Rapides Opera House (added 1981 – Building – #81000298)
Also known as Paramount Theatre
Rapides County – 1125 3rd St., Alexandria
(10 acres, 1 building)
Historic Significance: Architecture/Engineering, Event
Architect, builder, or engineer: Favrot & Livaudais
Architectural Style: Romanesque
Area of Significance: Performing Arts, Architecture, Entertainment/Recreation
Period of Significance: 1900-1924
Owner: Local Gov’t
Historic Function: Recreation And Culture
Historic Sub-function: Auditorium, Music Facility, Theater
Current Function: Vacant/Not In Use
Here is an interior photo of the auditorium. The configuration is one I’ve never seen before: it had both a stadium seating section and a standard shelf balcony above it. It looks as though it had way more than the 800 seats currently claimed in this entry’s information section.
The Encore Theatre is listed at 5308 Melrose, Hollywood, so this must be a duplicate listing. I don’t remember the Encore being renamed the Continental, but then I didn’t go to any movies there after about 1964, and probably never visited that end of Melrose Avenue again.
ken mc: I’m thinking that maybe the Spring Street theatre was the one called Gore’s Regent. Your earlier reference (in your comment of May 29) to Gore’s Regent was published in 1920, and now there’s an ad for a Regent Theatre on Spring Street in 1925. It seems likely that the Main Street theatre, originally called the National Theatre (per Ken Roe’s comment of May 9), would not have been given the name Regent until some time later, after the Regent on Spring Street had been closed.
I’m unable to find a theatre at the 447 S. Spring Street address listed at Cinema Treasures under any name. I might have missed it though.
This theatre’s building was probably demolished to make way for the later building that housed the Art Theatre (opened 1918) at 551 S. Main. I believe that one of the storefronts in the Art’s building had the address 553 S. Main.
KenRoe: Anaheim Road must refer to the street now called Telegraph Road, which shows up on old maps as Anaheim-Telegraph Road. Interestingly, the 4500 E. block was probably right at the southern end of Ford Boulevard, so the Garden was probably about a mile and a half south of the Bonito. The Garden would most likely be gone now, as the intersection of Anaheim-Telegraph Road and Ford Boulevard was pretty much obliterated by the construction of the Long Beach Freeway-Santa Ana Freeway interchange.
I don’t think the Garden Theatre is listed at Cinema Treasures.
The theatre that Cinema Treasures has listed at 1520 E. First St. is called the Aliso Theatre. It probably got renamed when the Aliso Village housing project was built across the street.
There is a small photo of the marquee of the Bill Robinson Theatre on this page at the Western States Black History and Research Center website. It’s part of a large collection of photos and memorabilia assembled by the late Mayme A. Clayton. Eventually there’s to be a library to house the collection, but so far only a few pictures have been digitized for display on the website.
I’m not sure which of the two locations of the Bill Robinson is depicted in this photo, but it is labeled as having been taken c1942, so it’s more likely to be the former Tivoli Theatre at 4219 Central Avenue than the former Casino Theatre (which is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures) at 4319 Central Avenue.
I don’t know if this is the same place or not, but the Motion Picture Herald of February 27, 1932, had a small item saying that Frank Pratt had taken over the lease on the Garden Theatre, Belvedere Gardens, East Los Angeles. The name Belvedere was historically applied to a good-sized swath of the unincorporated east side, though, including some commercial districts along First and Third Streets and Brooklyn Avenue, so Garden Theatre might have been an early name of some other theatre in the area.
The United Artists is the nearest theatre in this night photo of Broadway north from 11th Street during the parade celebrating the arrival of electricity from Boulder (now Hoover) Dam, 9 October, 1936.
The information accompanying this photo gives the date as 1955, but looking at the cars on the street I’d guess it’s as much as a decade earlier- probably the early post-war years. Anyway, here’s a view of Broadway with the Loew’s State vertical sign prominently featured.
The demolition took place in 1920? Was the entire building demolished or was it just the auditorium section? In the c1920 photo from the library collection the commercial part of the building looks to be in excellent shape. All the later pictures I’ve seen of the place are from after it got that deco/streamline modern remodeling, which had to have been done in the 1930s at the earliest. Nothing looking like that facade would have been built as early as 1920. If the whole building was new in 1920, then there ought to be pictures of it somewhere.
Fred Miller was quite active in the business. In 1923 he built the Gateway Theatre in Glendale, and in 1925 the Figueroa Theatre.
He also had something to do with the Carthay Circle. The California Index has a card headed with his name citing an article about the Carthay Circle in the magazine California Graphic of July 24, 1926. And then there’s a card citing an article in the trade publication Exhibitors Herald-World from February 16, 1929, about Fox-West Coast retaining Fred Miller as manager of the Carthay Circle after they have taken over operation the theatre. I can’t find any reference specifically naming the actual owner of the theatre before Fox took over, so it may or may not have been Miller. Maybe there’s a Times article from the era that would tell.
And apparently Miller didn’t remain as manager of the Carthay Circle for very long after the Fox takeover. Another card from the California Index cites an L.A. Times article of May 18, 1930 (part III, page 9) which was headed “Pioneer theatre man reenters field.” That’s the most recent reference to him I’ve seen, so I don’t know how his return went.
Way back in December of 2005, I linked to a photo from the USC digital archives showing this block before the California was built, but which showed the earlier Miller’s Theatre down the block. The picture has been moved here. Unfortunately, USC has abandoned the scroll feature they once had, so the amount of detail viewers can get is now limited, but you can still make out the Miller’s marquee and rooftop sign on the dark, three story building at far right.
ken mc: The articles you quote must refer to the Clune’s Broadway Theatre which later became the Cameo Theatre. Despite what the L.A. Conservancy’s database says, I don’t think there was ever a theatre on this site at 601 S. Broadway, unless it was a storefront nickelodeon.
Has anyone contacted the New York Public Library to let them know that their photo caption misidentifies the Ohio Theatre as the United Artists? Errors such as that are pretty common on the Internet, unfortunately. Not every institution will respond to notification about mistakes on their websites, either. The Library of Congress website has never corrected any of the caption errors I’ve told them about, but the L.A. Public Library has corrected several such errors in their on-line photo collection after I’ve informed them about them by e-mail. I’ve never contacted the New York library, so I don’t know if it would do any good or not.
The Cody/San Fernando Theatre was designed by architect A. Godfrey Bailey. His completion of the preliminary plans was announced in the April 2, 1924 issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor.
The photo to which Lost Memory linked above has been moved. It is now located here. It should be noted that there is a discrepancy in dates from the two sources. The caption information with the photo claims that the theatre was already open in 1923, a conclusion apparently based on the fact that the movie advertised on the marquee had been released in that year.
Architect Bailey also did a 1924 remodel of the Cameo Theatre on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.
The Hippodrome was essentially two buildings, as is the case with many theatres. The commercial building in front,which also contained the theatre lobby, was the part that wasn’t demolished until 1984. The auditorium structure was demolished much earlier, and was replaced by an open parking lot. After the Westminster was razed there was a clear view from both Main and 4th Streets to the location where the Hippodrome’s auditorium had stood .
What happened to the Hippodrome is essentially the same thing that happened to the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra, except that the Garfield’s foyer and lobby were enclosed for retail space, not left open as a driveway. But in both cases, the auditoriums were torn down and the surrounding commercial buildings were left standing.
You can see aerial views of the Garfield before and after its auditorium’s demolition at Microsoft’s TerraServer. The 2004 Urban Areas photo shows the surviving retail building and the parking lot, and the 1994 aerial photo shows when the theatre was still there. Unfortunately the Hippodrome was entirely demolished long before either of the aerial photos of its site available at TerraServer were made.
The NRHP info on the Paramount:
Rapides Opera House (added 1981 – Building – #81000298)
Also known as Paramount Theatre
Rapides County – 1125 3rd St., Alexandria
(10 acres, 1 building)
Historic Significance: Architecture/Engineering, Event
Architect, builder, or engineer: Favrot & Livaudais
Architectural Style: Romanesque
Area of Significance: Performing Arts, Architecture, Entertainment/Recreation
Period of Significance: 1900-1924
Owner: Local Gov’t
Historic Function: Recreation And Culture
Historic Sub-function: Auditorium, Music Facility, Theater
Current Function: Vacant/Not In Use
Here is an interior photo of the auditorium. The configuration is one I’ve never seen before: it had both a stadium seating section and a standard shelf balcony above it. It looks as though it had way more than the 800 seats currently claimed in this entry’s information section.
The Encore Theatre is listed at 5308 Melrose, Hollywood, so this must be a duplicate listing. I don’t remember the Encore being renamed the Continental, but then I didn’t go to any movies there after about 1964, and probably never visited that end of Melrose Avenue again.
ScottS & ken mc: People’s Theatre was yet another name of the theatre known as as the Olympic/Alphin/Omar/Moon/Gayety.
ken mc: the Woodley/Victory/Mission was demolished to make way for the fourth Orpheum Theatre.
ken mc: KenRoe recently added the theatre at 255 S. Main St. under its 1910 name, the Union Theatre.
ken mc: I’m thinking that maybe the Spring Street theatre was the one called Gore’s Regent. Your earlier reference (in your comment of May 29) to Gore’s Regent was published in 1920, and now there’s an ad for a Regent Theatre on Spring Street in 1925. It seems likely that the Main Street theatre, originally called the National Theatre (per Ken Roe’s comment of May 9), would not have been given the name Regent until some time later, after the Regent on Spring Street had been closed.
I’m unable to find a theatre at the 447 S. Spring Street address listed at Cinema Treasures under any name. I might have missed it though.
This theatre’s building was probably demolished to make way for the later building that housed the Art Theatre (opened 1918) at 551 S. Main. I believe that one of the storefronts in the Art’s building had the address 553 S. Main.
KenRoe: Anaheim Road must refer to the street now called Telegraph Road, which shows up on old maps as Anaheim-Telegraph Road. Interestingly, the 4500 E. block was probably right at the southern end of Ford Boulevard, so the Garden was probably about a mile and a half south of the Bonito. The Garden would most likely be gone now, as the intersection of Anaheim-Telegraph Road and Ford Boulevard was pretty much obliterated by the construction of the Long Beach Freeway-Santa Ana Freeway interchange.
I don’t think the Garden Theatre is listed at Cinema Treasures.
The theatre that Cinema Treasures has listed at 1520 E. First St. is called the Aliso Theatre. It probably got renamed when the Aliso Village housing project was built across the street.
The Roosevelt Theatre at 8th and Vermont, renamed Chotiner’s Parisian Theatre in the 1930s, is listed here as the Fox Parisian.
There is a small photo of the marquee of the Bill Robinson Theatre on this page at the Western States Black History and Research Center website. It’s part of a large collection of photos and memorabilia assembled by the late Mayme A. Clayton. Eventually there’s to be a library to house the collection, but so far only a few pictures have been digitized for display on the website.
I’m not sure which of the two locations of the Bill Robinson is depicted in this photo, but it is labeled as having been taken c1942, so it’s more likely to be the former Tivoli Theatre at 4219 Central Avenue than the former Casino Theatre (which is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures) at 4319 Central Avenue.
I don’t know if this is the same place or not, but the Motion Picture Herald of February 27, 1932, had a small item saying that Frank Pratt had taken over the lease on the Garden Theatre, Belvedere Gardens, East Los Angeles. The name Belvedere was historically applied to a good-sized swath of the unincorporated east side, though, including some commercial districts along First and Third Streets and Brooklyn Avenue, so Garden Theatre might have been an early name of some other theatre in the area.
This theatre is located in the city of Torrance, not Los Angeles.
The United Artists is the nearest theatre in this night photo of Broadway north from 11th Street during the parade celebrating the arrival of electricity from Boulder (now Hoover) Dam, 9 October, 1936.
The information accompanying this photo gives the date as 1955, but looking at the cars on the street I’d guess it’s as much as a decade earlier- probably the early post-war years. Anyway, here’s a view of Broadway with the Loew’s State vertical sign prominently featured.
Rats! Screwed up the code for the picture link.
1920 photo from the library collection.
The demolition took place in 1920? Was the entire building demolished or was it just the auditorium section? In the c1920 photo from the library collection the commercial part of the building looks to be in excellent shape. All the later pictures I’ve seen of the place are from after it got that deco/streamline modern remodeling, which had to have been done in the 1930s at the earliest. Nothing looking like that facade would have been built as early as 1920. If the whole building was new in 1920, then there ought to be pictures of it somewhere.
The Galway at 518 S. Main is listed.
Fred Miller was quite active in the business. In 1923 he built the Gateway Theatre in Glendale, and in 1925 the Figueroa Theatre.
He also had something to do with the Carthay Circle. The California Index has a card headed with his name citing an article about the Carthay Circle in the magazine California Graphic of July 24, 1926. And then there’s a card citing an article in the trade publication Exhibitors Herald-World from February 16, 1929, about Fox-West Coast retaining Fred Miller as manager of the Carthay Circle after they have taken over operation the theatre. I can’t find any reference specifically naming the actual owner of the theatre before Fox took over, so it may or may not have been Miller. Maybe there’s a Times article from the era that would tell.
And apparently Miller didn’t remain as manager of the Carthay Circle for very long after the Fox takeover. Another card from the California Index cites an L.A. Times article of May 18, 1930 (part III, page 9) which was headed “Pioneer theatre man reenters field.” That’s the most recent reference to him I’ve seen, so I don’t know how his return went.
Way back in December of 2005, I linked to a photo from the USC digital archives showing this block before the California was built, but which showed the earlier Miller’s Theatre down the block. The picture has been moved here. Unfortunately, USC has abandoned the scroll feature they once had, so the amount of detail viewers can get is now limited, but you can still make out the Miller’s marquee and rooftop sign on the dark, three story building at far right.
ken mc: The articles you quote must refer to the Clune’s Broadway Theatre which later became the Cameo Theatre. Despite what the L.A. Conservancy’s database says, I don’t think there was ever a theatre on this site at 601 S. Broadway, unless it was a storefront nickelodeon.
Has anyone contacted the New York Public Library to let them know that their photo caption misidentifies the Ohio Theatre as the United Artists? Errors such as that are pretty common on the Internet, unfortunately. Not every institution will respond to notification about mistakes on their websites, either. The Library of Congress website has never corrected any of the caption errors I’ve told them about, but the L.A. Public Library has corrected several such errors in their on-line photo collection after I’ve informed them about them by e-mail. I’ve never contacted the New York library, so I don’t know if it would do any good or not.
Ken: The Imperial/UA is still operating as the Market Street Cinema.
The Cody/San Fernando Theatre was designed by architect A. Godfrey Bailey. His completion of the preliminary plans was announced in the April 2, 1924 issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor.
The photo to which Lost Memory linked above has been moved. It is now located here. It should be noted that there is a discrepancy in dates from the two sources. The caption information with the photo claims that the theatre was already open in 1923, a conclusion apparently based on the fact that the movie advertised on the marquee had been released in that year.
Architect Bailey also did a 1924 remodel of the Cameo Theatre on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.
The Hippodrome was essentially two buildings, as is the case with many theatres. The commercial building in front,which also contained the theatre lobby, was the part that wasn’t demolished until 1984. The auditorium structure was demolished much earlier, and was replaced by an open parking lot. After the Westminster was razed there was a clear view from both Main and 4th Streets to the location where the Hippodrome’s auditorium had stood .
What happened to the Hippodrome is essentially the same thing that happened to the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra, except that the Garfield’s foyer and lobby were enclosed for retail space, not left open as a driveway. But in both cases, the auditoriums were torn down and the surrounding commercial buildings were left standing.
You can see aerial views of the Garfield before and after its auditorium’s demolition at Microsoft’s TerraServer. The 2004 Urban Areas photo shows the surviving retail building and the parking lot, and the 1994 aerial photo shows when the theatre was still there. Unfortunately the Hippodrome was entirely demolished long before either of the aerial photos of its site available at TerraServer were made.