Eureka Theatre
3941 Market Street,
Philadelphia,
PA
19104
3941 Market Street,
Philadelphia,
PA
19104
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Harris & Richards were the original architects who designed the $25,000, 900-seat Eureka Theatre for Eureka Amusement in 1913. It had a brief run beginning in February of 1952 as the Fine Arts Theatre until September 8, 1952. It had some additional bookings as the Eureka closing at the end of a second, 20-year lease and auctioned off. It became a retail furniture store in 1954.
The Eureka’s name was changed to the Fine Arts in April 1952 and the theater adopted a foreign film policy. Apparently this was not successful as advertising for the house stopped in September. The theater was open again in February 1953 (probably four-walled) as a venue for the “sex hygiene” picture “Street Corner.”
This page says that the Eureka was converted into a furniture store in the 1950s and gives its address as 3941 Market Street.
The Eureka is visible at the top right of this picture from 1949. This was during construction of a subway tunnel to replace the elevated in this area.
In 1915, The Architectural Record published this article about movie theaters, which included both a photo and a floor plan of the Eureka Theatre, as well as Stearns & Castor’s earlier Victoria Theatre (scroll up from the article title to see the photo of the Eureka, down to see the other illustrations.)