Park Theatre
439 E. Park Avenue,
Houma,
LA
70360
439 E. Park Avenue,
Houma,
LA
70360
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The Google Map is off quite a lot, the correct coordinates are 29°35'57.52"N, 90°43'9.70"W
Every summer we, from north La, would visit our relatives that lived near the north end of Duval Street close to the neighborhood park and just a few blocks from the theater. I remember one Saturday when my cousins and I were dropped off at the Park theater to watch DINASAURUS. 1960 I believe. I didn’t venture out in the dark by myself for a few months after that. Today, found the theater by using Google Earth by remembering the general location and recognizing the broad steps near the street. All this time I thought it was torn down years ago. Remembering good times in Houma.
Apparently the photo in Boxoffice only captured about one third of the Park Theatre’s auditorium. Looking at the Williams Avenue side of the theater’s building in Street View, it can be seen that it was quite long, so it certainly could have held over 1000 seats.
I managed the Park Theatre in the early 1970’s. It was indeed a 1200 seat “stadium” theatre. There were about 800 seats on the main floor level and about 400 in the raised rear part of the building. That rear part back then looked more like today’s modern theatres where each row is slightly higher than the one in front so that everyone could easily see over the person in front of them. Only the “balcony” was constructed that way. You would enter the theatre from either side (left or right) down a hallway. When you entered you would essentially be in the midpoint of the theatre. There was a wide aisle running the entire width of the building. On one side of the aisle was the balcony and the other side was the main auditorium seats. There were two aisles running front to back on either side.
Here is a fresh link to the 1949 Boxoffice item with the photo of the Park Theatre’s collapsed ceiling.
Two articles recalling the collapse of the ceiling at the Park Theatre: View link
View link
It looks like the building is still standing.
Boxoffice had a photo of the auditorium of the Park Theater, taken about an hour after the ceiling collapsed.
Seeing the size of the place in the photo, I’d say 390 was closer to the actual seating capacity than 1,200 is, even though Boxoffice itself gave 1,200 as the capacity in another issue. A picture is worth a thousand words- or in this case, minus eight hundred or so seats.
OK, thanks for the information.
Who knows where the 390 came from? Not from me. At least there’s some basis for the 1200.
Seat count should be updated.
Here is part of an article dated 4/20/49 from the Saint Joseph (MI) Herald Press:
Houma, La. April 20- Thirty nine persons were hurt when a movie theater plaster ceiling fell last night. Manager Everett Talbot of the Park Theater in this little French Cajun town said the acoustic ceiling fell in one great sheet.
A national guard unit which was ready to start its weekly training period raced to the scene and held back hundreds of spectators as rescuers searched through the plaster-splattered debris. Houma is a seafood and oil center about 40 miles southwest of New Orleans.
The Ellender Memorial hospital said the most seriously injured was Mrs. Amos Lapeyrouse, wife of one of the theater owners, who received a compound fracture of the leg. Six others were hospitalized for minor injuries. The theater is only six months old. It has a seating capacity of 1,200.