In late October of 1941, S. Charles Lee began preparing plans for remodeling part of the California Theater, to create a 450 seat newsreel house, with a seperate lobby and marquee. Most likely, this would have been done by converting the California’s ample stage house, as was done with the Fox Riverside Theater. However, the plans for the California were apparently never carried out, most likely due to shortages of construction materials and manpower brought on by the entry of the U.S. into the war a few weeks later.
Southwest Builder and Manufacturer of March 22nd, 1913, announced the issuing of the building permit for this theater. The owner of the theater was J.K. Stickney, the projected cost was $7500, and the building was described as being built of hollow clay tile (a commonly used construction material in early 20th century Southern California, but which was later found to be highly susceptible to damage in even moderate earthquakes, and very costly to retrofit- which may account for its having eventually been demolished rather than renovated.) The architect is not named, unfortunately.
The original El Capitan in Hollywood was the one on Hollywood Boulevard. Later, it became the Paramount. During part of that time, the theater on Vine Street north of Hollywood Boulevard, and which had opened as the Hollywood Playhouse, used the name El Capitan Theater. Later, the name was changed to the Palace.
Some time after that, when Disney bought and restored the Paramount, they restored the original name to it. So, the El Capitan/Paramount/El Capitan on Hollywood boulevard is not the theater from which the TV show Hollywood Palace was broadcast. The show came from the Hollywood Playhouse/El Capitan/Palace on Vine Street.
My copy of the Los Angeles Times Calendar section of August 24th, 1986, contains and ad for a musical performance piece called “Rare Area” appearing at the James A. Doolittle Theatre on Vine Street. I don’t remember how much earlier the renaming took place, though.
The address I found for Q-Topia is 6021 Hollywood Boulevard. I suppose the club might be using the address of a former storefront in the theater building, adjacent to the foyer, even if the patrons' entrance is in the old location. I can’t remember what the place looked like when it was a theater, though, so I don’t know if there were any storefronts in the building, or even if the building east of the theater was big enough to be a club. It does seem likely that the World is now the location of Q-Topia, though.
Cyril Bennett, architect of the Raymond, also designed the smaller (and now demolished) Glendora Theater, and was (along with his business partner Fitch Haskell and noted Los Angeles architect George Edwin Bergstrom) the architect of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
In its early years, the Raymond was one of several Pasadena theaters operated by West Coast-Langley Theaters, which was one of the companies eventually combined to become Fox-West Coast Theaters.
I only attended the Raymond once, in the late 1960s, when it had long been called the Crown Theater. A unique feature of the theater is that access to the balcony level is via a pair of ramps on either side of the lobby, rather than the usual stairs.
A few years later, the Crown, operated at that time by Loew’s Theaters, was showing “X” rated movies, and it closed shortly after. The entrepreneur who attempted to revive the theater as Perkins' Palace in the 1970s had little success, though I remember that a few well-known acts did play the place. By the 1980s, the theater was dark again.
The Raymond was a little bit too far out of the way, two blocks north of Colorado Boulevard, several blocks west of the center of the business district, in a neighborhood that began declining even before the depression of the 1930s. It’s neighbors were mostly thrift shops, discount furniture stores, and other marginal businesses. The only advantage of its location would have been the availability of plenty of parking available on the deserted surrounding streets, had not that very emptiness frightened away many nighttime customers.
In recent years, Pasadena has taken steps to increase the residential population of this neighborhood, developing several large projects on two sides of the city park on which the Raymond faces, and encouraging the rehabilitation of older buildings to the south and west, where a lively entertainment and shopping district has emerged over the last twenty years. This is probably the best chance the Raymond has ever had to be, finally, at the center of a busy neighborhood which will attract, rather than repel, prospective theater-goers. It would be very sad if the theater were to be lost, just when the opportunity for its success is so near.
Construction of the Glendora Theatre, at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Michigan Avenue (later renamed Glendora Avenue) was announced in the Los Angeles Times on April 1st, 1923. The architect was Cyril Bennett, who also designed the Raymond Theater in Pasadena.
Has no one in Sacramento considered the possibility of creating a linkage between the construction of a new multiplex on K Street and the complete restoration of the Tower as a single screen theater which has the ability to also present live shows? Whenever a downtown multiplex is proposed for Sacramento, fans of the Tower always seem to go into automatic opposition mode. It would probably be more productive to try to make the restoration and continued operation of the Tower a pre-condition for the development of a new multiplex theater downtown. K Street, and the growing resident population of downtown and nearby neighborhoods would certainly benefit from the development of a new theater in the neighborhood, and it seems unlikely that the Tower can survive as a three screen house much longer. If all the new multiplexes go into outlying areas, the Tower is just as doomed as it would likely be if a downtown multiplex were built and captured all its trade. As far as I can see, the only way to save the Tower over the long run is to restore it with a single screen, and the opening of a nearby multiplex can be seen as an opportunity to bring that about, if Sacramentans use their imagination and their influence to make the connection between the two.
In the Los Angeles Times theatre listings for Sunday, August 24th, 1986, this multiplex is called simply the Eagle Rock. It was being operated by Pacific Theatres, and all four screens were presenting first run films. They were “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,Part 2” “Extremities,” “Stand by Me,” and “Ruthless People.”
There is a web page with lots of information about the Mason Opera House, including a couple of photographs and a link to a fairly large scale map of the block it was on, showing the size of the building (which turns out to be larger than I had thought it was- the foyer and lobby ran back more than 150 feet from Broadway before reaching the auditorium entrance.)
What a splendid survivor this theater is! And what an excellent web site its operators have provided, so that those of us who live in places where theaters such as this no longer exist, or never did, can get a glimpse of what a functioning movie palace that is properly cared for can still be. The citizens of Richmond are very fortunate not to have lost this treasure.
Somewhere on the Internet, I came across a picture of the lobby of the Raymond which shows the lower sections of the ramps. Once you get near the side walls of the building, the ramps curve sharply, loop around, and emerge at the upper level. I’ll try to hunt the picture down again- I might even have it copied somewhere on my hard drive, but I can’t remember where.
It’s interesting that this theater had a ramp to the balcony. The only theater I’ve ever been to which had ramps instead of stairs leading to the balcony is the Raymond, in Pasadena. I had thought it was unique in having that feature.
I first saw the Admiral sometime soon after 1960, but I can’t recall if it was north of the Regent. It seems, in my hazy memory, to have been farther south. It was a grind house, and I don’t think it was included in the newspaper theater listings. I don’t remember ever seeing a theater called the Main.
I still can’t picture the Banner, at all, so I’m thinking that it might have been one of those theaters like the Optic and the Art, which had no marquee to speak of. I do remember the Admiral having a marquee of about the same size as that of the Regent. If I saw a photograph of the Banner, it would probably jog my memory.
Ah, the location link for this theater says “Avalon, Catalina Island” and that for the Avalon simply says “Catalina Island,” so they don’t both share an “Avalon, California” listing page.
I didn’t know that there was a theater in El Encanto, either. Was it only used for stage productions?
I have a cousin who spent several years of her childhood in Avalon. Next time I’m in touch with her, I’ll ask her about the Riviera. I doubt that she’d know whether or not it was originally the Strand, though, as she wasn’t born until 1933 or 1934. She might have been too young to have known anything about the theater which presumably became the Post Office, either, but I’ll ask her about that, too. She’d probably at least remember where the Post Office was in those days.
I have found that there is a reference to a Strand Theater in Avalon, being re-opened after improvements, in the L.A. Times issue of January 15th, 1922. No address is given.
There is also an article in Southwest Builder and Contractor of December 12th, 1924, saying that architects (Walter I.) Webber, (William F.) Staunton and (Sumner Maurice) Spaulding had prepared plans for a 600 seat theater to be erected in Avalon. Neither name nor location is given. However, a librarians note on this card says that this is believed to be the building which, after the opening of the Casino and its theater, was converted into the Post Office.
The Casino, opened in 1930, was itself designed by Webber and Spaulding. I don’t know if they were responsible for the interior of the movie theatre which was (and is, though I believe it is currently closed) on the ground floor of that massive landmark, but they probably were. Their firm did quite a bit of work at Catalina in those days.
My mother, though she lived in Avalon for a couple of years in the 1930s, has no memory of the Riviera Theater, or any theater on the island, other than the Casino. (It seems as though a second theater would be hard not to notice in such a small town, but maybe it was closed for a while in those years.)
In any case, I’m wondering if the Riviera might be the Strand, renamed. It might be possible to find an old postcard view of Avalon showing the theatre. There are usually quite a few Catalina cards on display in the postcard auction section of e-Bay. Avalon was, for decades, one of the most photographed places in California, and hundreds of different postcard views of it were published, and they sold in vast numbers.
Was this theater still called by this name in the 1960s? It would have been right down the block form the Regent, the only Main Street theatre I ever attended, but I have no memory of the Banner. I do remember that there was a theatre called the Admiral, AKA Rector’s Admiral, on the east side of Main somewhere between the Regent and the Burbank. Could the Banner and the Admiral have been the same theatre? I was less familiar with Main Street than with the streets farther west, as Main Street was already pretty gritty, even in those days. There might have been a second theatre on that stretch of the street, but I can’t bring the image of it to mind.
Here is a biographical sketch of Lotta Crabtree, at a web site devoted to San Francisco history. I remember seeing the small but ornate fountain which she donated to the city in 1875, and which still stands on a triangle of land where Market, Geary and Kearney Streets intersect.
Though born in New York City, in 1847, she spent most of her childhood in the Sierra mining town of Grass Valley, only a few dozen miles from where I live. One of California’s most colorful golden era characters, she went on to become, in the late 19th century, one of the most successful performers on the New York stage. She retired at the age of 45, living first in rural New Jersey and then, after the death of her mother, in Boston. Upon her death at the age of 76, Boston newpapers reported that her extensive real estate holdings had made her the city’s second largest taxpayer.
Wise in her investments, she died in 1924, leaving much of her considerable fortune to benefit disabled WWI veterans, and some for animal welfare, destitute thespians, and discharged convicts. A considerable, but undisclosed, amount of her fortune remains today in the Lotta Agricultural Trust Fund, which provides loans to New England farmers. (See the “New Standard: 1/28/98” link on the page at the link above.)
A search on 233 N. Vermont at Terraserver fetches a recent aerial view of the area, and there are no buildings that resemble a theater (at least from directly above) there today. The shadow of that pitched roof on the front of the building would surely show in an aerial view. I think that this theatre must have been demolished.
Yes. The card with the reference to the wedding apparently had a misspelling of the name. It is Chotiner, rather than Chotner. All the other cards with references to the Chotiner family at the site are spelled correctly.
I think that the Music Box had become the Pix Theatre by the 1950s, and was showing movies. I think it most likely that the last two seasons of the Lux program were broadcast from the KNX studios on Sunset Boulevard.
I have a vague memory of some mention of a CBS Playhouse being located in the Sunset Boulevard facility. It was somewhere in the History of KNX section of the station’s web site. I think it was a caption to one of the pictures there (reached by a small link near the top of that page.) There is also one good photograph of the Vine Street Theater there, and another which I think is of the Music Box, but the captions of both refer to them as the CBS Playhouse.
A search on “Calhoun” and “Alice” (one name in each of the first two search boxes) at the L.A. Public Library’s California Index fetches 11 scanned index cards (I’m presuming that the actual items these cards reference are available at the library itself, probably the central library downtown) with references to her. According to one, she is indeed silent film star Alice Beatrice Calhoun (1904-1966), and another card refers to an article in the Hollywood Citizen of January 5th, 1927, announcing her marriage to M.C. Chotner, who I know was himself the owner of several theatres in the Los Angeles area. Many of them are listed here at Cinema Treasures, but I can’t remember their names offhand.
Stonewood Center is at the northeast corner of Firestone and Lakewood, about a half mile east of Downey’s old downtown. It was an open air shopping center when it was built in 1958, and became an enclosed mall when it was expanded in 1990. My Google search turned up a Lynn’s Hallmark Card and Party Shop for the address 136 Stonewood, though George Redfox says there is a fabric shop in the theatre’s old location. There is a JoAnn’s Fabrics at the center, in a building with an outside entrance, not on the mall proper, but I can’t find an exact address for it. I remember the theatre being in such a peripheral building, so that must be it. I think that addresses may have been shuffled in the expansion.
I’ve been having the same problem with it. I think that the collection has only recently been added to the college web site, and they probably don’t have the kinks worked out yet.
The Hidalgo/Miramar is probably the theatre designed by Clifford Balch, the plans for which were announced in the July 2, 1937 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor. Balch designed a large number of theaters in the Spanish Colonial/Mission Revival styles in that era.
I don’t believe that The Casino Capistrano was ever a movie theater. It was a multi-purpose community building, built by the developers as an inducement to attract residential property buyers. I know that it was used as a ballroom for many years. Even in the early picture of it on this page of the San Clemente web site, it is topped by a sign reading “DANCE.” There is no marquee visible on the building.
My grandfather had a vacation house in an area about midway between Capistrano and San Clemente, and from my visits to the town in the 1950s, I know that it had only this one theatre.
In late October of 1941, S. Charles Lee began preparing plans for remodeling part of the California Theater, to create a 450 seat newsreel house, with a seperate lobby and marquee. Most likely, this would have been done by converting the California’s ample stage house, as was done with the Fox Riverside Theater. However, the plans for the California were apparently never carried out, most likely due to shortages of construction materials and manpower brought on by the entry of the U.S. into the war a few weeks later.
Southwest Builder and Manufacturer of March 22nd, 1913, announced the issuing of the building permit for this theater. The owner of the theater was J.K. Stickney, the projected cost was $7500, and the building was described as being built of hollow clay tile (a commonly used construction material in early 20th century Southern California, but which was later found to be highly susceptible to damage in even moderate earthquakes, and very costly to retrofit- which may account for its having eventually been demolished rather than renovated.) The architect is not named, unfortunately.
Robert R:
The original El Capitan in Hollywood was the one on Hollywood Boulevard. Later, it became the Paramount. During part of that time, the theater on Vine Street north of Hollywood Boulevard, and which had opened as the Hollywood Playhouse, used the name El Capitan Theater. Later, the name was changed to the Palace.
Some time after that, when Disney bought and restored the Paramount, they restored the original name to it. So, the El Capitan/Paramount/El Capitan on Hollywood boulevard is not the theater from which the TV show Hollywood Palace was broadcast. The show came from the Hollywood Playhouse/El Capitan/Palace on Vine Street.
My copy of the Los Angeles Times Calendar section of August 24th, 1986, contains and ad for a musical performance piece called “Rare Area” appearing at the James A. Doolittle Theatre on Vine Street. I don’t remember how much earlier the renaming took place, though.
The address I found for Q-Topia is 6021 Hollywood Boulevard. I suppose the club might be using the address of a former storefront in the theater building, adjacent to the foyer, even if the patrons' entrance is in the old location. I can’t remember what the place looked like when it was a theater, though, so I don’t know if there were any storefronts in the building, or even if the building east of the theater was big enough to be a club. It does seem likely that the World is now the location of Q-Topia, though.
Cyril Bennett, architect of the Raymond, also designed the smaller (and now demolished) Glendora Theater, and was (along with his business partner Fitch Haskell and noted Los Angeles architect George Edwin Bergstrom) the architect of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
In its early years, the Raymond was one of several Pasadena theaters operated by West Coast-Langley Theaters, which was one of the companies eventually combined to become Fox-West Coast Theaters.
I only attended the Raymond once, in the late 1960s, when it had long been called the Crown Theater. A unique feature of the theater is that access to the balcony level is via a pair of ramps on either side of the lobby, rather than the usual stairs.
A few years later, the Crown, operated at that time by Loew’s Theaters, was showing “X” rated movies, and it closed shortly after. The entrepreneur who attempted to revive the theater as Perkins' Palace in the 1970s had little success, though I remember that a few well-known acts did play the place. By the 1980s, the theater was dark again.
The Raymond was a little bit too far out of the way, two blocks north of Colorado Boulevard, several blocks west of the center of the business district, in a neighborhood that began declining even before the depression of the 1930s. It’s neighbors were mostly thrift shops, discount furniture stores, and other marginal businesses. The only advantage of its location would have been the availability of plenty of parking available on the deserted surrounding streets, had not that very emptiness frightened away many nighttime customers.
In recent years, Pasadena has taken steps to increase the residential population of this neighborhood, developing several large projects on two sides of the city park on which the Raymond faces, and encouraging the rehabilitation of older buildings to the south and west, where a lively entertainment and shopping district has emerged over the last twenty years. This is probably the best chance the Raymond has ever had to be, finally, at the center of a busy neighborhood which will attract, rather than repel, prospective theater-goers. It would be very sad if the theater were to be lost, just when the opportunity for its success is so near.
Construction of the Glendora Theatre, at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Michigan Avenue (later renamed Glendora Avenue) was announced in the Los Angeles Times on April 1st, 1923. The architect was Cyril Bennett, who also designed the Raymond Theater in Pasadena.
Has no one in Sacramento considered the possibility of creating a linkage between the construction of a new multiplex on K Street and the complete restoration of the Tower as a single screen theater which has the ability to also present live shows? Whenever a downtown multiplex is proposed for Sacramento, fans of the Tower always seem to go into automatic opposition mode. It would probably be more productive to try to make the restoration and continued operation of the Tower a pre-condition for the development of a new multiplex theater downtown. K Street, and the growing resident population of downtown and nearby neighborhoods would certainly benefit from the development of a new theater in the neighborhood, and it seems unlikely that the Tower can survive as a three screen house much longer. If all the new multiplexes go into outlying areas, the Tower is just as doomed as it would likely be if a downtown multiplex were built and captured all its trade. As far as I can see, the only way to save the Tower over the long run is to restore it with a single screen, and the opening of a nearby multiplex can be seen as an opportunity to bring that about, if Sacramentans use their imagination and their influence to make the connection between the two.
In the Los Angeles Times theatre listings for Sunday, August 24th, 1986, this multiplex is called simply the Eagle Rock. It was being operated by Pacific Theatres, and all four screens were presenting first run films. They were “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,Part 2” “Extremities,” “Stand by Me,” and “Ruthless People.”
There is a web page with lots of information about the Mason Opera House, including a couple of photographs and a link to a fairly large scale map of the block it was on, showing the size of the building (which turns out to be larger than I had thought it was- the foyer and lobby ran back more than 150 feet from Broadway before reaching the auditorium entrance.)
What a splendid survivor this theater is! And what an excellent web site its operators have provided, so that those of us who live in places where theaters such as this no longer exist, or never did, can get a glimpse of what a functioning movie palace that is properly cared for can still be. The citizens of Richmond are very fortunate not to have lost this treasure.
Somewhere on the Internet, I came across a picture of the lobby of the Raymond which shows the lower sections of the ramps. Once you get near the side walls of the building, the ramps curve sharply, loop around, and emerge at the upper level. I’ll try to hunt the picture down again- I might even have it copied somewhere on my hard drive, but I can’t remember where.
It’s interesting that this theater had a ramp to the balcony. The only theater I’ve ever been to which had ramps instead of stairs leading to the balcony is the Raymond, in Pasadena. I had thought it was unique in having that feature.
I first saw the Admiral sometime soon after 1960, but I can’t recall if it was north of the Regent. It seems, in my hazy memory, to have been farther south. It was a grind house, and I don’t think it was included in the newspaper theater listings. I don’t remember ever seeing a theater called the Main.
I still can’t picture the Banner, at all, so I’m thinking that it might have been one of those theaters like the Optic and the Art, which had no marquee to speak of. I do remember the Admiral having a marquee of about the same size as that of the Regent. If I saw a photograph of the Banner, it would probably jog my memory.
Ah, the location link for this theater says “Avalon, Catalina Island” and that for the Avalon simply says “Catalina Island,” so they don’t both share an “Avalon, California” listing page.
I didn’t know that there was a theater in El Encanto, either. Was it only used for stage productions?
I have a cousin who spent several years of her childhood in Avalon. Next time I’m in touch with her, I’ll ask her about the Riviera. I doubt that she’d know whether or not it was originally the Strand, though, as she wasn’t born until 1933 or 1934. She might have been too young to have known anything about the theater which presumably became the Post Office, either, but I’ll ask her about that, too. She’d probably at least remember where the Post Office was in those days.
I have found that there is a reference to a Strand Theater in Avalon, being re-opened after improvements, in the L.A. Times issue of January 15th, 1922. No address is given.
There is also an article in Southwest Builder and Contractor of December 12th, 1924, saying that architects (Walter I.) Webber, (William F.) Staunton and (Sumner Maurice) Spaulding had prepared plans for a 600 seat theater to be erected in Avalon. Neither name nor location is given. However, a librarians note on this card says that this is believed to be the building which, after the opening of the Casino and its theater, was converted into the Post Office.
The Casino, opened in 1930, was itself designed by Webber and Spaulding. I don’t know if they were responsible for the interior of the movie theatre which was (and is, though I believe it is currently closed) on the ground floor of that massive landmark, but they probably were. Their firm did quite a bit of work at Catalina in those days.
My mother, though she lived in Avalon for a couple of years in the 1930s, has no memory of the Riviera Theater, or any theater on the island, other than the Casino. (It seems as though a second theater would be hard not to notice in such a small town, but maybe it was closed for a while in those years.)
In any case, I’m wondering if the Riviera might be the Strand, renamed. It might be possible to find an old postcard view of Avalon showing the theatre. There are usually quite a few Catalina cards on display in the postcard auction section of e-Bay. Avalon was, for decades, one of the most photographed places in California, and hundreds of different postcard views of it were published, and they sold in vast numbers.
Was this theater still called by this name in the 1960s? It would have been right down the block form the Regent, the only Main Street theatre I ever attended, but I have no memory of the Banner. I do remember that there was a theatre called the Admiral, AKA Rector’s Admiral, on the east side of Main somewhere between the Regent and the Burbank. Could the Banner and the Admiral have been the same theatre? I was less familiar with Main Street than with the streets farther west, as Main Street was already pretty gritty, even in those days. There might have been a second theatre on that stretch of the street, but I can’t bring the image of it to mind.
Here is a biographical sketch of Lotta Crabtree, at a web site devoted to San Francisco history. I remember seeing the small but ornate fountain which she donated to the city in 1875, and which still stands on a triangle of land where Market, Geary and Kearney Streets intersect.
Though born in New York City, in 1847, she spent most of her childhood in the Sierra mining town of Grass Valley, only a few dozen miles from where I live. One of California’s most colorful golden era characters, she went on to become, in the late 19th century, one of the most successful performers on the New York stage. She retired at the age of 45, living first in rural New Jersey and then, after the death of her mother, in Boston. Upon her death at the age of 76, Boston newpapers reported that her extensive real estate holdings had made her the city’s second largest taxpayer.
Wise in her investments, she died in 1924, leaving much of her considerable fortune to benefit disabled WWI veterans, and some for animal welfare, destitute thespians, and discharged convicts. A considerable, but undisclosed, amount of her fortune remains today in the Lotta Agricultural Trust Fund, which provides loans to New England farmers. (See the “New Standard: 1/28/98” link on the page at the link above.)
A search on 233 N. Vermont at Terraserver fetches a recent aerial view of the area, and there are no buildings that resemble a theater (at least from directly above) there today. The shadow of that pitched roof on the front of the building would surely show in an aerial view. I think that this theatre must have been demolished.
Yes. The card with the reference to the wedding apparently had a misspelling of the name. It is Chotiner, rather than Chotner. All the other cards with references to the Chotiner family at the site are spelled correctly.
Christian:
I think that the Music Box had become the Pix Theatre by the 1950s, and was showing movies. I think it most likely that the last two seasons of the Lux program were broadcast from the KNX studios on Sunset Boulevard.
I have a vague memory of some mention of a CBS Playhouse being located in the Sunset Boulevard facility. It was somewhere in the History of KNX section of the station’s web site. I think it was a caption to one of the pictures there (reached by a small link near the top of that page.) There is also one good photograph of the Vine Street Theater there, and another which I think is of the Music Box, but the captions of both refer to them as the CBS Playhouse.
Sue:
A search on “Calhoun” and “Alice” (one name in each of the first two search boxes) at the L.A. Public Library’s California Index fetches 11 scanned index cards (I’m presuming that the actual items these cards reference are available at the library itself, probably the central library downtown) with references to her. According to one, she is indeed silent film star Alice Beatrice Calhoun (1904-1966), and another card refers to an article in the Hollywood Citizen of January 5th, 1927, announcing her marriage to M.C. Chotner, who I know was himself the owner of several theatres in the Los Angeles area. Many of them are listed here at Cinema Treasures, but I can’t remember their names offhand.
Stonewood Center is at the northeast corner of Firestone and Lakewood, about a half mile east of Downey’s old downtown. It was an open air shopping center when it was built in 1958, and became an enclosed mall when it was expanded in 1990. My Google search turned up a Lynn’s Hallmark Card and Party Shop for the address 136 Stonewood, though George Redfox says there is a fabric shop in the theatre’s old location. There is a JoAnn’s Fabrics at the center, in a building with an outside entrance, not on the mall proper, but I can’t find an exact address for it. I remember the theatre being in such a peripheral building, so that must be it. I think that addresses may have been shuffled in the expansion.
I’ve been having the same problem with it. I think that the collection has only recently been added to the college web site, and they probably don’t have the kinks worked out yet.
The Hidalgo/Miramar is probably the theatre designed by Clifford Balch, the plans for which were announced in the July 2, 1937 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor. Balch designed a large number of theaters in the Spanish Colonial/Mission Revival styles in that era.
I don’t believe that The Casino Capistrano was ever a movie theater. It was a multi-purpose community building, built by the developers as an inducement to attract residential property buyers. I know that it was used as a ballroom for many years. Even in the early picture of it on this page of the San Clemente web site, it is topped by a sign reading “DANCE.” There is no marquee visible on the building.
My grandfather had a vacation house in an area about midway between Capistrano and San Clemente, and from my visits to the town in the 1950s, I know that it had only this one theatre.