Judging from this photo, probably taken between 1928 and 1930, it looks as though the College Theatre might have been converted to retail use even before the old California Club (foreground, on the corner) was demolished. At least the facade of the building (adjacent, to the right of, the California Club) had been flattened and de-decorated, and it looks like there are ordinary store awnings in front, rather than a theater marquee.
Photo is another from the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive.
The Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive provides this postcard view of Broadway south of 6th Street before Desmond’s was built. The Symphony Theatre occupied the white building with the arched entrance, adjacent to the much taller Story Building on the corner. The copyright date on the postcard is 1916, two years after the Symphony opened. The theater has no marquee in this view, but there’s a big rooftop sign.
The view includes the Palace, then still the Orpheum, a few doors down Broadway. for some reason, the postcard’s colorist chose to make much of the facade of the Orpheum a reddish brown, as though it was faced with brick instead of the bright terra cotta it actually sported.
Finally! Although the building is over two hundred feet distant, and the scan is a bit blurry, here is a photo of Bard’s Hill Street Theatre in the 1920s. The detail in the image is not too good, but it looks as though the theater had the same sort of fancy facade that Bard’s 8th Street had before it became the Olympic.
As there are no photos of the Sierra Theatre yet, I’m posting a link to this 1955 photo of streetcars on Eagle Rock Boulevard, even though the theater is about a block away in the background. So far, it’s all we’ve got.
Patsy: The 1950 remodeling the magazine article referred to was the one that gave the Athens the facade that appears in the postcard view currently at the top of this Cinema Treasures page- the one that looks sort of like a drive-in’s screen tower.
I’ve checked the Assessor’s office web site, and the building on this parcel (extending all the way to the corner of Workman Street) was indeed built in 1912, the year the Starland opened. Apparently the Linclon Heights Bulletin-News was premature in its announcement of the theater’s demolition. It’s been converted to retail use.
Looking at the Google Maps satellite and street views shows that the section of the building with the former theater entrance (now the clothing store Ken mentions) was pretty narrow, and the configuration of the rooftops suggests that this was an “L” shaped theater, with the auditorium extending eastward from a north-south lobby. I never went to the Starland, but the entrance portion looks to be no more than 25 feet wide, if that, and there’s no way they could have crammed an 850 seat theater into that space.
The remodeling of the Starland to the modern style must have been mostly cosmetic, as the Assessor’s office doesn’t give an “effectively built” date for the building. There’s some nice terrazzo pavement on the sidewalk out front, though (see Google street view), in a geometric style which suggests a 1940’s remodeling.
An article about the Colonial Drive-In appeared in the February 4, 1956, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The architect was Jack K. Vogel. It was the first drive-in in Annapolis, and was built for Durkee Enterprises.
The Ardmore Drive-In was the subject of an article published in the February 8, 1960, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. This was one of many drive-ins designed by Jack K. Vogel, an architectural engineer. The Ardmore included a pair of 60-seat, heated and air conditioned auditoriums flanking the concession area. The Ardmore was built for Ernest and George Stern, of the Associated Theatres circuit.
Boxoffice Magazine of October 19, 1959, featured an illustrated three-page spread about the Vogue, which had recently reopened after undergoing a $225,000 remodeling, designed by architect J. Arthur Drielsma.
I’d forgotten how the carpet extended all the way to the sidewalk.
Under the heading “Indoor-Outdoor Theatre in Buffalo Area,” the October 4, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine published a rendering of the new Young Street Drive-In. The caption said that it was designed by Jack K. Vogel, had a capacity of 1000 cars, and featured two all-weather auditoriums.
Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of October 25, 1965, gives the opening date of National General’s Thunderbird Drive-In as September 1 that year. It also confirms the car capacity as 1,182, and the architect as Gale Santocono.
This page duplicates this earlier listing. Both pages place the Thunderbird in Sacramento, but it was in Rancho Cordova. The correct address is posted in a comment by Lost Memory on the earlier page, and my comments there add additional information.
Regal’s Lincoln Center Cinemas was designed by architect Bernard Zyscovich, of Zyscovich Architects. The project received an Award of Merit in 2001 from the Florida chapter of the AIA.
Check the photos on the architect’s web site (and many more on Flickr) to see just how non-Art Deco this building is. I’d call it postmodern.
Raad: Some old issues of Boxoffice are available online at Issuu.com. I find it easier to search within them by using Google’s Advanced Search “Search within site or domain” feature.
This drive-in was designed by Vincent G. Raney, architect of virtually all of the Syufy-Century theaters from the 1960s through the 1980s. Start of construction was announced in the July 5, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The theater was to have space for 1200 cars, and the largest screen in Nevada.
The anonymized comment from 2005 must be wrong about the opening date. Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of January 31, 1966, said that the former Lincoln Theatre was “…attracting good patronage as the bright new 800 seat Showcase.” The remodeling (actually more of a rebuilding, as the floor, back wall, roof and facade were all replaced) had cost $150,000 and had taken ten months. Virtually every appointment in the theater was new, and the rebuilt auditorium featured a stadium seating section at the rear. The architect was Vincent G. Raney, and the decorator was Homer Stertos of San Francisco.
The House Theatre had recently opened, according to a brief article in the April 29, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The architect was C.C. Benton, who also designed a couple of South Carolina Theaters. The owner-operator was named Ernest House.
The Athens Theatre underwent a major remodeling in 1950. An item in the April 29, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine described the extensive changes planned for the house by manager Joe Fleishel. These included expanding the lobby by incorporating a former cross-aisle at the back of the auditorium, installing new seating, redesigning the rest rooms, replacing the staircase to the balcony with a new, curved staircase, plus remodeling the facade and installing a new marquee and box office. A brief item in the June 10 issue of Boxoffice said that the renovations were underway, and that the new interiors had been designed by decorator Dick Oliver.
The August 18, 1969, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Cobb Cinema in Smyrna had recently opened. The item also said that the Cobb was the first theater in Georgia to have automated projection equipment installed. The seating capacity was given as 350.
Here’s a brief item from the January 21, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Port St. Joe, Fla.— The Port Theatre, which opened last June, reports good business at this point. The house seats 964 persons and is managed by Roy Williams. It is owned by R. E. Martin Jr., E. D. Martin and Hugh G. Martin. The same three also own a house at De Funiak Springs."
That’s the earliest mention of the Port I can find. I was hoping for something earlier that might give the name of the architect.
Several later mentions of the Port in various issue of Boxoffice are mostly trivial, though one from March 18, 1950, said that a cross had been burned in a vacant lot across from the theater, and the following day manager C.J. Brown received a threatening, anonymous note warning him not to show the racially-themed movie “Pinky” or to “…suffer the consequences.”
A June 28, 1965, item said “David Smith has acquired the Port Theatre at Port St. Joe, a former unit in the Martin circuit.” A December 19, 1965, item said that the Port had been closed by its owner, D. Rollyn Smith. A May 1, 1967 list of theaters reopened during 1966 included the Port. No word on how long Mr. Smith had kept the theater closed. After that, there are no more mentions of the Port that I can find.
An article about Oscar Lam in the June 26, 1937, issue of Boxoffice Magazine mentions that he operated both the Rockmart and the Joy Theatres in Rockmart. I’ve found no mentions of a Palace Theatre in Rockmart as yet, but perhaps it became the Joy.
A mention of the Rockmart Theatre in the April 2, 1973, issue of Boxoffice says that it had been remodeled and would reopen early that month.
The Cedar Valley Drive-In had only recently opened when it was featured in an article for the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of October 1, 1949. The drive-in was designed by the noted Atlanta firm of Tucker & Howell, architects of many theaters in the region.
Photos accompanying the article showed the Southern Colonial style of the buildings which, to my eye, presented a rather alarming contrast with the 60-foot screen tower- as though some bucolic plantation house had inexplicably collided with a boxy Midwestern grain elevator, perhaps carried thither by a tornado.
The Cedar Valley Drive-In could accommodate 500 cars, and featured a landscaped playground, an outdoor seating area for patrons who might enjoy watching movies from beach chairs, and a pair of small artificial lakes flanking the entrance, romantically reflecting the lighted buildings and screen tower by night.
The formal opening of the Eastland Twin East and West Theatres took place on November 21, 1968, according to an article in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of December 16 that year. The owners and operators were Tulsa-based Snyder-Ashley Enterprises. The new twin, like the earlier Boman Twin Cinemas and the later Park Lane Theatre, both in Tulsa, was designed by the Tulsa architectural firm of Whiteside, Schultz, & Chadsey.
The Eastland Twins occupied a contemporary styled building with a two story glass facade flanked by tall pillars. The east auditorium had 717 seats, and the west auditorium 528 seats. The lobby featured a terrazzo floor and walnut paneling. Each auditorium had its own carpeted lounge area, and there was a pair of rest rooms for each side of the theatre.
The screens were 18x36 feet, and each auditorium had its own projection booth. There were custom-designed Voice of the Theatre sound systems in each auditorium, and 8 foot deep stages were provided so that the theaters could be used for meetings and special events by various civic organizations.
Judging from this photo, probably taken between 1928 and 1930, it looks as though the College Theatre might have been converted to retail use even before the old California Club (foreground, on the corner) was demolished. At least the facade of the building (adjacent, to the right of, the California Club) had been flattened and de-decorated, and it looks like there are ordinary store awnings in front, rather than a theater marquee.
Photo is another from the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive.
The Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive provides this postcard view of Broadway south of 6th Street before Desmond’s was built. The Symphony Theatre occupied the white building with the arched entrance, adjacent to the much taller Story Building on the corner. The copyright date on the postcard is 1916, two years after the Symphony opened. The theater has no marquee in this view, but there’s a big rooftop sign.
The view includes the Palace, then still the Orpheum, a few doors down Broadway. for some reason, the postcard’s colorist chose to make much of the facade of the Orpheum a reddish brown, as though it was faced with brick instead of the bright terra cotta it actually sported.
Finally! Although the building is over two hundred feet distant, and the scan is a bit blurry, here is a photo of Bard’s Hill Street Theatre in the 1920s. The detail in the image is not too good, but it looks as though the theater had the same sort of fancy facade that Bard’s 8th Street had before it became the Olympic.
The photo is from the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive.
As there are no photos of the Sierra Theatre yet, I’m posting a link to this 1955 photo of streetcars on Eagle Rock Boulevard, even though the theater is about a block away in the background. So far, it’s all we’ve got.
Photo is from the collection of the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive at Flickr.
Here’s the full view of the photo Cinematour has, which is from the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive, some of which is now available at Flickr.
A photo giving a fairly decent view of the Town in the 1940s. I believe the main feature is “Casablanca.”
Patsy: The 1950 remodeling the magazine article referred to was the one that gave the Athens the facade that appears in the postcard view currently at the top of this Cinema Treasures page- the one that looks sort of like a drive-in’s screen tower.
I’ve checked the Assessor’s office web site, and the building on this parcel (extending all the way to the corner of Workman Street) was indeed built in 1912, the year the Starland opened. Apparently the Linclon Heights Bulletin-News was premature in its announcement of the theater’s demolition. It’s been converted to retail use.
Looking at the Google Maps satellite and street views shows that the section of the building with the former theater entrance (now the clothing store Ken mentions) was pretty narrow, and the configuration of the rooftops suggests that this was an “L” shaped theater, with the auditorium extending eastward from a north-south lobby. I never went to the Starland, but the entrance portion looks to be no more than 25 feet wide, if that, and there’s no way they could have crammed an 850 seat theater into that space.
The remodeling of the Starland to the modern style must have been mostly cosmetic, as the Assessor’s office doesn’t give an “effectively built” date for the building. There’s some nice terrazzo pavement on the sidewalk out front, though (see Google street view), in a geometric style which suggests a 1940’s remodeling.
An article about the Colonial Drive-In appeared in the February 4, 1956, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The architect was Jack K. Vogel. It was the first drive-in in Annapolis, and was built for Durkee Enterprises.
The Ardmore Drive-In was the subject of an article published in the February 8, 1960, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. This was one of many drive-ins designed by Jack K. Vogel, an architectural engineer. The Ardmore included a pair of 60-seat, heated and air conditioned auditoriums flanking the concession area. The Ardmore was built for Ernest and George Stern, of the Associated Theatres circuit.
Boxoffice Magazine of October 19, 1959, featured an illustrated three-page spread about the Vogue, which had recently reopened after undergoing a $225,000 remodeling, designed by architect J. Arthur Drielsma.
I’d forgotten how the carpet extended all the way to the sidewalk.
Under the heading “Indoor-Outdoor Theatre in Buffalo Area,” the October 4, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine published a rendering of the new Young Street Drive-In. The caption said that it was designed by Jack K. Vogel, had a capacity of 1000 cars, and featured two all-weather auditoriums.
Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of October 25, 1965, gives the opening date of National General’s Thunderbird Drive-In as September 1 that year. It also confirms the car capacity as 1,182, and the architect as Gale Santocono.
This page duplicates this earlier listing. Both pages place the Thunderbird in Sacramento, but it was in Rancho Cordova. The correct address is posted in a comment by Lost Memory on the earlier page, and my comments there add additional information.
A night photo.
Regal’s Lincoln Center Cinemas was designed by architect Bernard Zyscovich, of Zyscovich Architects. The project received an Award of Merit in 2001 from the Florida chapter of the AIA.
Check the photos on the architect’s web site (and many more on Flickr) to see just how non-Art Deco this building is. I’d call it postmodern.
Raad: Some old issues of Boxoffice are available online at Issuu.com. I find it easier to search within them by using Google’s Advanced Search “Search within site or domain” feature.
This drive-in was designed by Vincent G. Raney, architect of virtually all of the Syufy-Century theaters from the 1960s through the 1980s. Start of construction was announced in the July 5, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The theater was to have space for 1200 cars, and the largest screen in Nevada.
The anonymized comment from 2005 must be wrong about the opening date. Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of January 31, 1966, said that the former Lincoln Theatre was “…attracting good patronage as the bright new 800 seat Showcase.” The remodeling (actually more of a rebuilding, as the floor, back wall, roof and facade were all replaced) had cost $150,000 and had taken ten months. Virtually every appointment in the theater was new, and the rebuilt auditorium featured a stadium seating section at the rear. The architect was Vincent G. Raney, and the decorator was Homer Stertos of San Francisco.
The House Theatre had recently opened, according to a brief article in the April 29, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The architect was C.C. Benton, who also designed a couple of South Carolina Theaters. The owner-operator was named Ernest House.
The Athens Theatre underwent a major remodeling in 1950. An item in the April 29, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine described the extensive changes planned for the house by manager Joe Fleishel. These included expanding the lobby by incorporating a former cross-aisle at the back of the auditorium, installing new seating, redesigning the rest rooms, replacing the staircase to the balcony with a new, curved staircase, plus remodeling the facade and installing a new marquee and box office. A brief item in the June 10 issue of Boxoffice said that the renovations were underway, and that the new interiors had been designed by decorator Dick Oliver.
The August 18, 1969, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Cobb Cinema in Smyrna had recently opened. The item also said that the Cobb was the first theater in Georgia to have automated projection equipment installed. The seating capacity was given as 350.
Here’s a brief item from the January 21, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Port St. Joe, Fla.— The Port Theatre, which opened last June, reports good business at this point. The house seats 964 persons and is managed by Roy Williams. It is owned by R. E. Martin Jr., E. D. Martin and Hugh G. Martin. The same three also own a house at De Funiak Springs."
That’s the earliest mention of the Port I can find. I was hoping for something earlier that might give the name of the architect.
Several later mentions of the Port in various issue of Boxoffice are mostly trivial, though one from March 18, 1950, said that a cross had been burned in a vacant lot across from the theater, and the following day manager C.J. Brown received a threatening, anonymous note warning him not to show the racially-themed movie “Pinky” or to “…suffer the consequences.”
A June 28, 1965, item said “David Smith has acquired the Port Theatre at Port St. Joe, a former unit in the Martin circuit.” A December 19, 1965, item said that the Port had been closed by its owner, D. Rollyn Smith. A May 1, 1967 list of theaters reopened during 1966 included the Port. No word on how long Mr. Smith had kept the theater closed. After that, there are no more mentions of the Port that I can find.
An article about Oscar Lam in the June 26, 1937, issue of Boxoffice Magazine mentions that he operated both the Rockmart and the Joy Theatres in Rockmart. I’ve found no mentions of a Palace Theatre in Rockmart as yet, but perhaps it became the Joy.
A mention of the Rockmart Theatre in the April 2, 1973, issue of Boxoffice says that it had been remodeled and would reopen early that month.
The Cedar Valley Drive-In had only recently opened when it was featured in an article for the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of October 1, 1949. The drive-in was designed by the noted Atlanta firm of Tucker & Howell, architects of many theaters in the region.
Photos accompanying the article showed the Southern Colonial style of the buildings which, to my eye, presented a rather alarming contrast with the 60-foot screen tower- as though some bucolic plantation house had inexplicably collided with a boxy Midwestern grain elevator, perhaps carried thither by a tornado.
The Cedar Valley Drive-In could accommodate 500 cars, and featured a landscaped playground, an outdoor seating area for patrons who might enjoy watching movies from beach chairs, and a pair of small artificial lakes flanking the entrance, romantically reflecting the lighted buildings and screen tower by night.
The formal opening of the Eastland Twin East and West Theatres took place on November 21, 1968, according to an article in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of December 16 that year. The owners and operators were Tulsa-based Snyder-Ashley Enterprises. The new twin, like the earlier Boman Twin Cinemas and the later Park Lane Theatre, both in Tulsa, was designed by the Tulsa architectural firm of Whiteside, Schultz, & Chadsey.
The Eastland Twins occupied a contemporary styled building with a two story glass facade flanked by tall pillars. The east auditorium had 717 seats, and the west auditorium 528 seats. The lobby featured a terrazzo floor and walnut paneling. Each auditorium had its own carpeted lounge area, and there was a pair of rest rooms for each side of the theatre.
The screens were 18x36 feet, and each auditorium had its own projection booth. There were custom-designed Voice of the Theatre sound systems in each auditorium, and 8 foot deep stages were provided so that the theaters could be used for meetings and special events by various civic organizations.