Comments from AMinton

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AMinton
AMinton commented about Tower Theater, H. A. Minton architect on Jul 14, 2020 at 5:29 pm

I came across this article in newspapers.com from the San Francisco Examiner. It lists H. A. Minton as the architect of the Tower Theater, and the article suggests it is a new theater, not a remodel.

AMinton
AMinton commented about Tower Theatre on Jul 7, 2018 at 10:25 pm

Hi Joe, all of this is very interesting. In the file that I have, the theater is listed as Nasser Theater as well as Majestic and Tower. Correspondence is with Nasser Brothers, Residential District Theater Co. Inc., 25 Taylor St, SF. Although I don’t have the actual drawings of what was done, I have written Columbia where they are archived to see if I can see what is there (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_7202274/).

In the file that I have, which documents the business side of the work, it seems a fairly substantial alteration was done. Items submitted by the contractor included reinforcing steel, demolition, tile work, marble work, roofing, glass and glazing, plumbing, bracing, shoring, house moving, masonry, lathing & plastering, etc. Seems like a major alteration if the theater had just been remodeled in 1937 by Lee. Would be interesting if we could see what actual work was done in ‘37 and '41. Will keep you posted if I find out more.

AMinton
AMinton commented about Tower Theatre on Jul 7, 2018 at 3:44 pm

I see no reference to Lee in HA Minton’s correspondence. I’m guessing that perhaps the person who said the theater was designed by Lee was mistaking it for the Tower theater in LA, which Lee did design.

AMinton
AMinton commented about Tower Theatre on Jul 7, 2018 at 12:46 pm

I have been going through old architectural records of my grandfather, Henry Anthony Minton, and records indicate he did the alterations to the theater. A file titled Nasser Theater, San Francisco, California, 1941-1942 has the correspondence between him and the Residential District Theatre Co. Inc. regarding billing for “work done in connection with the Alteration to the Theatre Building at 2465 Mission Street, San Francisco, California.” Another letter in the file refers to “copies of invoices billed on the Tower (Majestic) Theatre, 2465 Mission Street, San Francisco. I have a picture of the theater from the time…not sure how to post here.