According to an article in the May 3rd, 1925, issue of the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the architect of the Granada Theater was W. J. McCormack.
Incidentally, Wilmington was once a seperate incorporated city, but has been, since about 1910, a district of the City of Los Angeles. Along with nearby San Pedro, also once an independent city, it is connected to Los Angeles by the famous “shoestring,” a strip of territory about a half mile wide extending south several miles from the main part of the city. The annexation of the two harbor area cities allowed Los Angeles to arrange the costly improvements needed to make San Pedro Bay into a modern, deep-water port early in the 20th century.
The only information on the Admiral Theater in the LAPL regional history database is a card referencing a January 19th, 1940, issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor. The abstract says that the owner of the theater was Julius Stern, that Henry Aurbach had been awarded the construction contract, and that S. Charles Lee was the architect. The building was to be built of brick and reinforced concrete, would have 700 seats, and would cost $21,280. Given the low costs of construction in the pre-war period, that seems like an entirely new building, rather than a remodeling job. It’s possible that there was an earlier theater on the same site which was demolished to make way for the Admiral, though. I’m sure that central Hollywood had no vacant lots at that late date.
The original owner of this theater was Otis Hunley. It was designed by Meyer and Holler and erected by the Milwaukee Building Company in 1921-22. The April 21st, 1922, issue of the Hollywood Citizen said that the pipe organ of the Hunley Theater was being enlarged, and named the organist as a Mrs. Gleason.
Ah, I missed an entire page in my map book when I was measuring, and I also thought that Long Beach counted at least twelve blocks per mile, since the downtown blocks are fairly short. Apparently they stretch the numbering system once they get out of downtown. Still, from downtown Long Beach to South Street (which is about where the 5800 block begins) is only a bit over six miles.
Hugh Biggs was the architect of the Towne Theater. It was originally intended to be named the Vogue, which is the name which appears in Biggs' early renderings of the design. The walls of the Towne were built of reinforced granite.
I notice that in the second picture to which you linked, the building has a rooftop sign reading “Loew’s State.”
The old auditorium must have been knocked down at the beginning of the 1930s, or the late 1920s, as the new long Beach Municipal Auditorium (which was itself demolished in the 1960s) was opened in early 1932.
The address at which the Atlantic Theater was listed in the Los Angeles Times Theater Guide in 1971 is 5870 Atlantic Avenue. Unless the City of Long Beach has undergone a renumbering of its streets since then, the address given above is wrong.
If this theater were nine miles north of downtown Long Beach, it would have been in the City of South Gate. From Ocean Avenue to the northern city limits of Long Beach is only about five miles. The address in the 5800 block would put the theater about four miles north of Ocean Avenue.
The Jergins Trust Building was originally called the Markwell Building. The architects were Harvey Lockridge and the Spokane-based architect Kirkland Cutter. The theater and six story office building were completed in 1919. Three additional floors were added to the building in 1929, to plans by Lockridge.
The big four playhouses built in the 1920s were the Vine Street, the Hollywood Playhouse, The Music Box (later the Fox, then the Pix, now the Henry Fonda Theater) and the original El Capitan, which became the Paramount. Since the Vine Street showed movies as the Mirror in the early 1930s, the Hollywood Playhouse is the only one of the four which (as far as I know) has never been a movie house.
I do have a vague memory of seeing newspaper ads for movies being shown at the Ivar, though I’ve never been to that theater. The only other live theaters that I can remember in Hollywood are the Las Palmas and the Coronet. I went to a play at one of them, in the mid 1960s, but can’t remember which of the two it was (it was a small theater with a courtyard entrance, on a side street just off Hollywood Boulevard- sounds like the Las Palmas, doesn’t it? I can’t remember where the Coronet is.) As far as I know, neither of them has ever been a movie house.
I’ve only just come across a reference to a similar plan to add a second auditorium to the Balboa Theatre, also announced late in 1941, but this one designed by Clifford Balch. The Balboa’s second theatre, at 540 seats, would have been a bit larger than the one planned for the California. As far as I know, the only theatres in Southern California whose stage houses actually were converted to seperate theatres were the Fox Riverside Theatre in Riverside, and the Fox Theatre in Redlands.
The exterior and lobby of the Aztec Theatre were remodeled by Fox-West Coast in 1936, with the plans done by Clifford Balch. The photo above must be pre-remodel, as that front certainly doesn’t look like a Balch design.
The North Park Theatre is mentioned in the June 22nd, 1928, issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor. It was financed by Emil Klicka, and the estimated cost was $300,000.
I have come across two other references to theaters on University Avenue in San Diego, neither of which is listed on this site (and perhaps may never have been built.) The May 17th, 1913, issue of Southwest Contractor and Manufacturer announced that Barney, McKie & Company were intending to build a theater at the southeast corner of 6th and University, which was to be designed by architect Eugene Hoffman.
Then, in the June 20th, 1947, issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor, a notice says that Jack Lowenstein intended to erect an 800 seat theater on University Avenue (exact location not mentioned) and that it would be designed by Vernon W. Houghton.
If anyone familiar with the San Diego area can confirm that either, or both, of these two projects were ever actually carried out, please post them. The North Park is very lonely. This is only the second comment it has ever received.
No, I don’t think the Hollywood Playhouse has ever shown movies. It was a live theater, a television studio, and a live music venue, and now I think it is a nightclub. That makes it the only one of the big four Hollywood stage theaters from the 1920s which never went cinematic. Someone ought to show a few films there, just so it can join the club.
The April, 1981 issue of San Diego Magazine contains an article with illustrations of the Loma Theater. It says that the Loma opened on May 25th, 1945.
Although I have been unable to discover the original architect of the Adams Theatre, I have found that it was extensively remodeled for its then-operators, Fox-West Coast Theatres, by architect Clifford A. Balch. The changes included a new front, foyer, lobby, and restrooms, plus alterations to the auditorium. This was announced in the October 11th, 1940, issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor.
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.
According to an article in the May 3rd, 1925, issue of the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the architect of the Granada Theater was W. J. McCormack.
Incidentally, Wilmington was once a seperate incorporated city, but has been, since about 1910, a district of the City of Los Angeles. Along with nearby San Pedro, also once an independent city, it is connected to Los Angeles by the famous “shoestring,” a strip of territory about a half mile wide extending south several miles from the main part of the city. The annexation of the two harbor area cities allowed Los Angeles to arrange the costly improvements needed to make San Pedro Bay into a modern, deep-water port early in the 20th century.
Ken:
The only information on the Admiral Theater in the LAPL regional history database is a card referencing a January 19th, 1940, issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor. The abstract says that the owner of the theater was Julius Stern, that Henry Aurbach had been awarded the construction contract, and that S. Charles Lee was the architect. The building was to be built of brick and reinforced concrete, would have 700 seats, and would cost $21,280. Given the low costs of construction in the pre-war period, that seems like an entirely new building, rather than a remodeling job. It’s possible that there was an earlier theater on the same site which was demolished to make way for the Admiral, though. I’m sure that central Hollywood had no vacant lots at that late date.
The original owner of this theater was Otis Hunley. It was designed by Meyer and Holler and erected by the Milwaukee Building Company in 1921-22. The April 21st, 1922, issue of the Hollywood Citizen said that the pipe organ of the Hunley Theater was being enlarged, and named the organist as a Mrs. Gleason.
Ah, I missed an entire page in my map book when I was measuring, and I also thought that Long Beach counted at least twelve blocks per mile, since the downtown blocks are fairly short. Apparently they stretch the numbering system once they get out of downtown. Still, from downtown Long Beach to South Street (which is about where the 5800 block begins) is only a bit over six miles.
Hugh Biggs was the architect of the Towne Theater. It was originally intended to be named the Vogue, which is the name which appears in Biggs' early renderings of the design. The walls of the Towne were built of reinforced granite.
The Brayton was designed by the Long Beach architectural firm Schilling & Schilling. It opened on July 30th, 1925.
And, ronp is right about the designer. I have found two other sources saying that Carl Boller was the architect of the Atlantic Theater.
Christian:
I notice that in the second picture to which you linked, the building has a rooftop sign reading “Loew’s State.”
The old auditorium must have been knocked down at the beginning of the 1930s, or the late 1920s, as the new long Beach Municipal Auditorium (which was itself demolished in the 1960s) was opened in early 1932.
The address at which the Atlantic Theater was listed in the Los Angeles Times Theater Guide in 1971 is 5870 Atlantic Avenue. Unless the City of Long Beach has undergone a renumbering of its streets since then, the address given above is wrong.
If this theater were nine miles north of downtown Long Beach, it would have been in the City of South Gate. From Ocean Avenue to the northern city limits of Long Beach is only about five miles. The address in the 5800 block would put the theater about four miles north of Ocean Avenue.
The Jergins Trust Building was originally called the Markwell Building. The architects were Harvey Lockridge and the Spokane-based architect Kirkland Cutter. The theater and six story office building were completed in 1919. Three additional floors were added to the building in 1929, to plans by Lockridge.
Don:
Was there a roadshow re-release of Ben Hur? I remember seing it in my suburban L.A. neighborhood theater before I graduated from high school in 1962.
The big four playhouses built in the 1920s were the Vine Street, the Hollywood Playhouse, The Music Box (later the Fox, then the Pix, now the Henry Fonda Theater) and the original El Capitan, which became the Paramount. Since the Vine Street showed movies as the Mirror in the early 1930s, the Hollywood Playhouse is the only one of the four which (as far as I know) has never been a movie house.
I do have a vague memory of seeing newspaper ads for movies being shown at the Ivar, though I’ve never been to that theater. The only other live theaters that I can remember in Hollywood are the Las Palmas and the Coronet. I went to a play at one of them, in the mid 1960s, but can’t remember which of the two it was (it was a small theater with a courtyard entrance, on a side street just off Hollywood Boulevard- sounds like the Las Palmas, doesn’t it? I can’t remember where the Coronet is.) As far as I know, neither of them has ever been a movie house.
I’ve only just come across a reference to a similar plan to add a second auditorium to the Balboa Theatre, also announced late in 1941, but this one designed by Clifford Balch. The Balboa’s second theatre, at 540 seats, would have been a bit larger than the one planned for the California. As far as I know, the only theatres in Southern California whose stage houses actually were converted to seperate theatres were the Fox Riverside Theatre in Riverside, and the Fox Theatre in Redlands.
The exterior and lobby of the Aztec Theatre were remodeled by Fox-West Coast in 1936, with the plans done by Clifford Balch. The photo above must be pre-remodel, as that front certainly doesn’t look like a Balch design.
The North Park Theatre is mentioned in the June 22nd, 1928, issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor. It was financed by Emil Klicka, and the estimated cost was $300,000.
I have come across two other references to theaters on University Avenue in San Diego, neither of which is listed on this site (and perhaps may never have been built.) The May 17th, 1913, issue of Southwest Contractor and Manufacturer announced that Barney, McKie & Company were intending to build a theater at the southeast corner of 6th and University, which was to be designed by architect Eugene Hoffman.
Then, in the June 20th, 1947, issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor, a notice says that Jack Lowenstein intended to erect an 800 seat theater on University Avenue (exact location not mentioned) and that it would be designed by Vernon W. Houghton.
If anyone familiar with the San Diego area can confirm that either, or both, of these two projects were ever actually carried out, please post them. The North Park is very lonely. This is only the second comment it has ever received.
No, I don’t think the Hollywood Playhouse has ever shown movies. It was a live theater, a television studio, and a live music venue, and now I think it is a nightclub. That makes it the only one of the big four Hollywood stage theaters from the 1920s which never went cinematic. Someone ought to show a few films there, just so it can join the club.
The April, 1981 issue of San Diego Magazine contains an article with illustrations of the Loma Theater. It says that the Loma opened on May 25th, 1945.
Although I have been unable to discover the original architect of the Adams Theatre, I have found that it was extensively remodeled for its then-operators, Fox-West Coast Theatres, by architect Clifford A. Balch. The changes included a new front, foyer, lobby, and restrooms, plus alterations to the auditorium. This was announced in the October 11th, 1940, issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor.
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.