s site, so it probably had an address of 104 E. College. Now there’s a parking structure on that lot.
Also, I notice that there’s been some confusion surrounding the exact location of this theater (ken mc and Chuck’s comments of June 4, 2006.) The confusion comes from the fact that San Francisco’s numbered streets don’t match up with the address numbers (it’s the same situation as in Manhattan.) The numbered streets begin at the old shoreline of the bay, which was about half a mile inland from where the current shoreline is, but street numbers begin at the Embarcadero, along the modern shoreline. Thus 4th street marks the end of the 700 block and the beginning of the 800 block on Market Street.
The photos ken mc linked to on August 26, 2009, show that the State Theatre was definitely on the southeast corner of 4th and Market. The old skyscraper next door to the theater is the former Humboldt Bank Building, which is still standing at 785 Market.
Kewpie: The theater in the drawing you linked to is the former Loew’s house that is listed at Cinema Treasures as the Warfield Theatre. It was never called the State. It was named for Marcus Loew’s business partner, actor David Warfield, who was born in San Francisco.
You’re right, Kewpie. The 1915 Majestic always had a wide frontage, so the LoC photo depicts a different theater. Shorpy has the story on the photo you found (and includes a bonus photo of the original facade of the 1915 Majestic.) The earlier Majestic was a combination house (movies and vaudeville) opened at 231 Woodward in 1908.
I don’t know if the older Majestic is listed at Cinema Treasures under a later name, or is still missing from the database. If it’s listed under another name it would also have a different address, as Detroit changed its numbering system on January 1, 1921. I’m not positive, but I think that old address 231 Woodward ended up in the 1400 block under the new system. Here’s a page with links to information about Detroit’s 1921 renumbering.
You would probably know better than I would about date, Don. I was in Hollywood only two or three times in the 1970s and early 1980s and only knew about the name change from hearsay, and I haven’t been to the Los Angeles area since 1986. I do remember when the Hawaii closed in 1963, though, as I visited Hollywood frequently during that period, and I was very disappointed that the theater closed before I ever got around to seeing a movie there.
fieldight: The movie you saw in 1978 was probably at the theater down the block which was called the Hawaiian Gardens for while during the 1970s, but is listed at Cinema Treasures as the X 1 & 2 Theatres. The original Hawaii Theatre was definitely converted into the Salvation Army church after being closed in July, 1963.
I don’t think the address of 202 W. Main Street is correct. As can be seen in the Google Street View, the buildings currently at 202-204 W. Main Street are old, obviously predating the demolition of the theater.
I think the Princess had to have been across the street, at 203 W. Main, where there is now a business called the Java Garden, situated in a small, modern building set back behind an open area.
This photo, taken during a 1963 flood, shows the darkened marquee of the Princess at right. It can be seen that it was on a corner lot, which 203 W. Main is. I can’t find any other locations along Main Street that match the situation of the Princess.
KenLayton is correct. The Rex was at the southeast corner of Fourth and Franklin, and the building is still standing. Judging from the configuration of the building’s storefronts, the entrance to the Rex was probably at 408 Franklin Street SE. The wall there is closed up and has been plastered over, and doesn’t quite match the rest of the exterior. The entrance to the Franklin Apartments is adjacent to the south, with an address of 410 Franklin.
Here’s a link to the 1913 article about the Rex in the trade publication The Moving Picture World. There is a photo of the Rex’s entrance at the upper right corner of the page, and its clearly the same building still standing at 4th and Franklin.
The Google Street View above currently shows the State Theatre at Fourth and Washington. It will have to be reset.
The auditorium was still standing when Google’s and Bing’s satellite views were made, but it was in very rough shape. In fact there is shrubbery growing on the roof! In Google’s satellite view I actually thought the building had been demolished, the growth along the edges of the roof is so thick. Some of them appear to be young trees.
If this building hasn’t been at least stabilized since those pictures were taken, I can only imagine how bad its condition must be by now. Once large plants have taken root on a building’s roof, its collapse is very near. I doubt that there’s much hope for the Liberty Theatre’s survival.
A comment on the Noyo Theatre page says that before the Noyo opened Willits also had a 417-seat house called the Willits Theatre. Could that also have been an aka of the Colonial? If the Colonial only occupied half the width of its building it looks to small to have had 417 seats, but if the auditorium was the full width it might have been big enough.
Being on Center Street, the Grand Theatre wouldn’t have been around the corner from the Marlow Theatre. The Marlow was on Third Street just south of Park Avenue, which is the next street south of Center Street.
Odd numbers are on the north sides of streets in Ironton, and the north side of the block of Center Street between Third and Fourth is all parking lot or recent construction. The Grand must have been demolished.
In addition to the Grand and Marlow, and the Ro-Na theaters, Ironton once had a theater called the South Side (or Southside,) built in 1910; an Orpheum Theatre, opened in a former skating rink in 1920; an Empire Theatre, burned in 1920; and the Lyric Theatre, located on Second Street, which can be seen partly underwater in this photo taken during the 1937 flood.
The theater in the photo and in the current Street View is the Ro-Na, not the Marlow. The address of 206 S. Third Street belongs to the Marlow, though. The Marlow’s entrance was on Third just a few doors south of Park Avenue, but the Ro-Na is on 3rd between Vernon and Washington, the next block south.
The Marlow Theatre is adjacent to an office and commercial block called the Marlow Building, which is at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and S. 3rd Street. It once housed a department store on its first two floors and offices above. The theater is fairly large, and its original seating capacity might have been greater than that of the Ro-Na, but it had a rather narrow entrance. The building does not appear to have a stage house, but it must have had a stage of some sort, as I’ve found numerous references to boxing matches being held there during the 1920s.
The Marlow Building and Theatre was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 6, 2008. NRHP classifies the theater’s architectural style as Classical Revival, but does not name an architect or builder. A small photo about halfway down this web page shows the Marlow Theatre at left. The taller building to the right, which has a marquee, was not a theater but a hotel, and has recently been renovated as an apartment building.
A timeline of events in Ironton says that the Marlow Theatre opened in 1920. The May 6, 1919, issue of The Brick and Clay Record has a line saying: “H.A. Marting is taking bids for a large theater and office building at Ironton, Ohio.” Other sources indicate that Marting was one of the backers of the Marlow Theatre project, so the item undoubtedly refers to this theater. The Marlow appears to have closed in 1952, which was three years after the Ro-Na Theatre opened.
The Willits News reported on June 3 this year that the city council had approved a resolution to change the name of Commercial Street to Seabiscuit Parkway. The date the name change will go into effect has not been set.
Ridgewood Ranch, just south of Willits, was the final home of the racehorse Seabiscuit, whose grave on the ranch has become a tourist attraction. The Noyo Theatre hosted a special premier of the movie “Seabiscuit” on the afternoon of July 19, 2003, a few hours before the official world premier took place at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington.
The comment by saps, December 20, 2006, suggests that the Lido Theatre might have been demolished and replaced by an entirely new building. Judging from the bird’s-eye view of the building at Bing Maps, the original theater building’s shell, including the roof, still exists.
The Cinema 4 occupies two buildings, and it looks like the one at the corner of Long Beach Boulevard could be of recent construction, but the original auditorium building still has a gabled roof, the peak of which can be glimpsed in this 1951 photo (the same photo lost memory linked to early in this thread.) An entirely new building would not have that sort of roof.
The photo shows only a small part of the corner building, but it’s clear that it was once lower than the theater. The current street view shows that it is now the same height. My guess would be that the original corner building was demolished, rather than extended upward, and an addition to the theater was built on its site.
I also suspect that, as the theater’s footprint was just about doubled by the addition, its current seating capacity is probably more than the 540 this page currently lists, even taking into consideration the likelihood that the current seats are larger than the Lido’s seats were, and the rows probably spaced farther apart.
Thanks to BillCounter for tracking down the address of the Arcadia Theatre, and its original name. The L.A. County Assessor’s office says that the building at 40 E. Huntington (which would include addresses from 40 to 44) was built in 1947, with an effectively-built date of 1980. As the fire which destroyed the Arcadia Theatre took place in 1942, when wartime building restrictions were imposed, a post-war new construction date of 1947 for the building that replaced it is not surprising.
An item on this page of Boxoffice, December 7, 1964, said that ground had been broken for a new theater at Padanaram Road and Hayestown Avenue. Completion was expected by Memorial Day, 1965. The house was to be called the Cinema, and was to be operated by the Stanley Warner circuit. A rendering of the colonial-style building matches the photo of the Crown Twin on display at CinemaTour.
Google Maps won’t fetch the correct location for this theater unless the phrase “North Street Shopping Center” is removed from the address. 1 Padanaram Road is the address the Internet gives for the Super Foodmart that the overview says replaced the theater.
Rivest’s ultimate list of movie theatres. It’s a useful resource for some purposes, but has only limited information about most of the theaters, and a lot of tentative surmises (usually followed by question marks.)
Boxoffice of December 7, 1964, ran this brief item about the air conditioning system in the new Cobb Center Theatre. There is a photo of the auditorium. The caption places the theater in Marietta rather than Smyrna, but it must be this house.
As Bryan Krefft’s description of the Shadowland Theatre says that it opened in 1920, I think that the following item from March 20 issue of The American Contractor that year probably concerns this theater:
The photos lostmemory linked to show that the theater has a facade in an architectural style common in the 1850s and 1860s. I’d guess that the 50x80 building erected in 1920 was the auditorium, built behind the existing older building, which was adapted as an entrance. Google’s satellite view shows that the dark roof of what must be the auditorium is about 50x80, though it looks like a bit was added to the rear of it,probably when the house was converted for live theater. That part has a white roof.The correct address for the Norbury Theatre is 73 Center Street. The current occupant of the building is Abe’s Taxi Services, the same outfit that was there in the 1988 photo lostmemory linked to.
A book called “Wawarsing,” by Pamela Kuhlmann, has a postcard photo of this theater postmarked 1913, when it was called Norbury Hall.
The caption says that it became a movie theater in later years, but it doesn’t give the dates. However, the brick and tile front seen in the 1988 photo wasn’t on the building in 1913. The tile looks art deco, and as it was quite likely installed when the hall was converted into a movie house, that probably happened during the late 1920s or early 1930s.
This building is probably very old. The 1913 era facade is of a style that was popular in the 1859s and 1860s, but it looks like it was added onto an even earlier wooden building that could easily date from the late 18th or early 19th century.
I, too, miss the comment preview function, but I miss the ability to search for theaters specifically by their previous names even more.
Google Maps still puts the pin icon for this theater on the wrong stretch of Storey Lane, about half a mile from its actual location, which is way over by Denton Drive. I managed to move the Street View to the theater anyway (take that, Google,) though I got lost in the interchange twice. Had I been actually driving, I’d have have been in a collision for sure.
Florida Memory says that the State Theatre was on the north side of College Avenue between Adams and Monroe. That’s the 100 E. block, and the historical photos show that it was on the lot west of the alley between those two streets. Today the lot is occupied by a tall office building called Highpoint Center, for which LoopNet gives an address of 106 E. College Avenue. That must have been the theater’s address as well.
Florida Memory also says that the second State Theatre opened on September 27, 1934. From the old photos it looks like the Daffin Theatre had actually been next door to the new theater’s site, so it probably had an address of 104 E. College. Now there’s a parking structure on that lot.
Also, I notice that there’s been some confusion surrounding the exact location of this theater (ken mc and Chuck’s comments of June 4, 2006.) The confusion comes from the fact that San Francisco’s numbered streets don’t match up with the address numbers (it’s the same situation as in Manhattan.) The numbered streets begin at the old shoreline of the bay, which was about half a mile inland from where the current shoreline is, but street numbers begin at the Embarcadero, along the modern shoreline. Thus 4th street marks the end of the 700 block and the beginning of the 800 block on Market Street.
The photos ken mc linked to on August 26, 2009, show that the State Theatre was definitely on the southeast corner of 4th and Market. The old skyscraper next door to the theater is the former Humboldt Bank Building, which is still standing at 785 Market.
Kewpie: The theater in the drawing you linked to is the former Loew’s house that is listed at Cinema Treasures as the Warfield Theatre. It was never called the State. It was named for Marcus Loew’s business partner, actor David Warfield, who was born in San Francisco.
You’re right, Kewpie. The 1915 Majestic always had a wide frontage, so the LoC photo depicts a different theater. Shorpy has the story on the photo you found (and includes a bonus photo of the original facade of the 1915 Majestic.) The earlier Majestic was a combination house (movies and vaudeville) opened at 231 Woodward in 1908.
I don’t know if the older Majestic is listed at Cinema Treasures under a later name, or is still missing from the database. If it’s listed under another name it would also have a different address, as Detroit changed its numbering system on January 1, 1921. I’m not positive, but I think that old address 231 Woodward ended up in the 1400 block under the new system. Here’s a page with links to information about Detroit’s 1921 renumbering.
The Circle Theatre probably occupied the lot that is currently a parking lot next door to Dillon Opticians. It has definitely been demolished.
You would probably know better than I would about date, Don. I was in Hollywood only two or three times in the 1970s and early 1980s and only knew about the name change from hearsay, and I haven’t been to the Los Angeles area since 1986. I do remember when the Hawaii closed in 1963, though, as I visited Hollywood frequently during that period, and I was very disappointed that the theater closed before I ever got around to seeing a movie there.
fieldight: The movie you saw in 1978 was probably at the theater down the block which was called the Hawaiian Gardens for while during the 1970s, but is listed at Cinema Treasures as the X 1 & 2 Theatres. The original Hawaii Theatre was definitely converted into the Salvation Army church after being closed in July, 1963.
Multiple sources on the Internet say that the Capri Theatre was rebuilt into the Paradigm Cinemas after having been closed for many years.
Multiple sources on the Internet say that the Capri Theatre was rebuilt into the Paradigm Cinemas after having been closed for many years.
Yelp says that the Paradigm Cinemas is now closed. The official web site link is dead, too.
I don’t think the address of 202 W. Main Street is correct. As can be seen in the Google Street View, the buildings currently at 202-204 W. Main Street are old, obviously predating the demolition of the theater.
I think the Princess had to have been across the street, at 203 W. Main, where there is now a business called the Java Garden, situated in a small, modern building set back behind an open area.
This photo, taken during a 1963 flood, shows the darkened marquee of the Princess at right. It can be seen that it was on a corner lot, which 203 W. Main is. I can’t find any other locations along Main Street that match the situation of the Princess.
KenLayton is correct. The Rex was at the southeast corner of Fourth and Franklin, and the building is still standing. Judging from the configuration of the building’s storefronts, the entrance to the Rex was probably at 408 Franklin Street SE. The wall there is closed up and has been plastered over, and doesn’t quite match the rest of the exterior. The entrance to the Franklin Apartments is adjacent to the south, with an address of 410 Franklin.
Here’s a link to the 1913 article about the Rex in the trade publication The Moving Picture World. There is a photo of the Rex’s entrance at the upper right corner of the page, and its clearly the same building still standing at 4th and Franklin.
The Google Street View above currently shows the State Theatre at Fourth and Washington. It will have to be reset.
The auditorium was still standing when Google’s and Bing’s satellite views were made, but it was in very rough shape. In fact there is shrubbery growing on the roof! In Google’s satellite view I actually thought the building had been demolished, the growth along the edges of the roof is so thick. Some of them appear to be young trees.
If this building hasn’t been at least stabilized since those pictures were taken, I can only imagine how bad its condition must be by now. Once large plants have taken root on a building’s roof, its collapse is very near. I doubt that there’s much hope for the Liberty Theatre’s survival.
A comment on the Noyo Theatre page says that before the Noyo opened Willits also had a 417-seat house called the Willits Theatre. Could that also have been an aka of the Colonial? If the Colonial only occupied half the width of its building it looks to small to have had 417 seats, but if the auditorium was the full width it might have been big enough.
Being on Center Street, the Grand Theatre wouldn’t have been around the corner from the Marlow Theatre. The Marlow was on Third Street just south of Park Avenue, which is the next street south of Center Street.
Odd numbers are on the north sides of streets in Ironton, and the north side of the block of Center Street between Third and Fourth is all parking lot or recent construction. The Grand must have been demolished.
In addition to the Grand and Marlow, and the Ro-Na theaters, Ironton once had a theater called the South Side (or Southside,) built in 1910; an Orpheum Theatre, opened in a former skating rink in 1920; an Empire Theatre, burned in 1920; and the Lyric Theatre, located on Second Street, which can be seen partly underwater in this photo taken during the 1937 flood.
The theater in the photo and in the current Street View is the Ro-Na, not the Marlow. The address of 206 S. Third Street belongs to the Marlow, though. The Marlow’s entrance was on Third just a few doors south of Park Avenue, but the Ro-Na is on 3rd between Vernon and Washington, the next block south.
The Marlow Theatre is adjacent to an office and commercial block called the Marlow Building, which is at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and S. 3rd Street. It once housed a department store on its first two floors and offices above. The theater is fairly large, and its original seating capacity might have been greater than that of the Ro-Na, but it had a rather narrow entrance. The building does not appear to have a stage house, but it must have had a stage of some sort, as I’ve found numerous references to boxing matches being held there during the 1920s.
The Marlow Building and Theatre was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 6, 2008. NRHP classifies the theater’s architectural style as Classical Revival, but does not name an architect or builder. A small photo about halfway down this web page shows the Marlow Theatre at left. The taller building to the right, which has a marquee, was not a theater but a hotel, and has recently been renovated as an apartment building.
A timeline of events in Ironton says that the Marlow Theatre opened in 1920. The May 6, 1919, issue of The Brick and Clay Record has a line saying: “H.A. Marting is taking bids for a large theater and office building at Ironton, Ohio.” Other sources indicate that Marting was one of the backers of the Marlow Theatre project, so the item undoubtedly refers to this theater. The Marlow appears to have closed in 1952, which was three years after the Ro-Na Theatre opened.
The Willits News reported on June 3 this year that the city council had approved a resolution to change the name of Commercial Street to Seabiscuit Parkway. The date the name change will go into effect has not been set.
Ridgewood Ranch, just south of Willits, was the final home of the racehorse Seabiscuit, whose grave on the ranch has become a tourist attraction. The Noyo Theatre hosted a special premier of the movie “Seabiscuit” on the afternoon of July 19, 2003, a few hours before the official world premier took place at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington.
The comment by saps, December 20, 2006, suggests that the Lido Theatre might have been demolished and replaced by an entirely new building. Judging from the bird’s-eye view of the building at Bing Maps, the original theater building’s shell, including the roof, still exists.
The Cinema 4 occupies two buildings, and it looks like the one at the corner of Long Beach Boulevard could be of recent construction, but the original auditorium building still has a gabled roof, the peak of which can be glimpsed in this 1951 photo (the same photo lost memory linked to early in this thread.) An entirely new building would not have that sort of roof.
The photo shows only a small part of the corner building, but it’s clear that it was once lower than the theater. The current street view shows that it is now the same height. My guess would be that the original corner building was demolished, rather than extended upward, and an addition to the theater was built on its site.
I also suspect that, as the theater’s footprint was just about doubled by the addition, its current seating capacity is probably more than the 540 this page currently lists, even taking into consideration the likelihood that the current seats are larger than the Lido’s seats were, and the rows probably spaced farther apart.
Thanks to BillCounter for tracking down the address of the Arcadia Theatre, and its original name. The L.A. County Assessor’s office says that the building at 40 E. Huntington (which would include addresses from 40 to 44) was built in 1947, with an effectively-built date of 1980. As the fire which destroyed the Arcadia Theatre took place in 1942, when wartime building restrictions were imposed, a post-war new construction date of 1947 for the building that replaced it is not surprising.
Here is a link to the Boxoffice item I cited in a previous comment. There is an artist’s rendering of the original Oakbrook Cinema.
An item on this page of Boxoffice, December 7, 1964, said that ground had been broken for a new theater at Padanaram Road and Hayestown Avenue. Completion was expected by Memorial Day, 1965. The house was to be called the Cinema, and was to be operated by the Stanley Warner circuit. A rendering of the colonial-style building matches the photo of the Crown Twin on display at CinemaTour.
Google Maps won’t fetch the correct location for this theater unless the phrase “North Street Shopping Center” is removed from the address. 1 Padanaram Road is the address the Internet gives for the Super Foodmart that the overview says replaced the theater.
Rivest’s ultimate list of movie theatres. It’s a useful resource for some purposes, but has only limited information about most of the theaters, and a lot of tentative surmises (usually followed by question marks.)
Boxoffice of December 7, 1964, ran this brief item about the air conditioning system in the new Cobb Center Theatre. There is a photo of the auditorium. The caption places the theater in Marietta rather than Smyrna, but it must be this house.