Starland Theatre
2624 N. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90031
2624 N. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90031
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I believe that George B. Campbell, designer of the Starland Theatre, was an in-house architect for the Huntington Land & Improvement Company. Campbell’s office address was 744 Pacific Electric Building, and I’ve found that the seventh floor of the PE Building was also the location of the Huntington Land & Improvement Company’s offices.
An announcement about plans to build this theater were published int he November 9, 1912, issue of Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer:
I have checked the back of the building at Broadway and Workman in Google Street View, and I now suspect that the auditorium has indeed been demolished and replaced by a parking lot. The existing structure is not 110x165 feet. Also, the rear of the part of the building that the theater entrance was in has a large recess that has been walled up, and that was probably once the entrance to the theater’s auditorium.This was also my local theater during my youth. Since I remember it being demolished (backside theater proper which is now parking) I was trying to remember the last films I saw there. I can’t get past THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN. My guess it might have been dormant until 1968.
Spent the better part of my youth in the Starland, 1955-57. Tickets were $0.09. I just finished watching “The Maze.” I think I have just about relived most of those days now.
I was in front of the Daly Theater last year, which is just down the street, but for some reason I wasn’t aware of the Starland at that time. Thanks for the information.
I’ve checked the Assessor’s office web site, and the building on this parcel (extending all the way to the corner of Workman Street) was indeed built in 1912, the year the Starland opened. Apparently the Linclon Heights Bulletin-News was premature in its announcement of the theater’s demolition. It’s been converted to retail use.
Looking at the Google Maps satellite and street views shows that the section of the building with the former theater entrance (now the clothing store Ken mentions) was pretty narrow, and the configuration of the rooftops suggests that this was an “L” shaped theater, with the auditorium extending eastward from a north-south lobby. I never went to the Starland, but the entrance portion looks to be no more than 25 feet wide, if that, and there’s no way they could have crammed an 850 seat theater into that space.
The remodeling of the Starland to the modern style must have been mostly cosmetic, as the Assessor’s office doesn’t give an “effectively built” date for the building. There’s some nice terrazzo pavement on the sidewalk out front, though (see Google street view), in a geometric style which suggests a 1940’s remodeling.
This is currently a clothing store. Function should be retail. You can still see the art deco facade. I would change the status to closed.
Advertised as the New Starland in the LA Times on 1/22/36.
Plans for construction of the Starland Theatre were announced in the Los Angeles Times issue of September 22, 1912.
The demolition of the theatre was announced in the July 25, 1968 issue of the Lincoln Heights Bulletin-News.
Los Angeles is the correct location for this theater. No part of North Broadway is in the Highland Park district of Los Angeles. It runs from downtown, past Chinatown, skirts the eastern edge of Elysian Park, crosses the Los Angeles river, bends eastward and runs through the Lincoln Heights district of the city, ending at Mission Road, a few blocks south of that street’s intersection with Soto Street. If it actually ran northward, it would reach Highland Park, but it becomes and east-west street and heads instead toward the El Sereno district.
This theatre should be listed as being in Highland Park, not Los Angeles.
This theatre is one of some 200 that could be described as “Skouras-ized For Showmanship” which is the title of the ANNUAL of 1987 of the Theatre Historical Soc. of America. In the late 1930s through the 1950s, there occurred on the west coast of the United States a phenomenon known as the ‘Skouras style’ in recognition of the oversight of the Skouras brothers in their management of several cinema chains. They employed a designer by the name of Carl G. Moeller to render their cinemas/theatres in a new style best described as ‘Art Moderne meets Streamlined.’ The then new availability of aluminum sheeting at low cost was the principal material difference to this style allowing for sweeping, 3-dimensional shapes of scrolls to adorn walls and facades in an expression that would have been much more expensive and not at all the same in plaster. With the use of hand tinted and etched aluminum forms, the designers could make ornaments in mass production that allowed much greater economies of scale. The ANNUAL also show in its 44 pages how some 20 theatres were good examples of this combining of aluminum forms with sweeping draperies heavily hung with large tassels, and with box offices and facades richly treated with neon within the aluminum forms. Few of these examples survive today, but it was a glorious era while it lasted, and this collection of crisp b/w photos is a fitting epitaph by the late Preston Kaufmann.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE:
To obtain any available Back Issue of either “Marquee” or of its ANNUALS, simply go to the web site of the THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA at:
www.HistoricTheatres.org
and notice on their first page the link “PUBLICATIONS: Back Issues List” and click on that and you will be taken to their listing where they also give ordering details. The “Marquee” magazine is 8-1/2x11 inches tall (‘portrait’) format, and the ANNUALS are also soft cover in the same size, but in the long (‘landscape’) format, and are anywhere from 26 to 44 pages. Should they indicate that a publication is Out Of Print, then it may still be possible to view it via Inter-Library Loan where you go to the librarian at any public or school library and ask them to locate which library has the item by using the Union List of Serials, and your library can then ask the other library to lend it to them for you to read or photocopy. [Photocopies of most THSA publications are available from University Microforms International (UMI), but their prices are exorbitant.]
Note: Most any photo in any of their publications may be had in large size by purchase; see their ARCHIVE link. You should realize that there was no color still photography in the 1920s, so few theatres were seen in color at that time except by means of hand tinted renderings or post cards, thus all the antique photos from the Society will be in black and white, but it is quite possible that the Society has later color images available; it is best to inquire of them.
Should you not be able to contact them via their web site, you may also contact their Executive Director via E-mail at:
Or you may reach them via phone or snail mail at:
Theatre Historical Soc. of America
152 N. York, 2nd Floor York Theatre Bldg.
Elmhurst, ILL. 60126-2806 (they are about 15 miles west of Chicago)
Phone: 630-782-1800 or via FAX at: 630-782-1802 (Monday through Friday, 9AM—4PM, CT)
The Starland Theatre was located at 2624 N. Broadway.