Fairfax Theatre
211 S. Main Street,
East Point,
GA
30344
211 S. Main Street,
East Point,
GA
30344
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Circa 1958 photo added, original source unknown.
This opened on September 28tth, 1926. Its grand opening ad can be found in the photo section.
Thanks for the information, Don. I totally missed the Ponce de Leon Theatre in my search.
Great post, Joe! It’s almost certain that the location on Ponce de Leon near Boulevard was for the Ponce de Leon Theatre. My dad used to take me to see westerns there in the 1950’s. The Ponce de Leon closed in the mid ‘50’s and stood vacant for close to 20 years.
About three months after opening the Fairfax Theatre, Oscar Oldknow sold a half interest in the house to Universal, according to an item in the January 7, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News. Oldknow was a Vice President of Universal at this time. Oscar’s father, William Oldknow, had been an executive of the Universal Film Corporation in 1915, and Oscar’s son, William Oldknow II, later moved to Los Angeles and in 1949 married Constantina Skouras, niece of Fox West Coast Theatres head Charles Skouras. Oscar Oldknow himself had become associated with Fox Theatres by 1930, probably through the Fox-affiliated Lucas & Jenkins circuit which had taken over the Fairfax by that time.
The 1927 MPN item had a bit more information about Universal’s Atlanta area expansion plans:
The house on Flat Shoals Avenue must have been the Madison Theatre. The house under construction on Ponce de Leon Avenue was most likely the DeKalb Theatre in Decatur, which opened on August 8, 1927.Here is a link to a photo of the East Point,including The Fairfax, from The Atlanta History Center Collection:
View link
Here is an archive photo of the Fairfax Theatre.
The Fairfax Theatre opened the week of September 26, 1926. Alpha Fowler was the manager and also operated the Palace, West End, and Tenth Street theatres, which were other neighborhood houses in the Atlanta area. By 1929 Lucus and Jenkins had gained control of these theatres
Dave – GONE WITH THE WIND always played at the Loew’s Grand, which had exclusive first runs and prestige reissues of Metro Goldwyn Mayer pictures. “Loew’s, Inc.” was the “Metro” in MGM. The Paramount and the Fox were also my great favorites of mine when I was growing up in the 1950’s. Since the Capitol closed about 1948, it was before my time.
Don – For some reason I don’t remember the Capitol Theater. When growing up most of my movie going was to one of the three theaters in East Point. When I did go to one in downtown Atlanta, it was usually to the Paramount, the Loew’s Grand, or the Fox. Those were my three favorites.I can remember seeing Gone With the Wind sometime during the mid ‘40s at either the Loew’s or Paramount.
Dave – Thank you very much for sharing this information! Hopefully, more people who remember Atlanta in the 1940’s will comment on this site. By any chance, do you remember the Capitol Theatre on Peachtree Street, or any of the other long gone Atlanta movie houses listed on Cinema Treasures?
Jack – Thank you for the the link to the Vanishing Georgia Website!
This might make the search for the photo a bit easier. Excellent site, thanks for sharing it.
The Fairfax was actually located on Main Street just north of Thompson Avenue, not at the intersection of Fairfax Avenue. I don’t know the address of the Fairfax, but 211 S. Main Street sounds correct. I lived on the 300 block of S. Semmes Street in the 1940s (which ran parallel to Main Street)and our house was just south of Thompson Ave. Incidentally, there is a photo of the Fairfax on the Vanishing Georgia Website for East Point, Georgia. The photo number is FUL-1025-86. The old U.S. Post Office is on the far left of the photo between the two trees. The intersection of Thompson Ave. is just to the north of the Post Office. You have to look close, but the marquee of the Fairfax can be seen about 50 to 75 feet north of the intersection. Too bad the resolution of the photo isn’t a little better.
The 211 S. Main Street address for the Fairfax Theatre could be correct. That should be near the intersection of Main Street and Fairfax Avenue in East Point. Some of my previous comments on the East Point Theatre might be appropriate here:
The Fairfax Theater was closed (and/or demolished) by the time I became acquainted with East Point. The 1953 Atlanta Telephone Directory simply lists the address of the Fairfax as East Point. So, I can’t determine its exact street address with any certainty. The Fairfax was one of a group of Atlanta neighborhood theaters that I never actually attended, or in some cases never knew of at all.
Theaters that I never knew included the American, 771 Marietta Street, NW; the Brookhaven, 4012 Peachtree Road, NE; the Cameo, 61 Peachtree Street (downtown); the Cascade, 1340 Gordon Street, SW (near the juncture of Cascade Road); the Empire, 42 Georgia Avenue, SW (near present day Turner Field); the Fulton 761 S. Central Avenue, SW; and the Memorial, 657 Memorial Drive, SE (in the vicinity of Oakland Cemetary).
Theaters that I was aware of, but never had the chance to attend, included the DeKalb, 130 E. Ponce de Leon Avenue, NE (on the square in Decatur); Little Five Points 1103 Euclid Avenue, NE; and the West End, 595 Lee Street, SW (in West End). They were already closed up at the time I became aware of them. To the best of my knowledge, the only ones left standing are the Little Five Points (now known as the Seven Stages) and the Fulton (or so I gather from the listing on this site).
Remember that the heyday of Atlanta’s neighborhood theaters coincided with the era of racial segregation in the south. There was another group of Atlanta neighborhood theaters, referred to as “Colored Theaters,” which served the African-American community in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. That was the way of the world in those days.
All in all, the Atlanta area had about three dozen hardtop neighborhood theaters in the early 1950’s. Remember, the Atlanta area has changed drastically in the last 50 years. Street names and street numbers have been changed. Even beyond that, the entire “lay of the land” can look signifigantly different when you haven’t visited the city for a few years. So, even given the original street addresses, it can be difficult to determine just where these long gone theaters originally stood.
Hopefully, someone with a clear memory of post World War II Atlanta will read this comment and enlighten us more about the Atlanta area theaters in that era.