National Theatre

Joe Vogel on November 13, 2016 at 1:06 am

Theodore C. Kistner, architect of the Bush Theatre, was an 1897 graduate of the School of Architecture of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He practiced in his native state for a number of years before moving to California, where he opened his first office in San Diego.

The various firms in which Kistner was a partner over the next few decades specialized in school buildings. As far as I’ve been able to discover, the National was his only movie theater project, though he must have designed an enormous number of school auditoriums throughout southern California.

drb on July 20, 2010 at 7:24 am

Here’s a vintage post card
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JayAllenSanford on June 30, 2010 at 5:16 am

This was the eighth ‘Cathouse in the Pussycat Theatre chain founded by filmmakers Dave Friedman and Dan Sonney in 1966. By 1968, the duo had sold the theaters to Vince Miranda and George Tate at Walnut properties, who operated this locale as a Pussycat until the mid-‘80s.

After that, former Aztec Theater (San Diego 5th Avenue) owner Wesley “Andy” Andrews leased the 500-seat property from Walnut and kept it open under the Pussycat name until the late ‘90s, after all but the last few California ‘Cats had closed.

National City purchased the property (which included an adjacent furniture store also owned by Walnut) for $1,066,000. The theater by itself was valued at around $336,000, according to county tax records.

“I guess you can call it progress,” Wesley Andrews told the San Diego Union Tribune (8-4-98). “I don’t know that there’s anyway to fight it."

Mayor George Waters padlocked the National City Pussycat for good in July 1999. According to the Star News (7-17-99), Vice Mayor Ron Morrison found an old 1971 reel in the projection room, from a Walt Disney film rather than a porno. “It was probably used in case of a raid,” he reportedly quipped.

The National City Pussycat sat abandoned and ignored for awhile. The building was later bulldozed to make way for an intended student-resource center dubbed the University Education Village.