LeMay Theatre
318 Lemay Ferry Road,
St. Louis,
MO
63125
318 Lemay Ferry Road,
St. Louis,
MO
63125
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The LeMay Theatre opened in 1929 in the St. Louis suburb of Lemay just a few short blocks from the city limits. The LeMay was a busy neighborhood house well into the 1960’s when it went to a weekend only operation. The theater closed and reopened a couple of times.
When Harman Moseley reopened the LeMay Theatre in the mid 1980’s, he twinned the theatre and it became a second run discount house along with his Kirkwood Cinema. Admission started out at one dollar and later increased to $1.50. It was successful until the end of the 1980’s when other discount houses started popping up.
The Lindbergh 8 was taken over by Wehrenberg Theatres just a short distance away at Lindbergh Boulevard and Lemay Ferry Road and became a discount house, thus killing the business of the LeMay Theatre. The LeMay Theatre was closed on January 1, 1988 with Jon Cryer in “Hiding Out”. The theatre building was converted into a mosque.
Contributed by
Chuck Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
Structure currently being remodeled into a mosque.
Just so you know…it is pronounced LEE-may.
The twinning took place in November 1985, and was not a Moseley operation at the time.
Well, in my part of St. Louis it is pronounced as I noted above.
As to the spelling, it would seem the theatre marquee is the only
place it is spelled that way. The theatre is/was on Lemay Ferry Road; the area (non-incorporated) is spelled Lemay; and for the most part the theatre always appeared in theatre ads as Lemay.
This building is right down the street from where I live now. I always harbored secret dreams of restoring it to an art house theater. Although the marquee is gone now, the building has been beautifully restored on the outside (I can’t say what the inside looks like, as I’ve never been in pre/post renovation). The front of the building is nice, and the current owners built an entrance/porch onto the side of the building (facing the parking lot), where once would have been the emergency exit, I assume. I’m glad that this is one classic theater that got restored/repurposed & saved, rather than just being demolished. :)
It did became a mosque for Bosnian Islamics
Closed on January 1, 1988 with “Hiding Out.”