Adam and Eve Theatre

dallasmovietheaters on December 11, 2022 at 8:53 pm

In the period from 1917 to 1918, this was home to the Palace Hall located here at 572 South Salina Street in Syracuse. The venue had a 60-year operational lifecycle but had at least ten names as the Palace Hall moved elsewhere in town and the Palace Roller Rink took over from 1918 into 1919. The Top Theatre moved into this venue next with movies and some live entertainment.

A new operator renamed it as the System Theatre with all seats eleven cents beginning May 8, 1921 with in Sessue Hayakawa in “Li Ting Lang.” That was said to be the start of a major national System theatre circuit that fizzled. The theater’s final silent-era name was the more benign Syracuse Theater in 1928. The venue didn’t make the immediate transition to sound and purportedly had a brief run as the Syracuse University Theater staging live plays. In the sound era, the venue was wired and became the Ritz Theatre launching on October 1, 1932. The Civic Repertory Theater / Civic Theater moved into the former Ritz Theater in 1933. The Civic Rep would find a new home and the Civic Theater had a long run as a movie house into the early 1960s.

In 1961, the venue was renamed as the Civic Follies Theatre. It called itself, “Syracuse’s Most Unusual Theater,” playing adult films along with some live burlesque. That started a 15-year tradition of raids and constant court battles for the Civic Follies' management during the prono chic era of adult movie exhibition. In 1981, the venue tried one more time as the Adam & Eve Adult Theatre. It appears to have been bought out as the home video industry was gaining traction in 1986 . The former Palace Hall turned Palace Roller Rink turned Top Theatre turned System Theater turned Syracuse Theater turned Syracuse University Theater turned Ritz Theater Civic Repertory Theater turned Civic Theater turned Civic Follies Theater turned Adam & Eve Adult Theatre was torn down in 1987. (The local report of the demolition also cited one more operational name as the Syracuse Civic Theater.)