Variety Arts Center
940 S. Figueroa Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90015
940 S. Figueroa Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90015
3 people
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1941 photo as the Times Theatre added courtesy of the AmeriCar The Beautiful Facebook page. Likely originally from one of the dead links…
In the 1980s I saw live magic shows there, as well as performers Rudy Vallee, Buddy Ebsen, the Wiere Brothers, Bob Cummings and others. One year I attended the New Years Eve dance. Art Deco and His Orchestra were the house band. Art’s mother proudly told me of his violinist son, “He studied with Heifetz.”
The artifacts were a blast: Walter Winchell’s hat, W C Field’s trick pool table, drums Eleanor Powell danced on in a movie, the original Johnny Carson Tonight Show set.
The last time I was in the neighborhood, the building was empty. However that was about five months ago, and something interesting could have happened in the meantime…
Note re: description at the top, it should read Times, not Tomes.
Don, are these two theatres in use now?
Toured this building today; there are two theaters in there. The film theater is on the ground floor, the live theater is upstairs. Don’t know if the live theater is original, or an add-on. The ballroom has been converted into a lounge-type space.
Like the photo of the Times marquee with 20 cents sign on it.
Here are two photos taken yesterday:
http://tinyurl.com/c62e3c
http://tinyurl.com/dgl4gb
The theater is for sale on Loopnet for 12.5 million. This area by Staples Center is undergoing massive redevelopment.
http://tinyurl.com/8k6dn2
Wow, that’s quite an article. Thatnks for posting it.
It’s amazing that any developer could have spent 8 million dollars just four years ago for some place so massive, only to sell it off yet again.
I hope the Time’s get’s a new lease on life soon.
That club interior is reminiscent of the famous Bergoff Restaurant in Chicago.
Maybe the club portion could be opened up as a money maker first, with hopes of generating interest in reopening the theatre portion.
Maybe the new, young Hollywood millionaires could pool their resources ala Planet Hollywood, and become heroes for restoring such a landmark theatre.
Floyd B. Bariscale has posted an extensive entry about this theater, with many images, here, as part of his ongoing series of pieces about Los Angeles landmarks.
Here’s where the USC site is currently hiding the two 1941 photos:
View link
View link
And there’s lots more photos linked from here, including several interior shots:
View link
Here are the LOC photos, in a more permanent form:
http://tinyurl.com/6metzl
http://tinyurl.com/6mb86p
I can’t fix the links, I don’t know how.
Here are some LAPL photos from the twenties:
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics37/00038121.jpg
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics37/00038123.jpg
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics37/00038120.jpg
There was a good shot in one of my earlier additions, but I can’t find it now.
These USC links are not very reliable. Here is another shot from 1941:
http://tinyurl.com/568x8r
Here are the updated USC links:
http://tinyurl.com/2ylpr5
http://tinyurl.com/ypjna3
Here is a 1983 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/23wcck
Too bad those 1941 photos don’t show The Pantry; I would have liked to have seen a picture of it in its original context. It’s in the far left background of the first photo, probably behind that church (wow! Didn’t know there was a huge church right there!)
Here’s hoping that Anschutz does something good with the place. The first portions of L.A. Live are scheduled to open by the end of this year, maybe early 2008. It’ll be here before we know it. There’s scheduled to be a two building complex of apartments built right next to it (called the Concerto), that’s where the Finkle Arms was. Unfortunately, that project seems to be stalled at the moment. Apart from that, that whole neighborhood is like brand new compared to 10-15 years ago.
Here is a re-post of Joe´s photo as his link has failed. BTW, there was an interesting article in the LA Times recently about the German guy who runs the website. He flies here, takes a boatload of photos and flies back. Most of his friends don´t even realize he runs the site.
http://tinyurl.com/29xfsm
Here are two photos without the marquee from the Library of Congress:
http://tinyurl.com/y6lyrc
http://tinyurl.com/y275e7
I like the apartment building up the street in the 1941 photograph. The “Finkle Arms”…not exactly the prestige of living in the Waldorf.
The Times Theatre was located in the auditorium of the Friday Morning Club, a womens' organization. The auditorium opened on Monday, May 5th, 1924, and was for several years a popular venue for plays, lectures and musical performances. It was used for club functions as well.
I’ve been unable to find during which years the Times Theatre operated, but it had long been closed by 1977, the year in which the building was sold by the Friday Morning Club to Milt Larsen and was converted into the not-for-profit Variety Arts Center, dedicated to preserving historic forms of live entertainment such as Vaudeville.
The five story Italian Renaissance style building was designed by the Los Angeles architectural firm of Allison & Allison. In addition to the large auditorium, it contains a smaller theatre (apparently never used as a movie house) and various meeting and club rooms. The building was declared a city monument in 1978, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
In 2004, the building was purchased by the Anshutz Entertainment Group, the company which is building the massive L.A. Live entertainment complex a few blocks farther south on Figueroa Street. For now, the theatre remains dark while the company studies options for reuse of the venue.
Here is a recent photograph of the Friday Morning Club building.
Ken: I didn’t think anyone would ever unearth a picture of the Times Theatre,a nd that it was gone forever. But then, I didn’t know that the Times Theatre was actually located in the Friday Morning Club building, and thus was one and the same with the Variety Arts Center. Apparently neither did William when he posted this theatre, or he wouldn’t have listed it as being “closed, demolished”. The listing definitely needs an update. Thanks for digging up this happy news.
I’d say that the Times/Variety Arts has a bright future, being located in the new entertainment district that appears to be forming along south Figueroa Street. Now that we know it is the building of the Friday Morning Club, it seems likely that we could even find the name of the architect in the California Index at the L.A. Library web site.
These 1941 photos are from the USC Archive. The Variety Arts Center still stands on 9th Street. That would make my post above inaccurate, which is nothing new:
http://tinyurl.com/nmr9k
http://tinyurl.com/fd99n
If the even numbers are on the east side of the street, going south, then this theater would be where the Holiday Inn is now, across from the Pantry and somewhat adjacent to the Staples Center.