Though the style of the Tumbleweed is designated above as “Atmospheric,” it was not a true atmospheric theatre. The ceiling did not depict a sky, but was a structure of open trusses and exposed rafters, as can be seen in this photo from the S.C. Lee collection at UCLA. The style of the theatre, both inside and out, could be more accurately described as Rustic.
Arian: There were several Los Angeles area theatres owned by the Chotiner circuit. The one at 8th and Vermont was Chotiner’s Parisian, later operated as the Fox Parisian.
Incidentally, Max Chotiner was married to silent movie actress Alice Calhoun, who was herself half-owner of the Marcal Theatre (listed here under its final name, the World Theatre) in Hollywood.
The only Grass Valley theatre currently listed at Cinema Treasures is the Del Oro. It is located on Mill Street, and the caption of your picture indicates that the Montez was on West Main Street, so they must not be the same theatre.
The address of the Metropolitan Opera House is 858 North Broad Street. The theatre is included in the National Register of Historic Places.
Apparently, the theatre continued to present some stage productions even after being converted to show movies, as I found a reference to this being the location of the American stage premier of Stravinsky’s opera “Oedipus Rex” which opened at the Metropolitan on April 10th, 1931.
The architect to whom this entry attributes the Metropolitan, John B. McElfatrick, died in 1906. Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts web site attributes this theatre to his son, William H. McElfatrick.
The Philadelphia Architects and Buildings web site has an interesting biography of John McElfatrick, and also one of William McElfatrick which includes a page of his projects, with the Metropolitan being the first listed. The firm of J.B. McElfatrick & Son was apparently engaged by Oscar Hammerstein to draw the plans for this theatre in 1907, after J.B. McElfatrick died.
90 years seems a bit old for a theatre in Carpenteria, which was a pretty small place for the first couple of decades of the 20th century, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it dated to the 1920s, when the development of local oil fields brought a sudden increase in the town’s wealth and population. The growing number of automobiles and improvement of the coast highway would have made Carpenteria more easily accessible to people from other, smaller towns along that stretch of coast about that time, too, making for a larger pool of theatre customers.
No, wait. I got that wrong. There’s a different sketch at the library, actually of the Pasadena Academy, which was mislabeled as being the Inglewood Academy, but I think that has been fixed. The sketch you linked to is the actual Inglewood Academy, mislabeled as being in Pasadena.
ken mc: It’s a double mistake by the library. The sketch is of the Academy Theatre in Pasadena, and it should be dated about the mid-1950s, which is when the former Fox Colorado (itself the former Bard’s Colorado) was remodeled and renamed.
David Donley: There are a very few references to Julian T. Zeller in the L.A. Library’s regional history database, and only one of them is to a theatre other than the Alcazar/Liberty. This is from the November 2nd, 1925 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor, and it says that Zeller had prepared sketches for a proposed $100,000 theatre to be built on A Street in Oxnard. It is not clear that this theatre was actually built, or that, if it was, that Zeller did the final plans.
The only theatre which I’m certain was on A Street in Oxnard was the Oxnard Theatre (later the Fox Oxnard Theatre) at 525 A. This theatre, though planned as early as 1920, was not actually built until 1928, and the final plans were by architect Alfred F. Priest, who had also drawn the original 1920 plans.
I haven’t been able to find much documentation of the theatres in Oxnard (I’ve seen references indicating that as many as six may have been built there by the 1930s), and the Oxnard Theatre itself is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures. Until someone roots around in Oxnard’s records, we probably won’t know if Zeller’s theatre plans of 1925 ever came to fruition.
The only other mentions of Zeller are about his design for a Swedish Lodge (Lyrian Lodge- no location given) in the Los Angeles Examiner of 3/22/1914; his design for an apartment house at 198 E. Jefferson in Los Angeles (mentioned in Southwest Builder and Contractor, 5/7/1920); and his design for four frame bungalows to be built at 118-130 E. 37th Street, Los Angeles (Southwest B&C 7/16/1920.) Builder and Contractor Magazine of 10/17/1912 gave the address of his offices as rooms 215-216, Courrier Building, Los Angeles. He was also mentioned in the February, 1929 issue of California Arts & Architecture Magazine, but I don’t know what that was about.
I’ve searched the Los Angeles Public Library’s web site, and they apparently have the entire collection of Southwest Builder and Contractor on microfilm, available in the Science and Technology Department at the central library, 5th and Grand, downtown. I’d like to take a look at the collection myself, but I live several hundred miles away from Los Angeles now.
There isn’t much about Clifford Balch on the Internet. Almost all the results of a Google search link back to this site. Here is Cinema Treasures' list of theatres worked on (partial). He may have worked in the offices of L.A. Smith in the early 1920s, as when Smith died (about 1924-1926), Balch completed many of the theatres on which Smith had been working.
Balch appears to have specialized in theatres, most designed with his partner, engineer Floyd Stanbery. I’ve found reference to only one non-theatre project by Balch- plans for an IOOF temple at the southwest corner of Green Street and Fair Oaks in Pasadena, in 1913. Either this was unbuilt, or has been demolished. There has been a gas station on that corner for as long as I can remember, which is back to the early 1960s.
Daily Variety of September 30, 1941 announced that the Monrovia Theatre had been acquired by Fox-West Coast Theatres, so the theatre was operating under that name by that time.
AJG: I’ve found additional references to the Mission Theatre. It was located on East Olive Avenue, and opened in 1910. It must have been built as a live theatre, as a 1914 reference says that as part of a remodeling by the new owner, Mr. J.C. Kuert, of Los Angeles, a “modern operating room” (meaning a projection booth) was being added. A balcony with an additional 150 seats was added at the same time.
I have also found another reference to the Colonial Theatre. It opened in 1920. The 1921 remodeling included “the construction of a complete stage.” I don’t know if this means that the theatre had previously lacked a stage altogether, or merely had an inadequate stage. It may have opened as a nickelodeon. As I’ve been unable to pin down a location for the Colonial, or a construction date for the Monrovia Theatre, I can’t yet eliminate the possibility that the Colonial and the Monrovia were the same theatre under different names.
The address listed above for the El Monte Theatre, 110 East Valley Boulevard, could be useful for searching old property records, but due to a street renumbering in the 1950’s and a renaming in the 1960’s, the current address of the theatre building is the one shown in the (now dead) picture link in Chuck 1231’s comment: 11020 Valley Mall. The zip code is 91731.
Drat! I just discovered that this entry duplicates this older one. I could have simply left the information above as a comment there. That entry says that the building has been demolished.
When El Monte used its own street numbering system, east-west streets were numbered from Tyler Avenue, beginning with a 100 block. That would have placed this theatre on the south side of the street, somewhere near Palm Court (about the 10800 or block of Valley Mall today, I think.)
The El Monte Theatre is listed here under its old address, too- 110 East Valley Boulevard- but a picture link (dead, alas) in the comments gives the El Monte’s current address as 11020 Valley Mall.
The streets are oddly configured at that intersection. Huntington Drive splits in two, and one of the forks further splits, with westbound traffic on Huntington veering south and that on Colorado veering north. I was never able to tell for sure which name left off where, but Colorado Place does sound as though it would be the correct street name.
I have found reference to an article in Southwest Builder and Contractor magazine of February 27th, 1942. It says that Steed Brothers Construction of Alhambra had been awarded the contract for the Edwards Santa Anita Theatre. No architect was named, but the structural engineer was W.M. Bostock. It was described as a class “D” theatre building, and was to seat 750 patrons. The cost was estimated at $50,000.
Was this theatre called the Gem when it was a movie house? There was once a theatre in Garden Grove called the Grove (not yet listed on Cinema Treasures, unless this is it under another name.) I never saw it, but it was owned in the 1950s by the Vinicoff Theatre Circuit, which also operated the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra which it owned in partnership with Edwards Theatres. Every once in a while, tickets bought at the Garfield would say “Grove Theatre” on them.
The various Spanish style theatres that Balch and Stanberry designed for Fox in that era were so much alike that it almost seems as though they had set up an assembly line to produce the plans. In fact, maybe they did. So many theatres were turned out by the firm in such a short time, their offices must have been full of busy draftsmen copying bits and pieces here and there.
The 1947 view to which I have linked above looks northward, so 1555 Myers would be behind the camera. The current address of the State is 1489 Myers. I don’t know if FDY got the address wrong, or if the streets have been renumbered since 1950. I can’t think of any reason why Oroville would have renumbered its downtown streets, though, so the former seems more likely.
The “Ritz” sign in the photo would be at an even numbered address in the 1300 block. Terraserver has a 1998 aerial view of the area, and there is a building about the middle of the 1300 block that could have been a theatre. The definition of the aerial view is not good enough to tell if there is still a building at 1555, (assuming that FDY gave the correct address for the Empire.)
I’d like to go over to Oroville and take a close look at the area, but I don’t know when I’ll get a chance.
Here is a picture (from the L.A. Public Library collection) of the Garnett Theatre, taken about 1909, when it was still called Tally’s New Broadway.
Though the style of the Tumbleweed is designated above as “Atmospheric,” it was not a true atmospheric theatre. The ceiling did not depict a sky, but was a structure of open trusses and exposed rafters, as can be seen in this photo from the S.C. Lee collection at UCLA. The style of the theatre, both inside and out, could be more accurately described as Rustic.
Arian: There were several Los Angeles area theatres owned by the Chotiner circuit. The one at 8th and Vermont was Chotiner’s Parisian, later operated as the Fox Parisian.
Incidentally, Max Chotiner was married to silent movie actress Alice Calhoun, who was herself half-owner of the Marcal Theatre (listed here under its final name, the World Theatre) in Hollywood.
The only Grass Valley theatre currently listed at Cinema Treasures is the Del Oro. It is located on Mill Street, and the caption of your picture indicates that the Montez was on West Main Street, so they must not be the same theatre.
The address of the Metropolitan Opera House is 858 North Broad Street. The theatre is included in the National Register of Historic Places.
Apparently, the theatre continued to present some stage productions even after being converted to show movies, as I found a reference to this being the location of the American stage premier of Stravinsky’s opera “Oedipus Rex” which opened at the Metropolitan on April 10th, 1931.
The architect to whom this entry attributes the Metropolitan, John B. McElfatrick, died in 1906. Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts web site attributes this theatre to his son, William H. McElfatrick.
The Philadelphia Architects and Buildings web site has an interesting biography of John McElfatrick, and also one of William McElfatrick which includes a page of his projects, with the Metropolitan being the first listed. The firm of J.B. McElfatrick & Son was apparently engaged by Oscar Hammerstein to draw the plans for this theatre in 1907, after J.B. McElfatrick died.
90 years seems a bit old for a theatre in Carpenteria, which was a pretty small place for the first couple of decades of the 20th century, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it dated to the 1920s, when the development of local oil fields brought a sudden increase in the town’s wealth and population. The growing number of automobiles and improvement of the coast highway would have made Carpenteria more easily accessible to people from other, smaller towns along that stretch of coast about that time, too, making for a larger pool of theatre customers.
No, wait. I got that wrong. There’s a different sketch at the library, actually of the Pasadena Academy, which was mislabeled as being the Inglewood Academy, but I think that has been fixed. The sketch you linked to is the actual Inglewood Academy, mislabeled as being in Pasadena.
ken mc: It’s a double mistake by the library. The sketch is of the Academy Theatre in Pasadena, and it should be dated about the mid-1950s, which is when the former Fox Colorado (itself the former Bard’s Colorado) was remodeled and renamed.
David Donley: There are a very few references to Julian T. Zeller in the L.A. Library’s regional history database, and only one of them is to a theatre other than the Alcazar/Liberty. This is from the November 2nd, 1925 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor, and it says that Zeller had prepared sketches for a proposed $100,000 theatre to be built on A Street in Oxnard. It is not clear that this theatre was actually built, or that, if it was, that Zeller did the final plans.
The only theatre which I’m certain was on A Street in Oxnard was the Oxnard Theatre (later the Fox Oxnard Theatre) at 525 A. This theatre, though planned as early as 1920, was not actually built until 1928, and the final plans were by architect Alfred F. Priest, who had also drawn the original 1920 plans.
I haven’t been able to find much documentation of the theatres in Oxnard (I’ve seen references indicating that as many as six may have been built there by the 1930s), and the Oxnard Theatre itself is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures. Until someone roots around in Oxnard’s records, we probably won’t know if Zeller’s theatre plans of 1925 ever came to fruition.
The only other mentions of Zeller are about his design for a Swedish Lodge (Lyrian Lodge- no location given) in the Los Angeles Examiner of 3/22/1914; his design for an apartment house at 198 E. Jefferson in Los Angeles (mentioned in Southwest Builder and Contractor, 5/7/1920); and his design for four frame bungalows to be built at 118-130 E. 37th Street, Los Angeles (Southwest B&C 7/16/1920.) Builder and Contractor Magazine of 10/17/1912 gave the address of his offices as rooms 215-216, Courrier Building, Los Angeles. He was also mentioned in the February, 1929 issue of California Arts & Architecture Magazine, but I don’t know what that was about.
I’ve searched the Los Angeles Public Library’s web site, and they apparently have the entire collection of Southwest Builder and Contractor on microfilm, available in the Science and Technology Department at the central library, 5th and Grand, downtown. I’d like to take a look at the collection myself, but I live several hundred miles away from Los Angeles now.
There isn’t much about Clifford Balch on the Internet. Almost all the results of a Google search link back to this site. Here is Cinema Treasures' list of theatres worked on (partial). He may have worked in the offices of L.A. Smith in the early 1920s, as when Smith died (about 1924-1926), Balch completed many of the theatres on which Smith had been working.
Balch appears to have specialized in theatres, most designed with his partner, engineer Floyd Stanbery. I’ve found reference to only one non-theatre project by Balch- plans for an IOOF temple at the southwest corner of Green Street and Fair Oaks in Pasadena, in 1913. Either this was unbuilt, or has been demolished. There has been a gas station on that corner for as long as I can remember, which is back to the early 1960s.
In 1914, as the Isis, this theatre was being operated by William H. Clune of Los Angeles.
Daily Variety of September 30, 1941 announced that the Monrovia Theatre had been acquired by Fox-West Coast Theatres, so the theatre was operating under that name by that time.
AJG: I’ve found additional references to the Mission Theatre. It was located on East Olive Avenue, and opened in 1910. It must have been built as a live theatre, as a 1914 reference says that as part of a remodeling by the new owner, Mr. J.C. Kuert, of Los Angeles, a “modern operating room” (meaning a projection booth) was being added. A balcony with an additional 150 seats was added at the same time.
I have also found another reference to the Colonial Theatre. It opened in 1920. The 1921 remodeling included “the construction of a complete stage.” I don’t know if this means that the theatre had previously lacked a stage altogether, or merely had an inadequate stage. It may have opened as a nickelodeon. As I’ve been unable to pin down a location for the Colonial, or a construction date for the Monrovia Theatre, I can’t yet eliminate the possibility that the Colonial and the Monrovia were the same theatre under different names.
The Los Angeles Public Library has a picture of Huntington Drive in Arcadia on November 7th, 1937, with the Arcadia Theatre on the right.
The address listed above for the El Monte Theatre, 110 East Valley Boulevard, could be useful for searching old property records, but due to a street renumbering in the 1950’s and a renaming in the 1960’s, the current address of the theatre building is the one shown in the (now dead) picture link in Chuck 1231’s comment: 11020 Valley Mall. The zip code is 91731.
Drat! I just discovered that this entry duplicates this older one. I could have simply left the information above as a comment there. That entry says that the building has been demolished.
When El Monte used its own street numbering system, east-west streets were numbered from Tyler Avenue, beginning with a 100 block. That would have placed this theatre on the south side of the street, somewhere near Palm Court (about the 10800 or block of Valley Mall today, I think.)
The El Monte Theatre is listed here under its old address, too- 110 East Valley Boulevard- but a picture link (dead, alas) in the comments gives the El Monte’s current address as 11020 Valley Mall.
The streets are oddly configured at that intersection. Huntington Drive splits in two, and one of the forks further splits, with westbound traffic on Huntington veering south and that on Colorado veering north. I was never able to tell for sure which name left off where, but Colorado Place does sound as though it would be the correct street name.
I have found reference to an article in Southwest Builder and Contractor magazine of February 27th, 1942. It says that Steed Brothers Construction of Alhambra had been awarded the contract for the Edwards Santa Anita Theatre. No architect was named, but the structural engineer was W.M. Bostock. It was described as a class “D” theatre building, and was to seat 750 patrons. The cost was estimated at $50,000.
Was this theatre called the Gem when it was a movie house? There was once a theatre in Garden Grove called the Grove (not yet listed on Cinema Treasures, unless this is it under another name.) I never saw it, but it was owned in the 1950s by the Vinicoff Theatre Circuit, which also operated the Garfield Theatre in Alhambra which it owned in partnership with Edwards Theatres. Every once in a while, tickets bought at the Garfield would say “Grove Theatre” on them.
ken mc: The former Warner Hollywood became the Pacific 1-2-3.
The Palace on Powell Street is listed as the Pagoda.
The various Spanish style theatres that Balch and Stanberry designed for Fox in that era were so much alike that it almost seems as though they had set up an assembly line to produce the plans. In fact, maybe they did. So many theatres were turned out by the firm in such a short time, their offices must have been full of busy draftsmen copying bits and pieces here and there.
ken mc: The Amazon is listed as the Apollo.
The 1947 view to which I have linked above looks northward, so 1555 Myers would be behind the camera. The current address of the State is 1489 Myers. I don’t know if FDY got the address wrong, or if the streets have been renumbered since 1950. I can’t think of any reason why Oroville would have renumbered its downtown streets, though, so the former seems more likely.
The “Ritz” sign in the photo would be at an even numbered address in the 1300 block. Terraserver has a 1998 aerial view of the area, and there is a building about the middle of the 1300 block that could have been a theatre. The definition of the aerial view is not good enough to tell if there is still a building at 1555, (assuming that FDY gave the correct address for the Empire.)
I’d like to go over to Oroville and take a close look at the area, but I don’t know when I’ll get a chance.
The City of Oroville has altered its web site, and the link in my comment above no longer works.
Here is the current link for the Oroville State Theatre page.