Jeffery Theater
1952 E. 71st Street,
Chicago,
IL
60649
1952 E. 71st Street,
Chicago,
IL
60649
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 36 comments
This theater was a dark place when “The Exorcist” played here. I can remember the ambulance parked around the corner on a regular basis. What a time to be alive.
Current redevelopment plans: seven-screen dine-in cinema, small bowling alley, restaurant and events space, with a 2023 target date. Block Club Chicago story here.
Facade still in jeopardy.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/06/09/city-lifts-hold-on-tearing-down-jeffery-theater-but-developer-doesnt-plan-to-demolish-immediately/?mc_cid=b758d79e01&mc_eid=173b7b99f7
1972 photo added credit Pat Hammond.
Sad story, I get up until he age of 8 on Crandon Ave and 72nd in the 60’s. Lot’s of gang crime even back then. My family belong to South Shore Country Club back them (now South Shore Cultural Center). We would get dropped off at The Jeffery for Saturday matinees and we would be shaken down for money by what I can only assume were very young gang members. South Shore has needed and still needs saving from the gangs running rampant.
That is a BEAUTIFUL pic Broan! How did you find it???
Here is a THSA photo of the Jeffery auditorium. Here is one of the lobby.
Alisa Starks, who developed movie theaters in Lawndale and Chatham, has been brought in by Monroe Investments to revive the bank at 7054 S. Jeffery Blvd. that closed in 2014.
At a 5th Ward meeting in August 2015 at the South Shore Cultural Center, Starks presented a rough idea for the 46,000-square-foot bank that included a four-screen movie theater on the main floor, a six-lane bowling alley in the basement and a kid-friendly restaurant and play area on the second floor.
I can see the residents wanting something more upscale than McDonald’s there. But I don’t understand why the Jeffrey makes any preservation lists. Since they tore the auditorium down there isn’t much left to work with. There must be more important properties than this to focus resources on.
Named as one of the city’s ten most endangered buildings by Preservation Chicago. A presumably recent picture is photo #5 of the slideshow that accompanies this Chicago Tribune article.
Silver Screens to Golden Arches… what’s left of the Jeffery will be redeveloped.
http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20140227/south-shore-above-79th/mcdonalds-replace-urban-partnership-bank-some-neighbors-not-thrilled
Shore Bank, which ran it’s headquarters out of the old Jeffrey Building, collapsed during the financial crisis and I believe the remains were brokered through FDIC. I saw an article in Crain’s the other day stating that the new owners plan to sell the Jeffrey Building. Shore Bank was a nice idea that was probably never going to work. Their whole business proposition was based on writing mortgages for people in distressed neighborhoods. You’d have to show me a lot of numbers before I would ever put any stock in that idea.
that’s entirely possible..I remember it being a small place with a few tables… I remember it being next to an alley. My Dad told me a story about a customer that took my Dad into that alley and threatened to shoot him.
We lived at 7037 Jeffery. There was a lounge next to the beauty shop which butted up to the Woolworth’s. Could that have been the Boulevard Room?
According to Google Street View the facade behind where the marquee stood is still standing although the entrance has been modified. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2840/photos/5405/
http://maps.google.com/maps?msid=115314776543347973137.0004609dda6c1996245e4&msa=0&hl=en&ll=41.76606,-87.57653&spn=0.000988,0.003664&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=41.766061,-87.576655&panoid=7gPmLKf9lAUBbNhV2qjw-g&cbp=12,57.29090500000001,,0,0&photoid=po-47850825/
Great old place, Chris Demos the manager in the 60’s was one my Dad’s best friends. Big, silent Al Wartenberg. What a great, quite man. Smoked a pipe. I loved that old office, it was like a bunker. —-Nick Coston
my Dad owned a cocktail lounge/bar at 71st and Jeffrey, but no living family members can recall exactly where it was….it was somewhere at that intersection, and he owned it in the late 50’s/early 60’s….it was called “the Boulevard Room”….anyone with any info would be greatly appreciated.
great pictures ken, thanks again.
It’s amazing how small the theaters were compared to my memories of them
I saw “The Robe” at the Jeffery.
Richard Jacobson
Here is a 1954 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/ng5ctt
Here is a 1982 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cq53cj
The Jeffery Theatre had a 2m 6r Barton Theatre organ. It was badly water damaged. I was working for a local pipe organ service company at the time and a friend and I tried to restore the organ to playing condition. It was so far gone that it would have taken considerable money to repair, money which I didn’t have at the time. Coston Enterprises decided to donate the organ to a local church which only wanted the unit flute. My employer removed the organ, installed the flute at the church and sold off the rest of the parts. I still have the traps. The console was purchased by Jimmie Keating, at teacher at Lane Tech HS, who beautifully restored the console and used it to play his home pipe organ.
Hello Ken…thanks for the ad. It was nice to see. I noticed the ad for the Hamilton theatre, which was a few blocks east of the Jeffery.
Also fun to see ads from the Highland,Shore, and Ogden shows.
Here is a May 1951 ad from the Southeast Economist:
http://tinyurl.com/5gz8sc
I was a frequent customer at the Jeffery between 1967 and 1969.
It was often a unique entertainment experience with audience members shouting advice to the characters on the screen.
I was an usher at the Jeffery during the early 60’s. The manager at that time was Chris Demos and the assistant was Al Warpenburg. We wore uniforms complete with cardboard dickies and collars and clip on bow ties. We escorted customers to their seats with flashlights and actually made sure everyone was quiet and kept their feet off the seats. The Jeffery was a very popular theater in those days and played many “road show” engagements like Cleopatra complete with intermissions and special concession items. While I worked there it was hit by a tornado which took off the top of the water tower.