A parking garage for the Kaiser Medical Center sits on the site today. And yes, Woolworths did indeed leave the upper part intact, as I drove past the site when it was 50% demolished(around ‘86 or '87) and the back was exposed. You could see the old balcony and the murals on the walls, followed further down by a straight ceiling line and the back wall of Woolworth’s lunch counter below that…quite a sight.
I then drove by the front, and could see the old ornamentation peeking out from underneath the plain facade that Woolworths had placed on it in the early 60’s
Unfortunately, this stretch of Macdonald Avenue had(and still has) a justly deserved reputation as a high crime area, so I can’t believe that this building could have ever been commercially rehabilitated
as a theatre or performing arts venue. I DO think though that Kaiser Hospital or even the City of Richmond could have preserved the remaining interior similar to the Rivoli/Smart&Final/Longs Drugs
building in Berkeley, if not for commercial purposes, perhaps as a museum, library, or lobby. We’ll never know.
This theatre closed around ‘64 or '65. I remember as a kid walking out of the JC Penney store across the street and seeing “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” on the marquee and wanting to see it. But by this time it was not considered not a good place anymore for a family to go see a movie and we ended up going to the Grand Lake in Oakland instead.
I believe it reopened for a brief time in the late 60’s as an adult movie house and might have also been a storefront church before it was finally demolished. There are houses on the site today.
The building is now demolished as most of the shopping center is being redeveloped as residential. I don’t believe it was ever a Jerry Lewis Cinema, though. There was, however a Jerry Lewis Cinema in El Cerrito in the Safeway shopping center at San Pablo Ave and Moeser Lane briefly during the 70’s.
A parking garage for the Kaiser Medical Center sits on the site today. And yes, Woolworths did indeed leave the upper part intact, as I drove past the site when it was 50% demolished(around ‘86 or '87) and the back was exposed. You could see the old balcony and the murals on the walls, followed further down by a straight ceiling line and the back wall of Woolworth’s lunch counter below that…quite a sight.
I then drove by the front, and could see the old ornamentation peeking out from underneath the plain facade that Woolworths had placed on it in the early 60’s
Unfortunately, this stretch of Macdonald Avenue had(and still has) a justly deserved reputation as a high crime area, so I can’t believe that this building could have ever been commercially rehabilitated
as a theatre or performing arts venue. I DO think though that Kaiser Hospital or even the City of Richmond could have preserved the remaining interior similar to the Rivoli/Smart&Final/Longs Drugs
building in Berkeley, if not for commercial purposes, perhaps as a museum, library, or lobby. We’ll never know.
This theatre closed around ‘64 or '65. I remember as a kid walking out of the JC Penney store across the street and seeing “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” on the marquee and wanting to see it. But by this time it was not considered not a good place anymore for a family to go see a movie and we ended up going to the Grand Lake in Oakland instead.
I believe it reopened for a brief time in the late 60’s as an adult movie house and might have also been a storefront church before it was finally demolished. There are houses on the site today.
The building is now demolished as most of the shopping center is being redeveloped as residential. I don’t believe it was ever a Jerry Lewis Cinema, though. There was, however a Jerry Lewis Cinema in El Cerrito in the Safeway shopping center at San Pablo Ave and Moeser Lane briefly during the 70’s.