Ken, USC’s caption writer missed the most theatrically interesting feature of that photo. The big, dark building at center left is the side wall of the Mason Opera House, the auditorium on the left and the much taller stage house on the right, each with its own roof gable. I think that the white double door near the upper left corner of the building might have been the entrance to the segregated second balcony, which was entered from Hill Street rather than Broadway.
The problem is not with the definition of the word “theatre”, but with the use of the word “Building.” Edison’s Vitascope Theater in Buffalo, also known as Edisonia Hall, was built in the basement of the Ellicott Square Building building (an immense office and commercial block containing 500,000 square feet, completed in 1896), and was apparently the first commercial use of that basement, but the theatre was not part of the building’s original plans. That’s why all those reliable books don’t consider it the first building built especially to show movies. In fact there were many movie theatres— probably dozens— opened between 1896 and 1902 in spaces tucked into existing buildings, but Tally’s Electric Theatre on Main Street remains the first permanent building in the world known to have been built from the ground up with the intention of using it to house a movie theatre.
The Vitascope Theatre in Buffalo is significant, not only for being one of the first successful movie theatres in the world (it continued in operation for more than a year), but for being the first movie theatre operated by Mitchell Mark who, with his brother Moe, eventually operated dozens of theatres, including their flagship house, the Mark Strand Theatre on Broadway in New York.
Another interesting fact about Buffalo’s Vitascope Theatre is that, Like Thomas Tally’s Spring Street operation of 1896, it was paired with a phonograph parlor. Wikipedia displays an old advertisement for it. However, the buildings which housed Tally’s theatres, both the 1896 Spring Street operation at the back of his phonograph parlor and the 1902 Main Street operation in its purpose-built building, have been demolished, while Buffalo’s Ellicott Square Building still exists, so it’s still possible to get a good look at the storefront which housed Mark’s phonograph parlor, and (if the building’s owners will allow it) the basement space which housed his Vitascope Theatre.
So far, neither the Vitascope Theatre in Buffalo nor Vitascope Hall in New Orleans has been listed at Cinema Treasures.
The Rivoli was at 6258 Van Nuys Boulevard. It was open by 1921. In that year, a Bessie Harrison Prothero won a naming contest for the theatre, according to an article in the Van Nuys News of June 23, 1921. I don’t know if the theatre was brand new, or was an older theatre being renamed.
In 1935, the Rivoli suffered some $5,000 of damage from a fire, reported in the Van Nuys News of November 30. The theatre survived, and in 1939 both it and the nearby Van Nuys Theatre hosted premiers, the first ever held in the San Fernando Valley, according to a September 13 article in Daily Variety.
On May 30, 1941, Southwest Builder & Contractor announced that there would be a new facade and rest rooms at the Rivoli Theatre in Van Nuys, to be designed by architect Clifford Balch.
By 1960 the Rivoli had been renamed the Capri Theatre. It was still listed under that name in the National General Theatres section of the L.A. Times theatre guide on February 10, 1971.
I thought the shop in the theatre was selling Esther Williams brand swim wear, as displayed by that rather disturbing collection of mannequin torsos suspended from the underside of the marquee.
I don’t remember the Flick ever being anything but a storefront porn house. However, there were at least two small storefront theatres operating in Hollywood during the 1960s that were not porn houses. I remember seeing a revival of the 1930s era film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a small storefront theatre on the south side of Hollywood Boulevard, somewhere west of Western Avenue, I think. This place had regular theatre seats, with the back rows on built-up risers, and a decent width screen (as good as the early AMC shoe boxes), and I think it may have become a porn house later.
Then there was another storefront conversion on the west side of a side street just north of Hollywood Boulevard. I’m not positive but I think it might have been Normandie. This was in a high-ceilinged shop which had a mezzanine above the front entrance and show windows, and I think it was either a coffee house or an art gallery (or maybe a bit of both) at the time of its conversion into a movie theatre. The projection room was installed on the mezzanine (I think it must have been 16mm) and the screen about two thirds of the way to the back of the room. The place had small tables and bentwood chairs like a typical coffee house of the era, and a couple of old couches. I only went there once and don’t remember any of the indie movie shorts that made up the program that night.
Southwest Builder & Contractor announced in its issue of July 10, 1925, that architects A. Godfrey Bailey and Carl Boller were completing the plans for the Broadway Theatre. The same publication announced the letting of the contracts for construction in their issue of July 31. The building was owned by F.E. Farnsworth and the theatre was leased to E.D. Yost.
The photo linked above by ken mc dates from no earlier than 1926, the year in which the movie Oh Billy, Behave was released. As the first Princess Theatre was demolished in 1923 to make way for the New Walker Theatre, later renamed the West Coast Theatre, the photo must depict the later New Princess Theatre.
A large percentage of the cards in the L.A. Library’s California Index do refer to this theatre as the Wilshire Theatre. The name Fox was not used though. The West Coast Circuit did not become Fox-West Coast until several years after this theatre opened, and the Fox name was not put on any of the circuit’s theatres until 1929. I don’t know in what year the Wilshire was renamed the Embassy, but it must have been before 1930 when Fox opened its new Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills.
This article from the Santa Barbara Independent issue of July 5, 2007, suggests that the start of renovation for the Lompoc Theatre is waiting only on a bit more fund raising.
The L.A. library’s California Index confirms a 1911 opening for the Neptune Theatre. The opening date was either May 22 or May 23, 1911, according to an ambiguous article in The Santa Monica Outlook of May 12, 1911. The theatre was owned by David Evans, and was upon opening operated under a lease by Los Angeles vaudeville impresario Arthur S. Hyman (whose Hyman Theatre at 8th and Broadway in Los Angeles later became the Garrick Theatre and was finally demolished to make way for the Tower Theatre.) According to the February 3, 1912 issue of of the regional entertainment publication, The Rounder, the Neptune in that year presented previews of a number of movies made by the Bison Company, a local Santa Monica studio.
Either La Petite Theatre was a bit peripatetic, or the area had two theatres by that name.
The earliest reference to Santa Monica’s La Petite Theatre in the L.A. library’s California Index is to a Santa Monica Outlook item of January 1, 1908, announcing the opening of a new play. An Outlook item of January 6 that year gives the theatre’s address as 227 3rd Street. The following day the same paper announced a film titled “College Chums” would appear at the La Petite Theatre.
But on January 25, 1909, The Outlook announced that B.A. Wheelock would finance the construction of the La Petit [sic] Theatre in Ocean Park. The announcement that the contract for construction had been let was published in The Outlook on February 16, 1909. The architect of this building (which may have had a very brief existence) was Alfred Rosenheim. A mere three years later, on February 12, 1912, The Venice Vanguard carried an article announcing that Kramer and Stineman had purchased the La Petite Theatre, Ocean Front and Marine St. from Wheelock & Boland, and planned to build a larger building on the site. I’ve been unable to confirm that the plan to rebuild was carried out.
Whether in a new building or the earlier one, the La Petite may have operated into 1923. A Venice Vanguard article of February 17, 1923, said that the La Petite Theatre building would be converted into a store.
Here’s an interior photo of the State, also dated 1936. Apparently, S. Charles Lee was approached about remodeling the place at that time, but there’s no record in his papers that he did the project. I never saw Stockton until about 1970, by which time the town had been struck by an urban ruinewal project. If the State was still there then, I don’t remember seeing it.
Ken, the Meralta isn’t even in that aerial photo. TerraServer got its little red dot way off in this case. The theatre is at the east (right hand) end of the block, on the north side of First Street. It’s just out of frame in that photo. You have to go to the large version of the photo, and then you can identify the Meralta’s building by the marquee jutting out from it.
Ken: Odd street numbers are on the west sides of north-south streets. In the TerraServer aerial view, it has to be the odd-numbered Century on the left, and the even-numbered Aloha on the right.
The aerial photo shows the extant triangular marquee of the Aloha, and also the patch of terrazzo sidewalk in front of the Century/Circle directly across the street. Your photo and the aerial are proof that, though the address of 6013 has been changed to 6003, L.A. Smith’s Circle Theatre building from 1921-22 has not been demolished. It is currently the location of Acevedo’s Upholstery Supplies. This page needs to be updated.
The correct name is Woods Theatre, without an apostrophe. The owner was an A.L. Woods.
FDY may have been a bit late in upping the reported number of seats in this house, unless the theatre was expanded twice, or its original expansion plans had to be put off. The August 27, 1937 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor announced an impending remodeling and expansion of the Woods which would double the theatre’s capacity.
Southwest Contractor & Maufacturer in its issue of January 22, 1916, said that The Gale Theatrical Company would erect a brick theatre on S. Greenleaf Avenue.
gencin: This page is not about the UA Marketplace 6 multiplex at Colorado and Delacey in Old Town. It’s about the earlier UA single-screen which was about ¾ of a mile east of there, on Colorado near Madison. This theatre was closed when UA opened the Marketplace 6, which was about 1987, I think. The Marketplace 6 is closed now, too, since 2004, while the AMC 8 screen in Old Pasadena is still open, but no longer operated by AMC. For the last few years it’s been operated as the Laemmle One Colorado Cinemas. Laemmle also has the Playhouse 7 multiplex at Colorado and El Molino.
The big dog in Pasadena now is the Pacific Theatres multiplex, the Paseo 14 at 336 East Colorado, where the J.C. Penney store used to be when the Paseo was still Plaza Pasadena. It was the Paseo 14, opened in 2001, that led Regal to shut down the Marketplace 6 and AMC to pull out of its Old Town operation.
As of this date, Cinema Treasures doesn’t yet have pages for the UA Marketplace 6, or the AMC/Laemmle One Colorado Cinemas, or for the Pacific Paseo 14. That early triplex that used to be on Rosemead near the Pacific Hastings is missing, too. The Laemmle Playhouse 7 is listed, though.
Ken, USC’s caption writer missed the most theatrically interesting feature of that photo. The big, dark building at center left is the side wall of the Mason Opera House, the auditorium on the left and the much taller stage house on the right, each with its own roof gable. I think that the white double door near the upper left corner of the building might have been the entrance to the segregated second balcony, which was entered from Hill Street rather than Broadway.
The problem is not with the definition of the word “theatre”, but with the use of the word “Building.” Edison’s Vitascope Theater in Buffalo, also known as Edisonia Hall, was built in the basement of the Ellicott Square Building building (an immense office and commercial block containing 500,000 square feet, completed in 1896), and was apparently the first commercial use of that basement, but the theatre was not part of the building’s original plans. That’s why all those reliable books don’t consider it the first building built especially to show movies. In fact there were many movie theatres— probably dozens— opened between 1896 and 1902 in spaces tucked into existing buildings, but Tally’s Electric Theatre on Main Street remains the first permanent building in the world known to have been built from the ground up with the intention of using it to house a movie theatre.
The Vitascope Theatre in Buffalo is significant, not only for being one of the first successful movie theatres in the world (it continued in operation for more than a year), but for being the first movie theatre operated by Mitchell Mark who, with his brother Moe, eventually operated dozens of theatres, including their flagship house, the Mark Strand Theatre on Broadway in New York.
Another interesting fact about Buffalo’s Vitascope Theatre is that, Like Thomas Tally’s Spring Street operation of 1896, it was paired with a phonograph parlor. Wikipedia displays an old advertisement for it. However, the buildings which housed Tally’s theatres, both the 1896 Spring Street operation at the back of his phonograph parlor and the 1902 Main Street operation in its purpose-built building, have been demolished, while Buffalo’s Ellicott Square Building still exists, so it’s still possible to get a good look at the storefront which housed Mark’s phonograph parlor, and (if the building’s owners will allow it) the basement space which housed his Vitascope Theatre.
So far, neither the Vitascope Theatre in Buffalo nor Vitascope Hall in New Orleans has been listed at Cinema Treasures.
Ken is correct. The Capri Theater is the renamed Rivoli Theatre.
The Rivoli was at 6258 Van Nuys Boulevard. It was open by 1921. In that year, a Bessie Harrison Prothero won a naming contest for the theatre, according to an article in the Van Nuys News of June 23, 1921. I don’t know if the theatre was brand new, or was an older theatre being renamed.
In 1935, the Rivoli suffered some $5,000 of damage from a fire, reported in the Van Nuys News of November 30. The theatre survived, and in 1939 both it and the nearby Van Nuys Theatre hosted premiers, the first ever held in the San Fernando Valley, according to a September 13 article in Daily Variety.
On May 30, 1941, Southwest Builder & Contractor announced that there would be a new facade and rest rooms at the Rivoli Theatre in Van Nuys, to be designed by architect Clifford Balch.
By 1960 the Rivoli had been renamed the Capri Theatre. It was still listed under that name in the National General Theatres section of the L.A. Times theatre guide on February 10, 1971.
I thought the shop in the theatre was selling Esther Williams brand swim wear, as displayed by that rather disturbing collection of mannequin torsos suspended from the underside of the marquee.
I don’t remember the Flick ever being anything but a storefront porn house. However, there were at least two small storefront theatres operating in Hollywood during the 1960s that were not porn houses. I remember seeing a revival of the 1930s era film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a small storefront theatre on the south side of Hollywood Boulevard, somewhere west of Western Avenue, I think. This place had regular theatre seats, with the back rows on built-up risers, and a decent width screen (as good as the early AMC shoe boxes), and I think it may have become a porn house later.
Then there was another storefront conversion on the west side of a side street just north of Hollywood Boulevard. I’m not positive but I think it might have been Normandie. This was in a high-ceilinged shop which had a mezzanine above the front entrance and show windows, and I think it was either a coffee house or an art gallery (or maybe a bit of both) at the time of its conversion into a movie theatre. The projection room was installed on the mezzanine (I think it must have been 16mm) and the screen about two thirds of the way to the back of the room. The place had small tables and bentwood chairs like a typical coffee house of the era, and a couple of old couches. I only went there once and don’t remember any of the indie movie shorts that made up the program that night.
Southwest Builder & Contractor announced in its issue of July 10, 1925, that architects A. Godfrey Bailey and Carl Boller were completing the plans for the Broadway Theatre. The same publication announced the letting of the contracts for construction in their issue of July 31. The building was owned by F.E. Farnsworth and the theatre was leased to E.D. Yost.
This theatre needs an AKA as the Lyric Theatre, per Ron Pierce’s first paragraph at top.
The movie named on the marquee in the photo to which Lost Memory linked above, Oh Billy, Behave, was released in 1926.
The photo linked above by ken mc dates from no earlier than 1926, the year in which the movie Oh Billy, Behave was released. As the first Princess Theatre was demolished in 1923 to make way for the New Walker Theatre, later renamed the West Coast Theatre, the photo must depict the later New Princess Theatre.
A large percentage of the cards in the L.A. Library’s California Index do refer to this theatre as the Wilshire Theatre. The name Fox was not used though. The West Coast Circuit did not become Fox-West Coast until several years after this theatre opened, and the Fox name was not put on any of the circuit’s theatres until 1929. I don’t know in what year the Wilshire was renamed the Embassy, but it must have been before 1930 when Fox opened its new Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills.
The Lompoc Theatre now has this official website.
This article from the Santa Barbara Independent issue of July 5, 2007, suggests that the start of renovation for the Lompoc Theatre is waiting only on a bit more fund raising.
The Venice Timeline to which I linked in my comment of June 30, 2006 has been moved. The section I mentioned is now here.
Here is the Venice Timeline Index, with links to five sections each detailing two decades of the area’s history.
A minor point, but the street name is Western Avenue, not Western Boulevard.
The L.A. library’s California Index confirms a 1911 opening for the Neptune Theatre. The opening date was either May 22 or May 23, 1911, according to an ambiguous article in The Santa Monica Outlook of May 12, 1911. The theatre was owned by David Evans, and was upon opening operated under a lease by Los Angeles vaudeville impresario Arthur S. Hyman (whose Hyman Theatre at 8th and Broadway in Los Angeles later became the Garrick Theatre and was finally demolished to make way for the Tower Theatre.) According to the February 3, 1912 issue of of the regional entertainment publication, The Rounder, the Neptune in that year presented previews of a number of movies made by the Bison Company, a local Santa Monica studio.
Either La Petite Theatre was a bit peripatetic, or the area had two theatres by that name.
The earliest reference to Santa Monica’s La Petite Theatre in the L.A. library’s California Index is to a Santa Monica Outlook item of January 1, 1908, announcing the opening of a new play. An Outlook item of January 6 that year gives the theatre’s address as 227 3rd Street. The following day the same paper announced a film titled “College Chums” would appear at the La Petite Theatre.
But on January 25, 1909, The Outlook announced that B.A. Wheelock would finance the construction of the La Petit [sic] Theatre in Ocean Park. The announcement that the contract for construction had been let was published in The Outlook on February 16, 1909. The architect of this building (which may have had a very brief existence) was Alfred Rosenheim. A mere three years later, on February 12, 1912, The Venice Vanguard carried an article announcing that Kramer and Stineman had purchased the La Petite Theatre, Ocean Front and Marine St. from Wheelock & Boland, and planned to build a larger building on the site. I’ve been unable to confirm that the plan to rebuild was carried out.
Whether in a new building or the earlier one, the La Petite may have operated into 1923. A Venice Vanguard article of February 17, 1923, said that the La Petite Theatre building would be converted into a store.
The Venice Timeline claims that the Neptune Theatre opened in 1911, with 750 seats.
Here’s yet another update for the S. Charles Lee link:
http://digital.library.ucla.edu/sclee/
Here’s an interior photo of the State, also dated 1936. Apparently, S. Charles Lee was approached about remodeling the place at that time, but there’s no record in his papers that he did the project. I never saw Stockton until about 1970, by which time the town had been struck by an urban ruinewal project. If the State was still there then, I don’t remember seeing it.
Ken, the Meralta isn’t even in that aerial photo. TerraServer got its little red dot way off in this case. The theatre is at the east (right hand) end of the block, on the north side of First Street. It’s just out of frame in that photo. You have to go to the large version of the photo, and then you can identify the Meralta’s building by the marquee jutting out from it.
Ken: Odd street numbers are on the west sides of north-south streets. In the TerraServer aerial view, it has to be the odd-numbered Century on the left, and the even-numbered Aloha on the right.
The aerial photo shows the extant triangular marquee of the Aloha, and also the patch of terrazzo sidewalk in front of the Century/Circle directly across the street. Your photo and the aerial are proof that, though the address of 6013 has been changed to 6003, L.A. Smith’s Circle Theatre building from 1921-22 has not been demolished. It is currently the location of Acevedo’s Upholstery Supplies. This page needs to be updated.
Period photos show that it was the theatre at 6th Street that was called Tally’s New Broadway. It was also called the Garnett Theatre, but I don’t know during what years.
The correct name is Woods Theatre, without an apostrophe. The owner was an A.L. Woods.
FDY may have been a bit late in upping the reported number of seats in this house, unless the theatre was expanded twice, or its original expansion plans had to be put off. The August 27, 1937 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor announced an impending remodeling and expansion of the Woods which would double the theatre’s capacity.
The stringy chandelier in the former Warner Downtown auditorium is a post-theatrical addition.
Southwest Contractor & Maufacturer in its issue of January 22, 1916, said that The Gale Theatrical Company would erect a brick theatre on S. Greenleaf Avenue.
gencin: This page is not about the UA Marketplace 6 multiplex at Colorado and Delacey in Old Town. It’s about the earlier UA single-screen which was about ¾ of a mile east of there, on Colorado near Madison. This theatre was closed when UA opened the Marketplace 6, which was about 1987, I think. The Marketplace 6 is closed now, too, since 2004, while the AMC 8 screen in Old Pasadena is still open, but no longer operated by AMC. For the last few years it’s been operated as the Laemmle One Colorado Cinemas. Laemmle also has the Playhouse 7 multiplex at Colorado and El Molino.
The big dog in Pasadena now is the Pacific Theatres multiplex, the Paseo 14 at 336 East Colorado, where the J.C. Penney store used to be when the Paseo was still Plaza Pasadena. It was the Paseo 14, opened in 2001, that led Regal to shut down the Marketplace 6 and AMC to pull out of its Old Town operation.
As of this date, Cinema Treasures doesn’t yet have pages for the UA Marketplace 6, or the AMC/Laemmle One Colorado Cinemas, or for the Pacific Paseo 14. That early triplex that used to be on Rosemead near the Pacific Hastings is missing, too. The Laemmle Playhouse 7 is listed, though.