Curlett & Beelman’s new Board of Trade Building was featured in a 1926 issue of Architectural Digest, so that must be the year it was built and thus either 1925 or 1926 would be the year the Gem was ground to dust.
I found the 1935 photo from the USC archives. It shows the intersection of Main and Market Streets and, at the far end of the two-story building beyond the turreted U.S. Hotel on the corner, the marquee of the theatre can be seen. The address of the U.S. Hotel was 170 N. Main, and it was the last building in.the 100 block even though it was north of Market Street. The numbers changed at Temple Street, which then ended at Main Street and is out of camera range at left.
This offers a possible explanation of the theatre’s migratory address. If, sometime after 1940, the numbers on the east side of Main were adjusted to make Market Street instead of Temple Street the dividing line, then the numbers in the 200 block would have had to have been adjusted upward a bit to accommodate a 200 block address for the U.S. Hotel’s lot. Thus there would have been a change from 212 to 216 for the theatre.
OK, having reread vokoban’s comments of Aug 21 (and Ken Roe’s remarks at the beginning of the comment thread), it looks as though the name Roosevelt must have been given to the former Miller’s Theatre on South Main first, and then moved to the Electric Theatre on North Main sometime after 1939. I can’t account for the 1942 directory address of 216 N. Main for the Roosevelt Theatre, unless the buildings on the block were renumbered. The 1936 photo shows the theatre entrance at the very north end of its building, so it doesn’t seem likely that the door could have been moved northward.
By 1939, the name Roosevelt Theatre had migrated to the former Miller’s Theatre at 842 S. Main. Both the California and Miller’s were originally under the same ownership and, since they both came to be operated by Frank Fouce in the 1930s, my guess is that Fouce had been running this theatre at 212 N. Main and then closed it when he acquired Miller’s and moved the name Roosevelt there.
USC having changed the URLs for its photos, my link from October 5, 2006, above no longer works. I can’t find the 1935 photo I linked to, but here’s a 1936 shot which shows the Electric/Roosevelt Theatre in the background. Only the generic name “Theatre” is displayed on the marquee, and the names of the movies appear to be in Spanish.
The Electric Theatre at 212 N. Main is listed here as the Roosevelt Theatre, which was apparently the last name under which it operated. I don’t know if Thomas Tally had anything to do with it.
The 2004 Urban Areas photo fetched up by TerraServer shows a building with the unmistakable outlines of a large theatre still standing at the Tower’s location. User doug sarvis must have been correct that it was merely converted to retail use, not demolished.
Also, given the solid evidence that the Hidalgo was at 373 N. Main Street from 1915 to 1936, and the absence of any printed evidence in directories or newspapers that it ever moved to the 500 block, the name Teatro Hidalgo should probably be removed as an aka for this theatre.
A 1931 photo of the Plaza Church. The Estella (if still there then) was probably in the single-story building just this side of the Coca-Cola sign.
A 1946 photo. The half-building at the left looks like an open-front grocery store in this picture, but I think it must have been where the Estella had been located.
The page for the much-discussed Teatro Hidalgo is right here.
The front of the Hidalgo faced east, down Arcadia Street,which ended at Main Street. The photo to which ken mc linked above shows, at far left, a corner of the distinctive awning of the Baker Block, which was at the southeast corner of Arcadia and Main Streets.
A 1924 aerial view of the Plaza neighborhood the L.A. shows the buildings adjacent to the Plaza Church. The Estella would have been in one of those, and if the bakery. La Esperanza, was at 511 ½ then the most likely place for the theatre to have been would have been in the building second to the left from the large structure at lower right bearing the “Brunswig Drug Company” sign on its wall (its lower immediate neighbor is the Garnier Building, which housed the bakery.) I can’t find a picture of the front of that building that probably housed the Estella anywhere, but this c1926 shot shows the building immediately adjacent to the church.
I think it was user wdl posting on the Grand Theatre page who originally recalled the Hidalgo being located between the bakery and the church. Unless the Hidalgo moved late in its history to the former location of the Estella, he must have misremembered. The photo of the Hidalgo Ken linked to last year shows, at far left, a portion of the distinctive awning of the Baker Block, which was a block south of the plaza at the southeast corner of Main and Arcadia Streets (just out of view at right on the aerial photo I linked linked to.) That whole area was obliterated in the 1940s to build the freeway slot.
Closed during the early years of WWII, it reopened as the Linda Lea Theatre in 1945, featuring movies and live acts catering to the largely African-American population which had filled the apartments and houses vacated by the interned Japanese-American population. Some information about it can be seen on this page of the Bronzeville L.A. website.
The Westminster was gone before 1963, and a fast food stand had been built on that corner of 4th and Main. Among the stand’s specialties was that Los Angelean version of the loose meat sandwich, the taco burger. With its soft bun and finely shredded lettuce, it was a perfect viand for the toothless derelict seeking a cheap repast. The heavy, tomato-based sauce and the Mexican spices in the ground meat admirably disguised its probable origin as worn-out dairy cow.
Patrons could sit at the wooden tables adjacent to the building and devour their dripping meals while gazing across the vast, paved expanse to the east and north, which included the site where the Hippodrome’s auditorium had once stood. The sharp-eyed might even discern the form of a bum taking a leak against a distant wall. Ah, the good old days before all the romance was gone from downtown.
The Seville Theatre was where organist Gaylord Carter was working in the mid 1920s when he was “discovered” by Harold Lloyd, an event which led to his employment as chief organist of the Million Dollar Theatre downtown and his first touch of fame.
Ed: I get both a “Forbidden” message and a “404 Error” on both of your links.
I’m not surprised at the orignal seating capacity of 1500 for the Hastings. It was by far the largest single-floor theatre I ever attended in the San Gabriel Valley. In fact I’d say the only larger single-floor theatre I’ve ever been in was Grauman’s Chinese.
Speaking of maps, the link to Google maps for this theatre does not display the actual location. In the absence of Court Street (obliterated decades ago), Google defaults to the 100 block of Center Street, about a mile east of the theatre’s actual location.
CORRECTION: Wait a minute. I’ve gotten the street sides backward again. The odd numbered addresses are on the north sides and the even numbers on the south sides. The Tunnel Theatre would have been across Third Street from the building in the photo to which I linked. It might have been in the low building a corner of the roof of which is visible at right foreground.
The Lux was not very near Beaudry, and both theatres were west of the tunnel. The Lux was between Flower and Figueroa, so the Tunnel Theater would have been between Flower and Hope. The Third Street tunnel in those days ran from just east of Clay Street to the middle of the ROW of Hope Street.
In that photo to which I linked, Hope Street runs on that shelf above the tunnel, and is also the narrow street running to the left from Third Street. The parts of Hope Street joined up near Second Street. When the hill was lowered for the urban destroyal project, the Second and Third Street tunnels were both lengthened a bit on their west ends, and the dirt from the hill was piled onto the low ground into which the tunnels had previously opened.
It’s probably difficult to envision the way it all looked before the reconstruction of the land, but I can still remember quite a few details of the area’s old form.
This theatre would have been a few doors west of Hope Street, on the north side of Third, and about a block east of the Lux Theatre (aka Rose Theatre, Rex Theatre.) Here’s a photo of the general location as it appeared about 1937. The theatre might have been a storefront nickelodeon in the two story building at left, though a building of that style could have been built anytime from the early 1900s to the mid 1920s.
There was another Florence Theatre, built in 1921 on Moneta Avenue (South Broadway) near 72nd Street. It was listed under that name in a 1924 city directory. I don’t know if it’s on CT under another name or not.
The introductory paragraph for the Aloha Theatre says that the Century Theatre across the street from it has been destroyed. Not so, as ken mc has posted recent photos of the Century’s building (linked on its page) which now houses an upholstery supply company.
UCLA has changed the URLs of the photos in the Times collection,and no longer displays the very large versions they once did. The remaining version of the 1977 photo cited in ken mc’s post of May 18 is now available here.
Curlett & Beelman’s new Board of Trade Building was featured in a 1926 issue of Architectural Digest, so that must be the year it was built and thus either 1925 or 1926 would be the year the Gem was ground to dust.
I found the 1935 photo from the USC archives. It shows the intersection of Main and Market Streets and, at the far end of the two-story building beyond the turreted U.S. Hotel on the corner, the marquee of the theatre can be seen. The address of the U.S. Hotel was 170 N. Main, and it was the last building in.the 100 block even though it was north of Market Street. The numbers changed at Temple Street, which then ended at Main Street and is out of camera range at left.
This offers a possible explanation of the theatre’s migratory address. If, sometime after 1940, the numbers on the east side of Main were adjusted to make Market Street instead of Temple Street the dividing line, then the numbers in the 200 block would have had to have been adjusted upward a bit to accommodate a 200 block address for the U.S. Hotel’s lot. Thus there would have been a change from 212 to 216 for the theatre.
OK, having reread vokoban’s comments of Aug 21 (and Ken Roe’s remarks at the beginning of the comment thread), it looks as though the name Roosevelt must have been given to the former Miller’s Theatre on South Main first, and then moved to the Electric Theatre on North Main sometime after 1939. I can’t account for the 1942 directory address of 216 N. Main for the Roosevelt Theatre, unless the buildings on the block were renumbered. The 1936 photo shows the theatre entrance at the very north end of its building, so it doesn’t seem likely that the door could have been moved northward.
By 1939, the name Roosevelt Theatre had migrated to the former Miller’s Theatre at 842 S. Main. Both the California and Miller’s were originally under the same ownership and, since they both came to be operated by Frank Fouce in the 1930s, my guess is that Fouce had been running this theatre at 212 N. Main and then closed it when he acquired Miller’s and moved the name Roosevelt there.
USC having changed the URLs for its photos, my link from October 5, 2006, above no longer works. I can’t find the 1935 photo I linked to, but here’s a 1936 shot which shows the Electric/Roosevelt Theatre in the background. Only the generic name “Theatre” is displayed on the marquee, and the names of the movies appear to be in Spanish.
The Electric Theatre at 212 N. Main is listed here as the Roosevelt Theatre, which was apparently the last name under which it operated. I don’t know if Thomas Tally had anything to do with it.
The 2004 Urban Areas photo fetched up by TerraServer shows a building with the unmistakable outlines of a large theatre still standing at the Tower’s location. User doug sarvis must have been correct that it was merely converted to retail use, not demolished.
Also, given the solid evidence that the Hidalgo was at 373 N. Main Street from 1915 to 1936, and the absence of any printed evidence in directories or newspapers that it ever moved to the 500 block, the name Teatro Hidalgo should probably be removed as an aka for this theatre.
I guess this is the best we can do for now:
A 1931 photo of the Plaza Church. The Estella (if still there then) was probably in the single-story building just this side of the Coca-Cola sign.
A 1946 photo. The half-building at the left looks like an open-front grocery store in this picture, but I think it must have been where the Estella had been located.
The page for the much-discussed Teatro Hidalgo is right here.
Here is a ca1926 photo from the L.A. library collection which depicts the orchestra of the Teatro Hidalgo.
The front of the Hidalgo faced east, down Arcadia Street,which ended at Main Street. The photo to which ken mc linked above shows, at far left, a corner of the distinctive awning of the Baker Block, which was at the southeast corner of Arcadia and Main Streets.
A 1924 aerial view of the Plaza neighborhood the L.A. shows the buildings adjacent to the Plaza Church. The Estella would have been in one of those, and if the bakery. La Esperanza, was at 511 ½ then the most likely place for the theatre to have been would have been in the building second to the left from the large structure at lower right bearing the “Brunswig Drug Company” sign on its wall (its lower immediate neighbor is the Garnier Building, which housed the bakery.) I can’t find a picture of the front of that building that probably housed the Estella anywhere, but this c1926 shot shows the building immediately adjacent to the church.
I think it was user wdl posting on the Grand Theatre page who originally recalled the Hidalgo being located between the bakery and the church. Unless the Hidalgo moved late in its history to the former location of the Estella, he must have misremembered. The photo of the Hidalgo Ken linked to last year shows, at far left, a portion of the distinctive awning of the Baker Block, which was a block south of the plaza at the southeast corner of Main and Arcadia Streets (just out of view at right on the aerial photo I linked linked to.) That whole area was obliterated in the 1940s to build the freeway slot.
This theatre is listed in the 1929 Los Angeles City Directory by the name West Coast Hollywood Theatre.
Still operating as a Japanese movie house in 1963 when it was listed in the city directory as the Kinema Theatre.
Actually built in 1925, according to this page at the ArchitectDB.
Closed during the early years of WWII, it reopened as the Linda Lea Theatre in 1945, featuring movies and live acts catering to the largely African-American population which had filled the apartments and houses vacated by the interned Japanese-American population. Some information about it can be seen on this page of the Bronzeville L.A. website.
The Westminster was gone before 1963, and a fast food stand had been built on that corner of 4th and Main. Among the stand’s specialties was that Los Angelean version of the loose meat sandwich, the taco burger. With its soft bun and finely shredded lettuce, it was a perfect viand for the toothless derelict seeking a cheap repast. The heavy, tomato-based sauce and the Mexican spices in the ground meat admirably disguised its probable origin as worn-out dairy cow.
Patrons could sit at the wooden tables adjacent to the building and devour their dripping meals while gazing across the vast, paved expanse to the east and north, which included the site where the Hippodrome’s auditorium had once stood. The sharp-eyed might even discern the form of a bum taking a leak against a distant wall. Ah, the good old days before all the romance was gone from downtown.
My memory of my one visit to this theatre (which was before it was multiplexed) is that it had a curved screen.
The Seville Theatre was where organist Gaylord Carter was working in the mid 1920s when he was “discovered” by Harold Lloyd, an event which led to his employment as chief organist of the Million Dollar Theatre downtown and his first touch of fame.
Yes, that works. Thanks.
Ed: I get both a “Forbidden” message and a “404 Error” on both of your links.
I’m not surprised at the orignal seating capacity of 1500 for the Hastings. It was by far the largest single-floor theatre I ever attended in the San Gabriel Valley. In fact I’d say the only larger single-floor theatre I’ve ever been in was Grauman’s Chinese.
Speaking of maps, the link to Google maps for this theatre does not display the actual location. In the absence of Court Street (obliterated decades ago), Google defaults to the 100 block of Center Street, about a mile east of the theatre’s actual location.
CORRECTION: Wait a minute. I’ve gotten the street sides backward again. The odd numbered addresses are on the north sides and the even numbers on the south sides. The Tunnel Theatre would have been across Third Street from the building in the photo to which I linked. It might have been in the low building a corner of the roof of which is visible at right foreground.
The Lux was not very near Beaudry, and both theatres were west of the tunnel. The Lux was between Flower and Figueroa, so the Tunnel Theater would have been between Flower and Hope. The Third Street tunnel in those days ran from just east of Clay Street to the middle of the ROW of Hope Street.
In that photo to which I linked, Hope Street runs on that shelf above the tunnel, and is also the narrow street running to the left from Third Street. The parts of Hope Street joined up near Second Street. When the hill was lowered for the urban destroyal project, the Second and Third Street tunnels were both lengthened a bit on their west ends, and the dirt from the hill was piled onto the low ground into which the tunnels had previously opened.
It’s probably difficult to envision the way it all looked before the reconstruction of the land, but I can still remember quite a few details of the area’s old form.
This theatre would have been a few doors west of Hope Street, on the north side of Third, and about a block east of the Lux Theatre (aka Rose Theatre, Rex Theatre.) Here’s a photo of the general location as it appeared about 1937. The theatre might have been a storefront nickelodeon in the two story building at left, though a building of that style could have been built anytime from the early 1900s to the mid 1920s.
There was another Florence Theatre, built in 1921 on Moneta Avenue (South Broadway) near 72nd Street. It was listed under that name in a 1924 city directory. I don’t know if it’s on CT under another name or not.
The introductory paragraph for the Aloha Theatre says that the Century Theatre across the street from it has been destroyed. Not so, as ken mc has posted recent photos of the Century’s building (linked on its page) which now houses an upholstery supply company.
UCLA has changed the URLs of the photos in the Times collection,and no longer displays the very large versions they once did. The remaining version of the 1977 photo cited in ken mc’s post of May 18 is now available here.
The URL for the photo I linked to above has apparently changed. See it here.