I’m really disappointed that most of the links to the photos above have been disabled. I was looking forward to seeing them. I lived in Enid from the early forties till 1956. I worked as Doorman, briefly in 1953, at the first Esquire (though it may have still been the Aztec). Two things come to mind that might (or might not) amuse some Enid residents: 1) Mr. Shipley the manager allowed me to write my own script for the marquee that I put up on Saturday afternoons. My pride and joy was “Esther Williams is / Dangerous When Wet in/ MGM’s splashy new musical” and 2) I was still at Longfellow when I worked at the Esquire, and some high school bullies took the book I was reading and threw it up on the Marquee, where it stayed till a friend helped me rescue it. The book was my much valued copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses in the Modern Library edition.
I remember this cinema from the late forties – saturday morning westerns, abbott and costello, and such. The owner mr. Shields was, as I remember, tall, thin and greying and often around. We used to say go to the Mecca for ‘used cups and a furry shoe shine’. The Cherokee a couple of doors down was cleaner but, in memory, charged 25cents to the Mecca’s 10 cents.
I’m really disappointed that most of the links to the photos above have been disabled. I was looking forward to seeing them. I lived in Enid from the early forties till 1956. I worked as Doorman, briefly in 1953, at the first Esquire (though it may have still been the Aztec). Two things come to mind that might (or might not) amuse some Enid residents: 1) Mr. Shipley the manager allowed me to write my own script for the marquee that I put up on Saturday afternoons. My pride and joy was “Esther Williams is / Dangerous When Wet in/ MGM’s splashy new musical” and 2) I was still at Longfellow when I worked at the Esquire, and some high school bullies took the book I was reading and threw it up on the Marquee, where it stayed till a friend helped me rescue it. The book was my much valued copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses in the Modern Library edition.
I remember this cinema from the late forties – saturday morning westerns, abbott and costello, and such. The owner mr. Shields was, as I remember, tall, thin and greying and often around. We used to say go to the Mecca for ‘used cups and a furry shoe shine’. The Cherokee a couple of doors down was cleaner but, in memory, charged 25cents to the Mecca’s 10 cents.