Clark Theatre
4533 N. Clark Street,
Chicago,
IL
60640
4533 N. Clark Street,
Chicago,
IL
60640
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Additional Info
Architects: Albert S. Hecht
Functions: Retail
Previous Names: New Clark Theatre
Nearby Theaters
This theatre, located in the Uptown neighborhood on N. Clark Street near W. Wilson Avenue, was open by 1910. On December 14, 1919, the theatre had a grand reopening, according to a story in the December 29, 1919 Motion Picture News now called the New Clark Theatre, now under the management of Frank Forsythe, former manager of the Shakespeare Theatre, and featured three acts of vaudeville and the motion picture adaptation of Edna Ferber’s “The Gay Old Dog”.
The theatre closed in 1926 and reopened a year later as the Clark-Wilson Recreation Center, featuring 16 lanes of bowling. By 1939 it was called the Clark-Wilson Lanes. The bowling alley was heavily damaged in a fire in 1955. It later housed a factory, and has been home for a number of years to a wholesale retailer. The building received a new facade in 2012.
Contributed by
Khnemu
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
The “Building Permits” column of the January 8, 1910, issue of The Economist included a brick theater, 58x117 feet, at 4533-4535 N. Clark Street. The architect was Albert S. Hecht.
The Marx Brothers played here early on. https://archive.org/details/variety25-1911-12/page/n77/mode/2up?view=theater
In 1912 the Clark Theatre was one of five neighborhood houses in Chicago owned and operated by by F. H. And E. A. Franke. The September 7 issue of Moving Picture World said that the pair had just bought the Bell Theatre on Armitage Avenue and also owned the California Theatre on 26th Street. They had just closed a contract to erect a new, 300-seat movie house on Grand and Monticello Avenues, slated to open around November 1. I’ve been unable to discover if that project was completed, but the nearest house we have listed to that location is the New Rex, opened in 1913 as the Lawndale Theatre.