Actually, the Fairy was about a 10-block walk from the Victory Theatre in Wellston. The street numbers are misleading because a new set didn’t begin with each block. The blocks were short. The theaters in Wellston were considered big-league, the Fairy just a neighborhood place. The Airdome, when I saw “The Perils of Pauline” there, was actually folding chairs in the back yard. People living in adjacent flats watched the show from their porches. Free. You could watch the film inside or outside, or go back and forth, as the projectors were coordinated. I don’t think 800 people could have been accommodated outdoors; maybe more like 80. And there was no “airdome;” it was just a back yard.
Maybe there was something more ambitious earlier in the game; I was there in the late 1940s. The neighborhood was already coming apart, alas.
Actually, the Fairy was about a 10-block walk from the Victory Theatre in Wellston. The street numbers are misleading because a new set didn’t begin with each block. The blocks were short. The theaters in Wellston were considered big-league, the Fairy just a neighborhood place. The Airdome, when I saw “The Perils of Pauline” there, was actually folding chairs in the back yard. People living in adjacent flats watched the show from their porches. Free. You could watch the film inside or outside, or go back and forth, as the projectors were coordinated. I don’t think 800 people could have been accommodated outdoors; maybe more like 80. And there was no “airdome;” it was just a back yard. Maybe there was something more ambitious earlier in the game; I was there in the late 1940s. The neighborhood was already coming apart, alas.