Regal Theater

According to the Los Angeles Herald, this theater was the site of a major dispute over the open-shop issue in which the Central Labor Council listed the non-union Regal as “unfair to unions” and mounted a nightly picket, with as many as 200-people, through the winter of 1909/1910.

Nice advertisement….I wish they would put up a ‘popular prices’ sign at movie ticket windows today.

Joe, from the sept. 4, 1919 article above, I think the theater closed then and was turned into a men’s club with a gymnasium. It was probably then turned completely into a gym. The 1920 article had another part that made it sound as though they just let the oldsters celebrate one more time.

Here’s an address confirmation:

(April 15, 1906)
HECLA THEATER-323 S. Main St. J.J. Cluxton Manager
at the opening Saturday Matinee, April 21
Ladies and Their Escorts Admitted Free

Here are some dates with names of this theater. LAT is Los Angeles Times with an address listed. The other dates are City Directory listings.

New Star [1906 Sanborn Map, 1906 LAT]
Theatre Royal [1908]
Bijou [1908 LAT]
Bockoven & Dean [1909 Listed Under Moving Pictures & Machines]
Regal [1909 LAT, 1915 LAT, 1915, 1916, 1919 LAT]

(Jan. 15, 1919)
Dr. Gentry, Of Chicago
For 24 Years Exponent Of Divine Healing
and Preacher of Full Gospel of Christ, has been holding
Meetings at Regal Theater, 323 S. Main St.

(Dec. 24, 1920)
In the old Regal Theater, 321 South Main street, hundreds of old men gathered as the guests of the Los Angeles Men’s Club, and sang ‘Silver Threads Among the Gold,’ weeping the while, and then applauding vigorously to be allowed to sing it over again. A number of talks and vaudeville acts were also given.

Here are some articles I’m moving over from the Hippodrome page:

(Sept. 4, 1919)
GERMAN SIGN CHIPPED FROM TURNER HALL: TO BECOME “DRY SALOON."
A workman with a mallet and chisel yesterday chipped off the German words "Turn Halle” from the front of the building at 321 South Main street, thus putting out of existence in name Turner Hall, where for many years the German-speaking people of Los Angeles danced and sang and met in lodge and club gatherings. Over the door the city will place an electric sign reading, “Los Angeles Men’s Club,” and this institution, the only municipal organization of its kind in the United States, will be formally opened in about two weeks. The city has leased the building from its owners, the Turn Verein Germania, for one year with the right to extend the lease five years, and the Play Ground Commission is spending $3000 in fitting up the building as a men’s club. It was primarily established to be a returned service men’s club, but all men are to be welcome, and it will be, in effect, as called by Play Ground Commission Superintendent Charles B. Raitt, a ‘dry saloon.’ In the basement there will be pool tables and hot and cold showers. On the street floor there will be reading and smoking-room, and lunches, soft drinks, cigars, tobacco and cigarettes will be sold. The large auditorium where many famous dances were held in years past, and where many steins of beer were drunk to the words, “Hoch der Kaiser,” becomes a municipal gymnasium, and the German club rooms become committee rooms where evening classes will be conducted by the Board of Education.

The historic building which the Regal Theater occupied was dedicated in April of 1894, and was either the third or the fourth home of the Los Angeles branch of the German Turn Verein, or gymnastics movement, which exercised (no pun intended) wide influence during the 19th century not only in Germany but in other nations, and especially the United States. The L.A. Turners organization was established in 1871, and occupied at least two earlier buildings before erecting this Turn Halle on Main Street.

As the Turne Hall, the spacious, second floor (American) room with wrap-around balcony was used as a gymnasium, as a venue for athletic exhibitions, for balls and gatherings of various kinds, and for musical and theatrical performances. The Turners not only practiced and promoted gymnastics, but had a dramatic society, a men’s chorus, an orchestra, and maintained a library.

The Los Angeles Public Library’s photo collection includes this depiction of the Main Street Turn Halle, probably about the time of its opening (though the library mis-dates the photo as being from 1888, six years before the building was completed.) The three-floor structure was in the Richardsonian Romanesque style which was popular during the last two decades of the 19th century. The central arch opened to a broad staircase which lead up to the Turn Halle itself.

The only photo I can find of the space that became the Regal Theater’s auditorium is the one posted by ken mc above, showing the Main Street Gym as it appeared following the fire which led to the building’s demolition. By that time the space had probably been extensively remodeled, and the camera is looking away from the stage which once occuped one end of the hall, but the photo at least gives an idea of the size and shape of the room.