Linda Lea Theatre

I remember now….the lady who owns the new Metropolis Books on Main between 4th & 5th told me that the building was going to be demolished.

ken mc, didn’t somebody say they wanted to tear down the building across the street? I think I heard that somewhere but I don’t remember where either.

I took a couple of photos the other day. The framework is coming along. I also took some pictures of the old Higgins building across the street at 244 S. Main. There was some debate about that site on another page, but I don’t remember which one.

Ken: It undoubtedly was an African-American program. The neighborhood remained predominantly black for some time after the Japanese began to be released from the camps. In any case, it would have taken incredible chutzpah for the few Japanese-Americans dribbling back into the neighborhood early in 1945 to start showing Japanese films.

It occurs to me that the reopening date of October 30, 1947, given at the ArchitectDB site, might be the date the theatre returned to showing Japanese films. Another interesting thing is that the name Linda Lea was apparently given to the theatre by its African-American operators (it would be interesting to know the exact origin of the name) but was then kept by the Japanese-American management when the operation went back to its old policy. Maybe the name Fuji-san was considered too obviously Japanese for the early post-war years.

That solves that. Thanks.

The LA Times consistently advertised the Linda Lea Theater at 1st and San Pedro in the 1940s. This seems a bit of a hike away from 2nd and Main, so I imagine it was another theater. Perhaps it was a chain.

An article in the LA Times dated 11/20/40 describes a scene when a car crashed into the front of the theater, then known as the Azteca (as opposed to the Aztec). There is a nice photo of the theater and the marquee which unfortunately I can’t reproduce here. The theater was showing Spanish films at that time.

The fact that this theater had a large box-type marquee makes me wonder if the Azteca at 249 was a neighbor of the Linda Lea at 251. Other pictures of the Arrow don’t show this marquee. Just wondering.

AUTO CRASHES THEATER FRONT
Passenger Injured; Box Office Cashier Jarred by Impact

The one-in-a-million odds of fate sent a man to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital yesterday afternoon and probably saved the life of a cashier at the Azteca Theater, 249 S. Main Street. Clyde Dean Hansen, 38, was treated for a fractured arm when his car, driven by an unidentified stranger, crashed into the front of the theater.

Witnesses told police the driver, apparently unhurt, disappeared in the crowd. Hansen said he had met the man earlier in the afternoon and did not know his name. Eleanor Valenzuela, theater cashier, was jolted about the box office as the auto rocked it back and forth, but escaped with nothing more than a bad case of nerves.

Police were told by witnesses that Hansen’s car was hooked on the right bumper by a passing Pacific Electric car. The impact sent the car against a power line pole and into the theater. Both the machine and the theater front were damaged badly.

The main framework is pretty much done. And 4 new apartment/condos are open this year in this area as well as a new strip club last month.

wondering if ImaginAsian has a deadline…

The new owners could be making tons of money by now had they turned it into a parking lot, what idiots!

They have started replacing the roof that they demolished. If you look at okoku’s photo, the only original things are the two side walls and the arched ceiling beams at the far rear. Unless they saved some of the architectural decoration and intend to display it somehow when the new theater is complete, the Linda Lea is gone. This is basically a new theater built on the same footprint leaving the two side walls.

Thanks to both.

ken mc: KenRoe recently added the theatre at 255 S. Main St. under its 1910 name, the Union Theatre.

I just talked to my friend the oter day, he said he stopped by there and there was nothing at all in the area.