Art Overbrook Cinema
6242 Haverford Avenue,
Philadelphia,
PA
19151
6242 Haverford Avenue,
Philadelphia,
PA
19151
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A neighborhood theatre in west Philadelphia located at 63rd Street and Haverford Avenue. The Overbrook Theatre was opened in 1914 and in 1924 it was equipped with a Wurlitzer organ. This was replaced a few years later by a Kimball 3 manual 10ranks organ. It was closed in 1957.
It reopened operating as an art house movie theatre for a while as the Art Overbrook Cinema. In 1962 it was closed with Natalie Wood in “Splendour in the Grass” & Leslie Caron in “Fanny”. It was converted into a bakery. The Streamline Moderne style marquee survived until 1988.
The building stood vacant in 2019. In 2024 only the four walls are standing as it has lost the roof of the auditorium.
Contributed by
Gerald DeLuca
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
This house appears to have reopened after 1957 as the Art Overbrook Theatre. A house of that name in Philadelphia was mentioned in the First Statement of the New American Cinema Group, published in the summer of 1961. The Art Overbrook had, along with the Bleeker Street Cinema and New Yorker Theatre in New York, pledged to exhibit films distributed by the group. This information was cited in Film Culture Reader, edited by Adams P. Sitney, published in 1970 (Google Books preview). The Art Overbrook Theatre, 63rd and Haverford, was advertising in The Philadelphia Enquirer by June of 1959.
The final operational names for the Overbrook Theatre were as the Aart Overbrook Cinema (a name it used to try to be among the first listed in the newspaper’s alphabetical listings) and the Art Overbrook Cinema. It closed permanently as the Art Overbook Cinema on June 3, 1962 with “Splendor in the Grass” and “Fanny.”
According to Google maps, there does not seem to be a roof over the building. It’s basically 4 walls.