Avalon Theatre
13303 Linwood Street,
Detroit,
MI
48238
13303 Linwood Street,
Detroit,
MI
48238
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I saw “Them” (giant ants) at the Avalon by myself when I was 7 in 1955. I was scared stiff and transfixed. I came in in the middle for 20 cents and stayed for it to repeat so I could catch the beginning. They sold Halavah at the candy counter. I lived on Webb between Laughton and Linwood. We went to the Dexter theater also to escape the heat of the summer. Steve
Prior to opening in December of 1927, the Avalon was one of three theatre in Detroit bombed which pushed the opening to 1928. The Tivoli in Highland Park and the Lansing Theatre were also bombed with the Tivoli suffering more than $100,000 in damage.
Lost memory: the Barton organ in the Avalon was built on subcontract by the Wangerin company in nearby Milwaukee. The instrument remained in the theatre after it closed. A local Detroit theatre organ aficionado attempted to purchase it at a more than fair price, but the theatre owner Sarah Davidson would not sell it—she had delusions of greater financial gain by donating it to a church, which never happened. Scrappers got inside the building and took everything made of metal from the organ, including the pipes. The same individual purchased the remains of the organ from the shuttered theatre in 1970, and just the parts that remained live on in other instruments today.