Tim- I recognize that picture as being an aerial view of the north end of Burbank, with the San Val Drive-In in the foreground. The wide, busy surface street across the lower part of the picture is San Fernando Road, and the empty highway just beyond that is the Golden State Freeway, which looks as though it is just about complete. That stretch of freeway opened sometime in the mid-1960’s as I recall, so that’s probably when the picture was taken.
vokoban, I don’t know if Oliver Morosco ever got his theatre on the east side of Broadway between 6th and 7th, but three theatres are listed as having been there: The Palace, of course, built for the Orpheum Circuit, and then the two rather mysterious theatres, The Symphony, at 614 S., and The Palace of Pictures, at 642 S. Broadway.
Perhaps Oliver Morosco had something to do with one or the other of those. Virtually nothing is known about either of them. However, Mososco did eventually build a theatre in the next block down Broadway, The Globe (opened 1913 as The Morosco.)
EdSolero: It’s been a couple of months since you asked about roadshow souvenir programs, but here’s what I know about them:
They were usually about nine by twelve inches or larger, contained 32 pages or more, were printed on heavy, glossy paper, with a slightly heavier paper cover. They contained pictures of the stars, stills from the movie, behind-the-scenes photos, text about the movie, the actors, the director and producer, the composer of the score, etc. There was no advertising in them, unlike the free playbills given out at legitimate theatres. The roadshow programs were not free. I only ever bought one of them, myself, at the roadshow of the original release of Lawrence of Arabia, at the Warner Theatre in Beverly Hills. I think it cost a dollar. (My balcony ticket for a Wednesday matinee was only a dollar fifty, if I recall correctly. The booklets would have been too costly to give away, with some ticket prices being that low.)
These souvenir programs are sometimes available in the movie memorabilia section of eBay, though the sellers' photographs of them don’t give a very good idea of what they are really like. I would suppose that retail shops specializing in movie memorabilia would also sometimes have them for sale, so if there is such a shop in your area, you might be able to get a close look at an example.
ken: What you have found may be a picture of Susanville’s Orpheum Bowling Alley. Although the name Orpheum is most closely associated with theaters, there have been (and are) other businesses that use the name. I know of at least one music store (an appropriate enterprise, given that Orpheus was a musician), and there are a few bars called the Orpheum here and there.
Given the date of 1946, it seems certain that your photograph depicts the Orpheum Bowling Alley, though. That’s not to say that the bowling alley was not perhaps located in the former quarters of a theatre, of course, and kept the name to save on the cost of a new sign. It does seem a very odd choice of names for a bowling alley.
I think that one of those remaining buildings was for a long time the location of a cafe and bakery called La Esperanza. I used to go there once in a while. They made a very good pan dulce. I think it moved or went out of business in the ‘70s, though. The place was spacious and had high ceilings, so there’s a possibility that, in earlier days, it could have housed theater of decent size.
Once a theater has been posted, additional information about it can be added to the top section only by one of the mods. They watch new comments and make the changes as information comes in (though they sometimes miss it, especially if the site is busy.) Alternately, you can e-mail them the new information, though I’ve seldom found that necessary.
The Lark must have been knocked down fairly early, as the Central Building (from which Mr. Tierney leaped) had become the Continental Trailways Bus Depot by the 1950’s at the latest. (Continental Trailways was formed in the mid-1930’s.) The buildings to the south of the Central Building were demolished to make way for the bus loading zone and a parking lot.
If the building in which the Estella Theater was located still exists (its address places it just a few doors south of the historic Plaza Church), it would be part of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. Two buildings do still exist on that block, separated from the Plaza Church to the north by a single vacant lot, with a parking lot to their south.
Vertical signs shaped like actual knife blades, with a curve at the top, did only become popular with the arrival of art deco and (even more) art moderne, but any vertical name sign can be called a blade— for example, this one, on San Jose’s California Theatre.
Exact opening and closing dates! Excellent! The newspaper report got the theatre’s address wrong, though. 317 would have placed it on the north side of the street. It was definitely on the south side. Also, by zooming in on the picture from the USC archives, I see that the Palace used the spelling “Theatre” on its blade sign, rather than the “Theater” spelling which I used (and which I got from an abstract of a period L.A. Times article) when I originally added it.
Oh, and the good images at terraserver are the Urban Areas images, usually from 2004. Not much can be determined from the earlier (mostly from 1994) black and white Aerial Photo images. The topo maps, of course, are useless for hunting down buildings.
I was not aware of its later names, but the theatre at 121 West First Street was Fischer’s Theater, which was open as early as 1908. It was probably demolished by 1927, when the entire block was cleared to make way for the new city hall.
The building at 6107 Main Street is probably gone, too. One way to check for the possible existence of a building is to search for the address at Microsoft’s Terraserver (there’s another Terraserver web site, at terraserver.com, but it doesn’t provide the close aerial images that the Microsoft site does.) The little red dot that is supposed to mark the exact location of the address is always a little bit off, though not as badly off as the marker usually is at the inferior Google Maps.
Searching on 6107 S. Main, I found the dot in front of a building on the corner, but that building is rather narrow, appears to have skylights, and its shadow indicates a two story structure, so I suspect that it’s just a typical corner commercial building. The theatre was probably on the wider lot to the south, which is now (the photo is from 2004) a parking lot.
vokoban: I am thinking now that the building in which the Estrella was located might still exist. The address of the Plaza Church is 535 N. Main, and I believe there are some very old buildings just south of the church, where the Estrella’s address of 515 N. Main would put it. It might have been a small, storefront theatre in one of those commercial buildings.
The “glass screen” may have referred to a screen covered in glass beads. Various types of movie screens are described on this page at “How Stuff Works”. Still, a ton and a half seems pretty heavy. Maybe there was a bit of publicity hype involved.
As you have found the address of Miller’s Theatre, you might as well go ahead and add it to the Cinema Treasures database, along with the other four Main Street theatres (Estrella, Lark, Novelty and Principal) you’ve discovered, as well. I’m sure that the last four have all been demolished, but there’s a possibility that the building in which Miller’s Theatre was located still exists. I’m pretty sure the building was still there in the 1980’s. I crossed Main on Ninth Street several times in that period, on my way to and from the garment district, and I have a vague memory of an old, three-story building on that part of the block, but at the time I had no idea that there had ever been a theatre in that location.
The only evidence of the existence of Miller’s Theatre I’ve found is in photos at the USC digital archive. It appears in this 1917 bird’s eye view of the intersection of Main and Spring. The theatre’s marquee is at the lower right, and there is a rooftop sign above it. There is also a painted add for the theatre on the wall of the tall building at the far end of the triangular block on the left. It includes the words “WE SHOW WM. FOX PHOTOPLAYS.”
vokoban: The Gem Theatre at 2488 W. Washington Boulevard is listed here under its later name, the Maynard Theatre. It is in Los Angeles. The former name “Gem” has not yet been added to the listing, which is why the theatre doesn’t come up in a search on former names.
vokoban: If I’ve hunted down everything, and made no mistakes, then four of the theatres on your 1923 list are not yet listed at Cinema Treasures under any name. They would be the Estella, the Lark, the Novelty (though its address is listed, wrongly, as th location of the Liberty Theatre, which was actually in the next block south, near 3rd Street), and the Principal.
I’m pretty sure that the Moon is listed here (albeit with the wrong address) as the Gaiety. The Banner, Burbank, Grand, Optic (of course), Picture, Regent (though without the No.1) and Republic are listed here under those names. The Electric is listed under its later name, the Roosevelt.
Main Street Theatres listed at Cinema Treasures but not on your 1923 list are: the Art, the Bijou, the California, Clune’s, the Follies, the Galway, the Gem, the Hippodrome, the Jade, the Liberty (although, as I said, at the wrong address), the Linda Lea, the Main, the Muse, the Rosslyn, the Star, and the Union.
There was also, in the 1960’s and earlier, an Admiral Theatre, which I think might have been the one renamed the Main, but I’m not sure yet.
And, there is one theatre I know existed on Main Street in the 1920’s which is neither on your list, nor listed at Cinema Treasures. That is Miller’s Theatre, which was on the east side of the street between 8th and 9th, a few doors down from where the California (originally called Miller’s California, so probably owned by the same person) was later built.
But your list has uncovered four more theatres that we formerly know know about (and found the correct name of the theatre (the Novelty) at 136 South Main mistakenly given as the address of the Liberty. Good show.
It was still operating in 1923, though an ad from September 2nd of that year puts a ½ on the end of the address. See the list of Main Street theatres from that ad, posted in a comment by vokodan on the Optic Theatre page.
I remember this stretch of Main Street, across from the old Pacific Electric depot, as being a parking lot and bus driveway for the Continental Trailways bus depot which, by the 1950’s, was located on the ground floor of the building at the southwest corner of 6th and Main.
The Picture Theatre at this address was still operating in 1923. It is among the Main Street theatres listed in a Paramount ad from September 2nd of that year. The list is posted in a comment by vokoban on the Optic Theatre page.
What has just occurred to me is that the Main Theatre might have been the Admiral Theatre into the 1960’s. After about 1968, I only had occasion to visit Main Street once or twice, as the bus lines I took downtown which had formerly run there had been moved to Spring Street or Olive Street. I have no memory of seeing Rector’s Admiral after the 1960’s, so it’s possible that its old marquee was removed (perhaps condemned- the Admiral was not well maintained) and replaced with the one seen in the Parkinson Archives.
As I recall, the Admiral’s marquee was a rather standard sort of the late 1930’s-early 1950’s. I never took much note of the building in which the theatre was located, but I do remember it being not too far from the Regent. If the Main was indeed the Admiral, then it dates back farther than it’s appearance suggests. I always had the sense that the Admiral was an older theatre which had been remodeled a few years either side of WWII.
I wish I could get to L.A. and take a look at the building myself. As it is, my memory isn’t clear enough to say for sure whether the Main was formerly the Admiral or not.
The SSF site also has this picture of a rainy Haight Street in 1944, with the moderne bulk of the Haight Theatre looming in the middle distance.
The Haight-Ashbury district also once had a circa 1910 theatre called the Supurba, located at 1660 Haight Street. I don’t know whether or not it is listed at Cinema Treasures under some other name.
If there was a theatre at this location on Santa Monica Boulevard (and I don’t remember one in the area, though I was less familiar with the neighborhood around LACC than I was with that part of Santa Monica Boulevard farther west, around the Cinema on Western Avenue), it wasn’t the Encore Theatre which was later called the Continental. That Encore Theatre, originally the Melvan, was on Melrose Avenue near Van Ness in Hollywood.
Tim- I recognize that picture as being an aerial view of the north end of Burbank, with the San Val Drive-In in the foreground. The wide, busy surface street across the lower part of the picture is San Fernando Road, and the empty highway just beyond that is the Golden State Freeway, which looks as though it is just about complete. That stretch of freeway opened sometime in the mid-1960’s as I recall, so that’s probably when the picture was taken.
vokoban, I don’t know if Oliver Morosco ever got his theatre on the east side of Broadway between 6th and 7th, but three theatres are listed as having been there: The Palace, of course, built for the Orpheum Circuit, and then the two rather mysterious theatres, The Symphony, at 614 S., and The Palace of Pictures, at 642 S. Broadway.
Perhaps Oliver Morosco had something to do with one or the other of those. Virtually nothing is known about either of them. However, Mososco did eventually build a theatre in the next block down Broadway, The Globe (opened 1913 as The Morosco.)
EdSolero: It’s been a couple of months since you asked about roadshow souvenir programs, but here’s what I know about them:
They were usually about nine by twelve inches or larger, contained 32 pages or more, were printed on heavy, glossy paper, with a slightly heavier paper cover. They contained pictures of the stars, stills from the movie, behind-the-scenes photos, text about the movie, the actors, the director and producer, the composer of the score, etc. There was no advertising in them, unlike the free playbills given out at legitimate theatres. The roadshow programs were not free. I only ever bought one of them, myself, at the roadshow of the original release of Lawrence of Arabia, at the Warner Theatre in Beverly Hills. I think it cost a dollar. (My balcony ticket for a Wednesday matinee was only a dollar fifty, if I recall correctly. The booklets would have been too costly to give away, with some ticket prices being that low.)
These souvenir programs are sometimes available in the movie memorabilia section of eBay, though the sellers' photographs of them don’t give a very good idea of what they are really like. I would suppose that retail shops specializing in movie memorabilia would also sometimes have them for sale, so if there is such a shop in your area, you might be able to get a close look at an example.
ken: What you have found may be a picture of Susanville’s Orpheum Bowling Alley. Although the name Orpheum is most closely associated with theaters, there have been (and are) other businesses that use the name. I know of at least one music store (an appropriate enterprise, given that Orpheus was a musician), and there are a few bars called the Orpheum here and there.
Given the date of 1946, it seems certain that your photograph depicts the Orpheum Bowling Alley, though. That’s not to say that the bowling alley was not perhaps located in the former quarters of a theatre, of course, and kept the name to save on the cost of a new sign. It does seem a very odd choice of names for a bowling alley.
I think that one of those remaining buildings was for a long time the location of a cafe and bakery called La Esperanza. I used to go there once in a while. They made a very good pan dulce. I think it moved or went out of business in the ‘70s, though. The place was spacious and had high ceilings, so there’s a possibility that, in earlier days, it could have housed theater of decent size.
Once a theater has been posted, additional information about it can be added to the top section only by one of the mods. They watch new comments and make the changes as information comes in (though they sometimes miss it, especially if the site is busy.) Alternately, you can e-mail them the new information, though I’ve seldom found that necessary.
The Lark must have been knocked down fairly early, as the Central Building (from which Mr. Tierney leaped) had become the Continental Trailways Bus Depot by the 1950’s at the latest. (Continental Trailways was formed in the mid-1930’s.) The buildings to the south of the Central Building were demolished to make way for the bus loading zone and a parking lot.
If the building in which the Estella Theater was located still exists (its address places it just a few doors south of the historic Plaza Church), it would be part of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. Two buildings do still exist on that block, separated from the Plaza Church to the north by a single vacant lot, with a parking lot to their south.
Vertical signs shaped like actual knife blades, with a curve at the top, did only become popular with the arrival of art deco and (even more) art moderne, but any vertical name sign can be called a blade— for example, this one, on San Jose’s California Theatre.
Exact opening and closing dates! Excellent! The newspaper report got the theatre’s address wrong, though. 317 would have placed it on the north side of the street. It was definitely on the south side. Also, by zooming in on the picture from the USC archives, I see that the Palace used the spelling “Theatre” on its blade sign, rather than the “Theater” spelling which I used (and which I got from an abstract of a period L.A. Times article) when I originally added it.
Oh, and the good images at terraserver are the Urban Areas images, usually from 2004. Not much can be determined from the earlier (mostly from 1994) black and white Aerial Photo images. The topo maps, of course, are useless for hunting down buildings.
I was not aware of its later names, but the theatre at 121 West First Street was Fischer’s Theater, which was open as early as 1908. It was probably demolished by 1927, when the entire block was cleared to make way for the new city hall.
The building at 6107 Main Street is probably gone, too. One way to check for the possible existence of a building is to search for the address at Microsoft’s Terraserver (there’s another Terraserver web site, at terraserver.com, but it doesn’t provide the close aerial images that the Microsoft site does.) The little red dot that is supposed to mark the exact location of the address is always a little bit off, though not as badly off as the marker usually is at the inferior Google Maps.
Searching on 6107 S. Main, I found the dot in front of a building on the corner, but that building is rather narrow, appears to have skylights, and its shadow indicates a two story structure, so I suspect that it’s just a typical corner commercial building. The theatre was probably on the wider lot to the south, which is now (the photo is from 2004) a parking lot.
vokoban: I am thinking now that the building in which the Estrella was located might still exist. The address of the Plaza Church is 535 N. Main, and I believe there are some very old buildings just south of the church, where the Estrella’s address of 515 N. Main would put it. It might have been a small, storefront theatre in one of those commercial buildings.
The Gem on Washington is already listed here under its later name, the Maynard Theatre.
I’m not sure about the Gayety on Central Avenue. It might be here under another name, but I haven’t had time to check.
The “glass screen” may have referred to a screen covered in glass beads. Various types of movie screens are described on this page at “How Stuff Works”. Still, a ton and a half seems pretty heavy. Maybe there was a bit of publicity hype involved.
As you have found the address of Miller’s Theatre, you might as well go ahead and add it to the Cinema Treasures database, along with the other four Main Street theatres (Estrella, Lark, Novelty and Principal) you’ve discovered, as well. I’m sure that the last four have all been demolished, but there’s a possibility that the building in which Miller’s Theatre was located still exists. I’m pretty sure the building was still there in the 1980’s. I crossed Main on Ninth Street several times in that period, on my way to and from the garment district, and I have a vague memory of an old, three-story building on that part of the block, but at the time I had no idea that there had ever been a theatre in that location.
The only evidence of the existence of Miller’s Theatre I’ve found is in photos at the USC digital archive. It appears in this 1917 bird’s eye view of the intersection of Main and Spring. The theatre’s marquee is at the lower right, and there is a rooftop sign above it. There is also a painted add for the theatre on the wall of the tall building at the far end of the triangular block on the left. It includes the words “WE SHOW WM. FOX PHOTOPLAYS.”
vokoban: The Gem Theatre at 2488 W. Washington Boulevard is listed here under its later name, the Maynard Theatre. It is in Los Angeles. The former name “Gem” has not yet been added to the listing, which is why the theatre doesn’t come up in a search on former names.
vokoban: If I’ve hunted down everything, and made no mistakes, then four of the theatres on your 1923 list are not yet listed at Cinema Treasures under any name. They would be the Estella, the Lark, the Novelty (though its address is listed, wrongly, as th location of the Liberty Theatre, which was actually in the next block south, near 3rd Street), and the Principal.
I’m pretty sure that the Moon is listed here (albeit with the wrong address) as the Gaiety. The Banner, Burbank, Grand, Optic (of course), Picture, Regent (though without the No.1) and Republic are listed here under those names. The Electric is listed under its later name, the Roosevelt.
Main Street Theatres listed at Cinema Treasures but not on your 1923 list are: the Art, the Bijou, the California, Clune’s, the Follies, the Galway, the Gem, the Hippodrome, the Jade, the Liberty (although, as I said, at the wrong address), the Linda Lea, the Main, the Muse, the Rosslyn, the Star, and the Union.
There was also, in the 1960’s and earlier, an Admiral Theatre, which I think might have been the one renamed the Main, but I’m not sure yet.
And, there is one theatre I know existed on Main Street in the 1920’s which is neither on your list, nor listed at Cinema Treasures. That is Miller’s Theatre, which was on the east side of the street between 8th and 9th, a few doors down from where the California (originally called Miller’s California, so probably owned by the same person) was later built.
But your list has uncovered four more theatres that we formerly know know about (and found the correct name of the theatre (the Novelty) at 136 South Main mistakenly given as the address of the Liberty. Good show.
It was still operating in 1923, though an ad from September 2nd of that year puts a ½ on the end of the address. See the list of Main Street theatres from that ad, posted in a comment by vokodan on the Optic Theatre page.
I remember this stretch of Main Street, across from the old Pacific Electric depot, as being a parking lot and bus driveway for the Continental Trailways bus depot which, by the 1950’s, was located on the ground floor of the building at the southwest corner of 6th and Main.
The Picture Theatre at this address was still operating in 1923. It is among the Main Street theatres listed in a Paramount ad from September 2nd of that year. The list is posted in a comment by vokoban on the Optic Theatre page.
What has just occurred to me is that the Main Theatre might have been the Admiral Theatre into the 1960’s. After about 1968, I only had occasion to visit Main Street once or twice, as the bus lines I took downtown which had formerly run there had been moved to Spring Street or Olive Street. I have no memory of seeing Rector’s Admiral after the 1960’s, so it’s possible that its old marquee was removed (perhaps condemned- the Admiral was not well maintained) and replaced with the one seen in the Parkinson Archives.
As I recall, the Admiral’s marquee was a rather standard sort of the late 1930’s-early 1950’s. I never took much note of the building in which the theatre was located, but I do remember it being not too far from the Regent. If the Main was indeed the Admiral, then it dates back farther than it’s appearance suggests. I always had the sense that the Admiral was an older theatre which had been remodeled a few years either side of WWII.
I wish I could get to L.A. and take a look at the building myself. As it is, my memory isn’t clear enough to say for sure whether the Main was formerly the Admiral or not.
According to the web site “Shaping San Francisco,” the Haight/Straight Theatre was demolished in 1981.
The SSF site also has this picture of a rainy Haight Street in 1944, with the moderne bulk of the Haight Theatre looming in the middle distance.
The Haight-Ashbury district also once had a circa 1910 theatre called the Supurba, located at 1660 Haight Street. I don’t know whether or not it is listed at Cinema Treasures under some other name.
If there was a theatre at this location on Santa Monica Boulevard (and I don’t remember one in the area, though I was less familiar with the neighborhood around LACC than I was with that part of Santa Monica Boulevard farther west, around the Cinema on Western Avenue), it wasn’t the Encore Theatre which was later called the Continental. That Encore Theatre, originally the Melvan, was on Melrose Avenue near Van Ness in Hollywood.
“Gaiety” may have been a very late name for the theatre— 1950s or so, perhaps.
Woo, the Hot Mamma Chorus! That must have been quite a show! I’m sorry I missed it. And I wonder whatever became of Ili Ili?
Here is the Optic Theatre entry with the correct URL.