Galewood Theatre
1055 Burton Street SW,
Wyoming,
MI
49509
1055 Burton Street SW,
Wyoming,
MI
49509
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The New Galewood Theater opened on January 30, 1926 with Patsy Ruth Miller in “Loraine of Lions.” The Galewood converted to sound to remain viable. In 1955, it converted to a “wide-vision screen” to present CinemaScope titles.
The Galewood appears to have closed following the June 16, 1957 showing of Alan Ladd and Virginia Mayo in “The Big Land” with Abbott and Costello in “Dance With Me, Henry” supported by two cartoons.
The space became a roller rink in 1958, was denied conversion to a dance hall in 1963, became a church in 1965, and was approved for a printer / paint warehouse in 1968 which sounded like a fire risk. And that’s how the Galewood Theatre building met its demise.
Closed 1957 per newspaper listings
The theater didn’t close in 1950. I grew up less than a block from it. The last title I can recall seeing there was The Beast From Hollow Mountain, which shows it was released in 1956. Given my vivid recollections of this movie and my age at the time, 8 yrs. old, I continued seeing movies there until I was at least 10 or 11 when they turned it into the skating rink. The theater and later skating rink was owned by the Fischer family. Both as a theater and later as a skating rink, the Fischer’s pretty much knew everyone in the neighborhood by name, though they didn’t live there.
The location of this theater is currently in the city of Wyoming, not Grand Rapids. Granted, Wyoming didn’t become a city until 1959, but this theater was never inside the GR city limits.
The description is inaccurate. The building burned down in the mid-60’s after time spent as a roller-rink and a couple other odd businesses. Nothing was ever built on the vacant site. The Galewood Bar next door expanded and bought the site for parking. Currently, the old theater site is the front entrance and parking lot for a new Dollar General store.