Broadway Theater

Hi I have this picture is it worth anything

Architect/contractor Colonel J. W. Wood designed the Metropole Hotel and Broadway Theatre with an exterior in a rather austere version of the Romanesque Revival style, but the auditorium, seen in this photo from the Denver Public Library’s L. C. McClure collection, was a lavishly Oriental space, encrusted with decoration.

As the photo is black and white, we can only imagine what riot of color the room must have displayed. William G. M. Stone’s 1892 guide The Colorado Handbook describes the Broadway Theatre as having one of “…the prettiest interiors in The Great West, in luxurious appointments equal to the best.” The description of the Broadway’s auditorium in Andrew Craig Morrison’s Theaters is positively effusive:

“No theater anywhere could surpass the exotic visual display that veteran theater architect J.M. Wood incorporated into its vast auditorium, and few could equal it. ‘A Glimpse of India,’ the scene painted on the asbestos safety curtain, was extended into the third tier for the Broadway’s audiences, who found themselves engulfed in an Indo—Moorish fantasy that surpassed even New York’s extravagant Casino.”

The Broadway was removed in 1956 however the Metropole hotel structure stood until 1984. The Cosmopolitan hotel which was built next door to the Metropole eventually took over the Metropole. When the Broadway was removed from the interior of the Metropole, the theatre lobby became the Trader Vic’s Restaurant (later becoming Don the Beachcomber) and the actual theatre auditorium became a parking garage for the Cosmopolitan hotel. The Cosmopolitan hotel closed on January 1 1984. The Metropole hotel/Broadway theatre building which was sandwiched between the Cosmopolitan hotel and the Mile High Center was dismanteled brick by brick in order to create some space so that the Cosmopolitan hotel could be imploded in May of 1984. A flat paved “by the hour” parking lot sits where both buildings originally stood.

This is an undated photo from the Library of Congress:
http://tinyurl.com/39ptu6

During the mid 40’s the theatre seated 1031 people.