Here is part of a February 1966 article in the LA Times:
SANTA BARBARA-A Los Angeles company won the right Tuesday to build a drive-in movie theater just east of the municipal airport and under the airport’s east-west flight plan. The county building department issued a permit to Lippert Inc. despite vehement protests from city officials.
Opponents asserted that the theater would post a hazard to pilots and stymie full development of the airport for jet plane use. The county board of supervisors had cleared the way for issuance of the building permit by rejecting a request to have the project temporarily blocked. The supervisors pointed out that the 13-acre site on S. Kellogg Ave. was properly zoned for a drive-in theater under city action several years ago.
EL PASO, April 7-The City Council has ordered the partially completed Crawford Theater razed to the ground and rebuilt thoroughly fireproof and with stronger walls, alleging that the former construction was a firetrap.
I was in Ocean City last week but didn’t make it over to AC. I think you will find Atlantic Avenue to be mostly parking lots. Not much left of the town that you and I remember.
I would have to disagree with that. The photo is as reasonably clear as a fifty year old archival image can be. Since there are no photos of the State currently posted, at least this gives us some idea of what the structure looked like. Seeing as I had to search for the photo and then get some facsimile of it online, the dismissal as “nonsense” is rather galling.
Here is part of a June 2, 1955 article from the Lima News:
The State Theater on W. Market St. closes tonightâ€"perhaps forever. Stanley-Warner Theaters, Inc.,operator of the Ohio, Sigma and State in Lima, has decreed it be closed The lease on the building expires August 31. The future of the building is uncertain.
The State’s marquee will read “Closed for the Summer.” But it’s likely the theater never again will open its doors to movie fans. Maybe this is a good time to point out that, if the closing is final, it means the end of a long and honorable 50-year hitch in the Lima entertainment world.
THE STATE today is what is referred to in the theater business as a “second run” movie house. Yesterday (figuratively speaking) it was the Orpheum Theater of the old Gus Sun Vaudeville Circuit.
Those were the grand days of vaudeville, when from seats selling for 10 and 20 cents, Limaites of the teens and ‘20’s, applauded the monkeyshines of the teen-aged Marx Brothers, watched the incredible juggling feats of young W. C. Fields or sniffed decorously but nevertheless stayed to watch such animal acts as “Algie and Her Lions.”
Al Jolson did his blackface songs from the Orphcum stage. Fred Allen, a juggler then, performed while keeping up a running commentary of wisecracks with his audience. A Keith Circuit act known as “Jewell’s Mannequins,“ an early version of Howdy Doody, danced at the end of strings for a week’s stand in 1912. Then there were "Power’s Elephantsâ€, described by a former stagehand as "three or four mangy bulls,‘ who lumbered around on the Orpheum Stage for a few performances, generally terrorizing the other acts on the same bill.
AH. YES! Those were the days before the movies “killed” vaudeville. The Orpheum was built about 1906, on the site of the W. K. Boone homestead The Boone heirs still own the land and the building.
Unti1 1929 it was part of the Gus Sun Circuit, then was transferred to the George Settos Co., current owners of the Ranger Theater, when movies started making heavy inroads on vaudeville. For a year, Settos ran first class vaudeville acts interspersed with “flickers,” and then George Ritzlet of Lima, who was then operating the Sigma, took it over, put in sound projectors and converted it to the State Theater, a movie house only.
In 1931 Warner Bros, acquired the lease and throughout the 1930’s the State was one of Lima’s “first run” movie theaters. But for several years now, since Warners acquired the Sigma and Ohio (now
“first run” theaters) the State has been relegated to “second runs.”
Everybody must get stoned. From the Iowa City Press-Citizen in March 1971:
Charges “quite possibly” will be filed in connection with a fracas that broke out after officers halted a movie at the Iowa Theater here Friday afternoon. The scuffle resulted as police tried to drag a member of the audience, Donald Pugsley, 23, out of the theater after officers ordered movie patrons out of the building, searched them and readmitted them. The policemen were responding to a report that members of the audience were smoking marijuana during the Rolling Stones movie “Gimme Shelter.” Pugsley said that after the audience was readmitted, an officer told the young people they would be permitted to stay for the rest of the movie, “except that loudmouth.”
Pngsley said the officers “grabbed me and dragged me up the aisle, kicking me all the way.” “I’ve got a bad leg. I just had a pin taken out and didn’t want them to open the old surgery. I started screaming and the crowd got quite excited,” said Pugsley, who suffered a leg wound in Vietnam.
Police Sgt. Robert Vevera, who was called to the scene about 3:30 p.m., said the inside of the theater was “pretty smoky” because “some individuals in the audience were smoking marijuana.” The movie was halted, the lights turned on and Vevera formed the audience “they were violating a city ordinance and state law” against smoking in theaters.
The audience was ordered outside and told “they would be readmitted if they gave up their cigarettes,” said Vevera. Police confiscated “quite a few of both” tobacco and marijuana cigarettes, the officer said. Pugsley said that as the police were searching members of the audience, “I was being pretty verbal with a cop. He pushed me up against a wall and said, ‘shut up or there’ll be trouble.”’ Pugsley said that he obeyed the officer’s order and that he was grabbed inside the theater after another member of the audience shouted at an officer. According to Vevera, Pugsley was released because of the ‘physical impossibility of getiing him out of there without hurting someone. “If we felt the crime was bad enough, we could have used a club or mace But this wasn’t a murder or anything.”
Vevera said he was treated at University Hospital for a torn knee he received in the scuffle. Another officer’s watch was stolen during the incident.
Here is part of a February 1966 article in the LA Times:
SANTA BARBARA-A Los Angeles company won the right Tuesday to build a drive-in movie theater just east of the municipal airport and under the airport’s east-west flight plan. The county building department issued a permit to Lippert Inc. despite vehement protests from city officials.
Opponents asserted that the theater would post a hazard to pilots and stymie full development of the airport for jet plane use. The county board of supervisors had cleared the way for issuance of the building permit by rejecting a request to have the project temporarily blocked. The supervisors pointed out that the 13-acre site on S. Kellogg Ave. was properly zoned for a drive-in theater under city action several years ago.
This is from the LA Times in April 1906:
EL PASO, April 7-The City Council has ordered the partially completed Crawford Theater razed to the ground and rebuilt thoroughly fireproof and with stronger walls, alleging that the former construction was a firetrap.
The mosque has moved out. The building is for sale.
Here are 1986 and 1987 photos, respectively:
http://tinyurl.com/yjmh3aw
http://tinyurl.com/yfb3a7p
Here is a 1975 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yjnzoor
Ed, I live on the west coast-was just visiting my mom for a few days. I appreciate the invitation though.
500 Club was on Missouri Avenue, I think on the north side west of Atlantic Avenue. It burned down years ago.
It was on the Boardwalk, not on Virginia Avenue itself.
I was in Ocean City last week but didn’t make it over to AC. I think you will find Atlantic Avenue to be mostly parking lots. Not much left of the town that you and I remember.
As I recall it was between South Carolina and New York avenues, about mid block on the east side of the street.
I guess it’s time for a CT break. No sense going to the trouble to get abused for doing so. Have fun, everybody.
I would have to disagree with that. The photo is as reasonably clear as a fifty year old archival image can be. Since there are no photos of the State currently posted, at least this gives us some idea of what the structure looked like. Seeing as I had to search for the photo and then get some facsimile of it online, the dismissal as “nonsense” is rather galling.
It was hidden under another one. No worries.
On 11/29/07.
That photo looks familiar.
There was a photo of the State in the Lima News on 7/27/55, shortly before its demolition:
http://tinyurl.com/y8avpps
Here is part of a June 2, 1955 article from the Lima News:
The State Theater on W. Market St. closes tonightâ€"perhaps forever. Stanley-Warner Theaters, Inc.,operator of the Ohio, Sigma and State in Lima, has decreed it be closed The lease on the building expires August 31. The future of the building is uncertain.
The State’s marquee will read “Closed for the Summer.” But it’s likely the theater never again will open its doors to movie fans. Maybe this is a good time to point out that, if the closing is final, it means the end of a long and honorable 50-year hitch in the Lima entertainment world.
THE STATE today is what is referred to in the theater business as a “second run” movie house. Yesterday (figuratively speaking) it was the Orpheum Theater of the old Gus Sun Vaudeville Circuit.
Those were the grand days of vaudeville, when from seats selling for 10 and 20 cents, Limaites of the teens and ‘20’s, applauded the monkeyshines of the teen-aged Marx Brothers, watched the incredible juggling feats of young W. C. Fields or sniffed decorously but nevertheless stayed to watch such animal acts as “Algie and Her Lions.”
Al Jolson did his blackface songs from the Orphcum stage. Fred Allen, a juggler then, performed while keeping up a running commentary of wisecracks with his audience. A Keith Circuit act known as “Jewell’s Mannequins,“ an early version of Howdy Doody, danced at the end of strings for a week’s stand in 1912. Then there were "Power’s Elephantsâ€, described by a former stagehand as "three or four mangy bulls,‘ who lumbered around on the Orpheum Stage for a few performances, generally terrorizing the other acts on the same bill.
AH. YES! Those were the days before the movies “killed” vaudeville. The Orpheum was built about 1906, on the site of the W. K. Boone homestead The Boone heirs still own the land and the building.
Unti1 1929 it was part of the Gus Sun Circuit, then was transferred to the George Settos Co., current owners of the Ranger Theater, when movies started making heavy inroads on vaudeville. For a year, Settos ran first class vaudeville acts interspersed with “flickers,” and then George Ritzlet of Lima, who was then operating the Sigma, took it over, put in sound projectors and converted it to the State Theater, a movie house only.
In 1931 Warner Bros, acquired the lease and throughout the 1930’s the State was one of Lima’s “first run” movie theaters. But for several years now, since Warners acquired the Sigma and Ohio (now
“first run” theaters) the State has been relegated to “second runs.”
Here is another 1982 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yepm6yr
Here is a 1983 photo. The city is misidentified.
http://tinyurl.com/yb2g43r
Everybody must get stoned. From the Iowa City Press-Citizen in March 1971:
Charges “quite possibly” will be filed in connection with a fracas that broke out after officers halted a movie at the Iowa Theater here Friday afternoon. The scuffle resulted as police tried to drag a member of the audience, Donald Pugsley, 23, out of the theater after officers ordered movie patrons out of the building, searched them and readmitted them. The policemen were responding to a report that members of the audience were smoking marijuana during the Rolling Stones movie “Gimme Shelter.” Pugsley said that after the audience was readmitted, an officer told the young people they would be permitted to stay for the rest of the movie, “except that loudmouth.”
Pngsley said the officers “grabbed me and dragged me up the aisle, kicking me all the way.” “I’ve got a bad leg. I just had a pin taken out and didn’t want them to open the old surgery. I started screaming and the crowd got quite excited,” said Pugsley, who suffered a leg wound in Vietnam.
Police Sgt. Robert Vevera, who was called to the scene about 3:30 p.m., said the inside of the theater was “pretty smoky” because “some individuals in the audience were smoking marijuana.” The movie was halted, the lights turned on and Vevera formed the audience “they were violating a city ordinance and state law” against smoking in theaters.
The audience was ordered outside and told “they would be readmitted if they gave up their cigarettes,” said Vevera. Police confiscated “quite a few of both” tobacco and marijuana cigarettes, the officer said. Pugsley said that as the police were searching members of the audience, “I was being pretty verbal with a cop. He pushed me up against a wall and said, ‘shut up or there’ll be trouble.”’ Pugsley said that he obeyed the officer’s order and that he was grabbed inside the theater after another member of the audience shouted at an officer. According to Vevera, Pugsley was released because of the ‘physical impossibility of getiing him out of there without hurting someone. “If we felt the crime was bad enough, we could have used a club or mace But this wasn’t a murder or anything.”
Vevera said he was treated at University Hospital for a torn knee he received in the scuffle. Another officer’s watch was stolen during the incident.
Here is a 1984 night shot:
http://tinyurl.com/ybuuvqv
Here is a 2005 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/ya4vmo4
Here is a 1987 view of the South Hills Drive-In:
http://tinyurl.com/yedrna8
Here are a couple more from the same time:
http://tinyurl.com/y9q9zfz
http://tinyurl.com/y942f3u
Here is a 1986 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yc4l6d7
Here are photos from 1981 and 1984:
http://tinyurl.com/y8drcu5
http://tinyurl.com/ycma2e3