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.
Ken: I think the Main Street Hippodrome was the only theatre in Los Angeles ever to use that name, so the article probably is about this theatre. The date for demolition does seem about right,and it did make way for a parking lot.
Ken mc: By 1966 the State had been part of the Corwins' Metropolitan Circuit for at least a few years. The photo is interesting for other reasons too, though. Look how tidy the street and sidewalk are. There are a couple of scraps of paper in the gutter, but those white spots on the sidewalk are probably from dust specks on the photograph negative. That’s how I remember Broadway and most of downtown being through the 1960s. When I returned in the early 1980s, after more than a decade’s absence, the street was one long strew of trash, most of it from fast food places, and somebody had virtually paved the sidewalks with dried chewing gum.
Ken: That picture you linked to today shows the Hill Street side of the building. That fancy decoration around the second floor windows was continuous only on the Hill Street side. On the 6th Street side, only the end window got that ornate frame. See the 1944 photo you linked to on March 9.
The windmill is gone, the blades having been taken down in the 1950s when that particular branch of Van de Kamp’s closed. The mill-shaped tower remained a number of years after that, but was finally removed. I believe the rest of the building is still there, though, including its extended window bay above which the windmill stood.
I also have a vague memory of the big sign atop the Garfield’s fly tower being lit up with hundreds of little light bulbs, until the mid-1950s, but maybe wishful thinking has caused me to imagine having seen that. I know the sign itself was there for ages, and the painted mural and lettering on the back of the fly tower, flaking and fading away year after year. That photo from the USC collection shows only the top of the moon, and not the sailing ship that was silhouetted against it. I’d love to see a picture of the whole thing.
I suspect that the large upstairs space which eventually became the Main Street Gym might have started out as a dance hall. See this 1928 photo (it’s the same one ken mc linked to on March 24.) The picture is a bit blurry, but it looks as though the small blade sign attached to the near end of the theatre building says “Dancing”. Maybe somebody with better eyesight than mine can make it out.
The “Auto Park” advertised on the theatre’s former main blade sign and marquee occupied the space where the auditorium (demolished in the late 1940s) had stood. The ground floor of the Adolphus Theatre Building, except for the long lobby which became the parking lot entrance, continued to be used as retail space for many years. I have no memory of a basement in the building, but almost every downtown building did have one and it seems unlikely that this building would be an exception to the rule.
Patsy: Temple was the original name of the theatre which is listed on Cinema Treasures under its final name, El Rey. It was demolished following the Northhridge earthquake in 1987, as was the nearby Alhambra Theatre (Alhambra Twin Cinemas. Alhambra’s other known old theatre, the Granada/Coronet/Capri was destroyed following an earlier earthquake, in 1971. I’ve come across one reference to another very early (c1912) movie theatre in Alhambra, possibly called the Supurba, but can’t pin down any details about it.
Interestingly enough, the architect originally employed to design the Garfield was John Walker Smart, who did in fact design the DuPuy castle now owned by Phil Spector. Eventually it was L.A. Smith who designed the Garfield.
I never saw the vanished moviepalaces.net website, but there’s now an impressive website about Houston’s theatres called Cinema Houston. It’s an on-line extension of a book of the same name by David Welling.
Grauman’s Metropolitan is listed at Cinema Treasures as the Paramount Grauman only operated it for a few years, and then sold all his downtown interests so he could concentrate on his Hollywood theatres.
vokoban: I don’t remember Dave’s Music Box being there in the 1960s. My best guess is that it was a bar. The name might also suggest a record shop, but it looks as though the shop windows are blocked- long a legal requirement for bars in California, but a bad idea for a retail shop, so I’m thinking it was not a record store.
It looks as though by 1941 the Republic had become a bus station. This photo shows a pawn shop at 627 S. Main, and the entrance to the All American Bus Lines station is the next door south. I don’t know if it was a remodeling or new construction.
The 1923 Paramount ad is interesting. The only downtown Broadway house listed is the Garrick, but it looks as though Paramount product just dominated the Main Street houses- ten of them between 1st and 7th Streets alone, which was probably close to half of all the operating movie theatres on the strip.
Incidentally, for anybody wondering where Moneta Avenue is, with its four listed theatres, that was the original name of what is now Broadway south of downtown. Until 1920s, Broadway ended at 10th Street. When it was cut through it connected to Moneta Avenue, which was finally renamed Broadway in 1930.
Here’s something only indirectly related to L.A.’s movie theatres, but I found it fascinating. From long ago I recall people mentioning a popular Main Street restaurant called Goodfellows Grotto, which closed in the 1950s. I believe Matt Weinstock wrote about it in his column from time to time. Goodfellows was located just south of the Belasco/Follies and was a favorite of various theatrical folk.
So, I looked it up on the Internet and found this interesting page which has a brief article about the restaurant and its founder, Matteo Dujmovich. It mentions several of the theatres in the neighborhood and provides a vivid thumbnail sketch of what life on Main Street was like during the first half of the 20th century.
As far as I know, davesrailpix.com is the only place that displays the Joe Testagrose collection. In addition to the various L.A. Railways collections (Testagrose’s is one of several L.A. Railway collections there, though it’s the largest by far), the site also has Pacific Electric pictures, also accessible from their main page
Ken Roe added the 1902 Tally’s Electric on Main Street to the site the other day, but under its last known name, Glockner’s Automatic Theatre.
From the Dave’s Railpix collection, Main Street in 1947, showing a glimpse of the Gaiety’s marquee at far right and, above and behind the streetcar in the foreground, the fancy top of the Optic Theatre building.
Drat. Maybe I conflated the proprietary name, or maybe Dave Rector owned both Admiral Theatres (in the 1930s he owned the Gordon Theatre on La Brea, so I know he had more than just one.)
vokoban: The Admiral on Main Street (AKA Rector’s Admiral) was a grind house, on the east side of the street, somewhere between the Regent and the Burbank. It was smaller than the Regent, but larger than the various storefront theatres in the area, so I suspect it might have actually been built as a theatre. It had a marquee of about the same style and vintage as the Regent’s.
When you posted the article about the Banner having gotten a new front in 1952 I thought that it might have become the Admiral, but I’ve seen comments indicating that the Banner was still the Banner into the 1970s, and the 1973 picture of it that Ken posted doesn’t resemble the Admiral. That’s why I now think it had to have been below 5th Street. I passed by it many times in the 1960s, and I’m sure I’d recognize it immediately if I saw a picture of it, but my memory has lost track of the exact location and other details.
Ken: I decided this was never the Admiral, as the entrance was too narrow. I have no memory of the Main Theatre existing in the early to mid 1960s, but I can’t say for certain that it wasn’t open yet at that time.
As for the elusive Admiral, I’ve also just about discarded the Banner as a possible location, and now suspect that the Admiral was in the block south of 5th Street. The other possibility is that I’ve unknowingly made a visit to (or actually come from) another Los Angeles which is in a parallel universe, and the Admiral existed there but not here.
Ken: Did you notice that the 1957 photo you just linked to at the Hippodrome page shows the Roxy Loan Company office located in the corner store of the Westminster Hotel building? I doubt they’d have had two locations so close together at the same time, so I’m guessing they moved to 4th and Main between the times the two pictures were taken. That might be when their premises in the Canadian Building were converted into the Main Theatre.
L.A. Library has this photo of the Panorama Building. Undated, but probably the 1890s. There are signs for the Panorama Book Store, a furniture store, a stable (in the center section, probably widening out at the back to an area large enough to accommodate a skating rink), and the offices of the Evening Express (probably upstairs.)
Here is a photo of the Play Room, at the northeast corner of Main and 3rd, as it appeared in 1991. The building occupies the location of the Liberty Theatre, and may be either later construction or the same building— minus the front portion which would have to have been demolished when East 3rd Street was connected directly to West 3rd Street, leaving the front sharply angled.
I have no idea if the Empire ever served as a movie theatre. It’s another of those mystery theatres. The birds-eye map is the only place I’ve ever seen any indication that it ever existed. If the garage was converted from the theatre, though, then it was a good-sized place and must have been important in its day- whenever that day was.
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.
Ken: I think the Main Street Hippodrome was the only theatre in Los Angeles ever to use that name, so the article probably is about this theatre. The date for demolition does seem about right,and it did make way for a parking lot.
Ken mc: By 1966 the State had been part of the Corwins' Metropolitan Circuit for at least a few years. The photo is interesting for other reasons too, though. Look how tidy the street and sidewalk are. There are a couple of scraps of paper in the gutter, but those white spots on the sidewalk are probably from dust specks on the photograph negative. That’s how I remember Broadway and most of downtown being through the 1960s. When I returned in the early 1980s, after more than a decade’s absence, the street was one long strew of trash, most of it from fast food places, and somebody had virtually paved the sidewalks with dried chewing gum.
Ken: That picture you linked to today shows the Hill Street side of the building. That fancy decoration around the second floor windows was continuous only on the Hill Street side. On the 6th Street side, only the end window got that ornate frame. See the 1944 photo you linked to on March 9.
The theatre on the west side of Hill Street between 7th and 8th was the Alhambra.
The windmill is gone, the blades having been taken down in the 1950s when that particular branch of Van de Kamp’s closed. The mill-shaped tower remained a number of years after that, but was finally removed. I believe the rest of the building is still there, though, including its extended window bay above which the windmill stood.
I also have a vague memory of the big sign atop the Garfield’s fly tower being lit up with hundreds of little light bulbs, until the mid-1950s, but maybe wishful thinking has caused me to imagine having seen that. I know the sign itself was there for ages, and the painted mural and lettering on the back of the fly tower, flaking and fading away year after year. That photo from the USC collection shows only the top of the moon, and not the sailing ship that was silhouetted against it. I’d love to see a picture of the whole thing.
The Apollo/Star burned in December of 1976. Here’s a photo of the event from the L.A. Times.
I suspect that the large upstairs space which eventually became the Main Street Gym might have started out as a dance hall. See this 1928 photo (it’s the same one ken mc linked to on March 24.) The picture is a bit blurry, but it looks as though the small blade sign attached to the near end of the theatre building says “Dancing”. Maybe somebody with better eyesight than mine can make it out.
The “Auto Park” advertised on the theatre’s former main blade sign and marquee occupied the space where the auditorium (demolished in the late 1940s) had stood. The ground floor of the Adolphus Theatre Building, except for the long lobby which became the parking lot entrance, continued to be used as retail space for many years. I have no memory of a basement in the building, but almost every downtown building did have one and it seems unlikely that this building would be an exception to the rule.
Patsy: Temple was the original name of the theatre which is listed on Cinema Treasures under its final name, El Rey. It was demolished following the Northhridge earthquake in 1987, as was the nearby Alhambra Theatre (Alhambra Twin Cinemas. Alhambra’s other known old theatre, the Granada/Coronet/Capri was destroyed following an earlier earthquake, in 1971. I’ve come across one reference to another very early (c1912) movie theatre in Alhambra, possibly called the Supurba, but can’t pin down any details about it.
Interestingly enough, the architect originally employed to design the Garfield was John Walker Smart, who did in fact design the DuPuy castle now owned by Phil Spector. Eventually it was L.A. Smith who designed the Garfield.
I never saw the vanished moviepalaces.net website, but there’s now an impressive website about Houston’s theatres called Cinema Houston. It’s an on-line extension of a book of the same name by David Welling.
Grauman’s Metropolitan is listed at Cinema Treasures as the Paramount Grauman only operated it for a few years, and then sold all his downtown interests so he could concentrate on his Hollywood theatres.
vokoban: I don’t remember Dave’s Music Box being there in the 1960s. My best guess is that it was a bar. The name might also suggest a record shop, but it looks as though the shop windows are blocked- long a legal requirement for bars in California, but a bad idea for a retail shop, so I’m thinking it was not a record store.
It looks as though by 1941 the Republic had become a bus station. This photo shows a pawn shop at 627 S. Main, and the entrance to the All American Bus Lines station is the next door south. I don’t know if it was a remodeling or new construction.
The 1923 Paramount ad is interesting. The only downtown Broadway house listed is the Garrick, but it looks as though Paramount product just dominated the Main Street houses- ten of them between 1st and 7th Streets alone, which was probably close to half of all the operating movie theatres on the strip.
Incidentally, for anybody wondering where Moneta Avenue is, with its four listed theatres, that was the original name of what is now Broadway south of downtown. Until 1920s, Broadway ended at 10th Street. When it was cut through it connected to Moneta Avenue, which was finally renamed Broadway in 1930.
A patron annoyed by the racket of bodies whacking onto the roof of the Lark could also have walked a few doors south to the Republic Theatre.
Here’s something only indirectly related to L.A.’s movie theatres, but I found it fascinating. From long ago I recall people mentioning a popular Main Street restaurant called Goodfellows Grotto, which closed in the 1950s. I believe Matt Weinstock wrote about it in his column from time to time. Goodfellows was located just south of the Belasco/Follies and was a favorite of various theatrical folk.
So, I looked it up on the Internet and found this interesting page which has a brief article about the restaurant and its founder, Matteo Dujmovich. It mentions several of the theatres in the neighborhood and provides a vivid thumbnail sketch of what life on Main Street was like during the first half of the 20th century.
As far as I know, davesrailpix.com is the only place that displays the Joe Testagrose collection. In addition to the various L.A. Railways collections (Testagrose’s is one of several L.A. Railway collections there, though it’s the largest by far), the site also has Pacific Electric pictures, also accessible from their main page
Ken Roe added the 1902 Tally’s Electric on Main Street to the site the other day, but under its last known name, Glockner’s Automatic Theatre.
523 S. Main was the location of the Gaiety Theatre
From the Dave’s Railpix collection, Main Street in 1947, showing a glimpse of the Gaiety’s marquee at far right and, above and behind the streetcar in the foreground, the fancy top of the Optic Theatre building.
Drat. Maybe I conflated the proprietary name, or maybe Dave Rector owned both Admiral Theatres (in the 1930s he owned the Gordon Theatre on La Brea, so I know he had more than just one.)
vokoban: The Admiral on Main Street (AKA Rector’s Admiral) was a grind house, on the east side of the street, somewhere between the Regent and the Burbank. It was smaller than the Regent, but larger than the various storefront theatres in the area, so I suspect it might have actually been built as a theatre. It had a marquee of about the same style and vintage as the Regent’s.
When you posted the article about the Banner having gotten a new front in 1952 I thought that it might have become the Admiral, but I’ve seen comments indicating that the Banner was still the Banner into the 1970s, and the 1973 picture of it that Ken posted doesn’t resemble the Admiral. That’s why I now think it had to have been below 5th Street. I passed by it many times in the 1960s, and I’m sure I’d recognize it immediately if I saw a picture of it, but my memory has lost track of the exact location and other details.
Ken: I decided this was never the Admiral, as the entrance was too narrow. I have no memory of the Main Theatre existing in the early to mid 1960s, but I can’t say for certain that it wasn’t open yet at that time.
As for the elusive Admiral, I’ve also just about discarded the Banner as a possible location, and now suspect that the Admiral was in the block south of 5th Street. The other possibility is that I’ve unknowingly made a visit to (or actually come from) another Los Angeles which is in a parallel universe, and the Admiral existed there but not here.
Ken, that 1931 photo must have been taken on the opening night. City Lights, indeed!
Ken: Did you notice that the 1957 photo you just linked to at the Hippodrome page shows the Roxy Loan Company office located in the corner store of the Westminster Hotel building? I doubt they’d have had two locations so close together at the same time, so I’m guessing they moved to 4th and Main between the times the two pictures were taken. That might be when their premises in the Canadian Building were converted into the Main Theatre.
L.A. Library has this photo of the Panorama Building. Undated, but probably the 1890s. There are signs for the Panorama Book Store, a furniture store, a stable (in the center section, probably widening out at the back to an area large enough to accommodate a skating rink), and the offices of the Evening Express (probably upstairs.)
Here is a photo of the Play Room, at the northeast corner of Main and 3rd, as it appeared in 1991. The building occupies the location of the Liberty Theatre, and may be either later construction or the same building— minus the front portion which would have to have been demolished when East 3rd Street was connected directly to West 3rd Street, leaving the front sharply angled.
I have no idea if the Empire ever served as a movie theatre. It’s another of those mystery theatres. The birds-eye map is the only place I’ve ever seen any indication that it ever existed. If the garage was converted from the theatre, though, then it was a good-sized place and must have been important in its day- whenever that day was.