Clune's Theatre
729 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90014
729 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90014
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A photo of W.H. Clune and a bear: http://digital.boisestate.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/shipman&CISOPTR=73&CISOBOX=1&REC=1
The 1909 map has been posted on the LA Times' “Daily Mirror” blog. Here is the Clune’s that was at 5th and Main:
http://tinyurl.com/4ve7jl
(The Los Angeles Times, that is.)
The Los Angeles ran a story on July 11 1909, under the headline ‘Houses, Lots and Lands’:
“RA Rowan & Co report the following recent leases through their agency: For the Century Company to the Clune Theater Company was rented the northwest corner of Fifth and Main streets, with a frontage of 70 feet on Main and extending back 150 feet to an alley. The term of the lease is five years and the monthly rental is reported at $1175 which would make the total rent $70,500.”
The building lots on the west side of the 700 block of S. Main Street are not very deep. A theatre at 729 S. would have very pretty small unless the building went through to Spring Street. I still think the 729 S. Main location may have been Clune’s offices rather than one of his theatres, but it’s also possible that it was the site of a very early precursor of his bigger theatres, and maybe even of his first nickelodeon.
Also, I’ve found some evidence that the Rosslyn’s 5th and Main building opened in 1915. It was planned as early as 1911, but construction apparently didn’t get underway until early 1914. Clune’s Theatre at 5th and Main had a very short run indeed.
Well, there’s the history: Clune’s Theatre at Fifth and Main opened in 1909, had a fire in 1913, possibly was closed after that, and the Rosslyn Hotel replaced it by 1917. Short run there.
But this still doesn’t give us more info about the supposed 729 S. Main Street address.
The Clune’s Theatre at 5th and Main shows up in the California Index at the L.A. Library website, too. It’s a card referencing a Times ad of May 15, 1909, announcing the opening of the theatre that day.
A story in the LA Times dated 9/24/13 discusses a fire at Clune’s motion picture theater at Fifth and Main Streets.
There is a short biography of Bill Clune on this page:
http://www.squareone.org/PolarPalace/index.html
I believe the map to which you refer also shows a Clune’s building in the 700 block of S. Main (I can’t open my copy of the map because the file is huge and overwhelms my computer’s RAM.) It looks as though there were either two Clune’s Theatres on Main Street, or maybe Billy Clune had his business offices at this address in the 700 block. If both were theatres, then this one was by far the smallest of the two. That building at 5th and Main must have covered at least 15,000 square feet.
I checked some of those photos and it looks the first building in the Rosslyn Hotel was built around 1917. So Clune’s was gone by then. A 1907 photo indeed shows a one story building at that corner but the signs were not legible.
On my 1909 panoramic map of Los Angeles, it shows a Clune’s Theater, a one story building on the northwest corner of Fifth and Main. The Rosslyn Hotel is there now, built 1921 I think? Either this was yet another Clune’s Theater, or the address above is wrong. Anyone have any further insight on this?