Columbia Theatre

The Columbia Theatre was a silent-era film theatre located inside of a hotel project that failed to materialize in the 1900’s. The fast-growing City of New Orleans had two amazing projects announced in 1905 and both were city block filling proposals. There was the new Maison Blanche department store, a Beaux Arts style concept by local architects, the Stone Bros. and there was the Audubon Hotel, a 15-story Beaux Arts style project designed by New York architect, Frank Mills Andrews. The buildings had different paths toward completion and the Audubon had an unlikely movie theater located on its first floor.

The Maison Blanche design pretty much held from 1905 to construction to the store’s opening in 1909. The $4 million Audubon project sure didn’t. It hit two snags - both related to money. First, the developers didn’t have the $4 million required to complete the project and, second, the 1907 financial crisis was part of the reason that the project sank from 15-stories to 12-stories to its final fighting weight of just 8-stories. If the reports are accurate, Andrews updated the projects to the tune of $30,000 in architectural plan revisions to minimize the project’s scope.

Apparently, the Audubon folks didn’t pay the bill leading to a successful lawsuit brought by Andrews. Then some shady sounding stock deals occurred and led to other lawsuits. The long story short was that the Audubon building was completed ($2 million and another $30,000 plus court fees) but there was no money anywhere to create the hotel within. So it became a cobbled together, mixed use office/retail venue called the Audubon Building with commercial venues at its base. The Columbia Theatre would be one of the Hotel-less building’s ventures.

The theater’s exterior architectural sketches exist and, though not Andrews, the marble and much of the Beaux Arts style decor belong to him. So he gets credit here for the framework of the theater. It was located as the corner slot on Canal Street and Burgundy Street. The Columbia Theatre had good lineage as it was opened by Ernst Boehringer’s Boehringer Amusement Co. and managed by P.A. “Blank” Blankenship of the Isis Theatre on Dryades Street. Blankenship had worked for Josiah Pearce & Sons Syndicated, which along with Boehringer’s, was one of the first circuits in the history of New Orleans’ cinema. It opened by September 2, 1915 with the serial, “Neal of the Navy,” and other films.

As for the Columbia Theatre’s rather short life, competition was fierce. Caddy corner was the No Name Theatre and the Alamo Theatre as neighbors - and also movie houses. The No Name’s wide 7am to 11pm likely forced the Columbia Theatre into its generous 10am-11pm daily operational schedule. And the Newcomb Theatre would be right across the street not long after the Columbia Theatre opened. It was pitched as a second-run discount house. The Columbia Theatre was operated on a lease that ended in 1920 with the final showtimes on January 3, 1920 with Helen Holmes in “The Fatal Fortune". Its equipment was offered for sale in March and then auctioned off thereafter with marble and other elements going, as well. It was retrofitted for a tea and coffee store.

In 2011, the Audubon Building was converted to - you guessed it - a hotel (The Saint Hotel) fulfilling the dreams and desire of a 1905-era New Orleans about 105 years after those plans had been sketched. Architect Frank Mills Andrews would have said, “And they still aren’t going to pay me!”

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