Vaudette Theatre
82 Whitehall Street SW,
Atlanta,
GA
30303
82 Whitehall Street SW,
Atlanta,
GA
30303
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The Vaudette Theatre opened in December of 1908. In 1911 the theatre was completely remodeled and had a grand reopening on September 4, 1911. The Vaudette Theatre is listed in a 1922 Atlanta city directory under moving picture theatres. It is not listed in the 1926 Film Daily Yearbook.
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
Google Maps will be unable to find the correct location from the old address. A long stretch of what is now Peachtree Street SW used to be Whitehall Street (from Spring Street SW north to the railroad tracks about midway between Marietta Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.)
In addition to the renaming, the numbers have been changed. Comparing the 1911 Sanborn Map (in Volume 4, on sheet 465,) what was then 82 Whitehall St. SW did not become 82 Peachtree St. SW, but is in the next block south, between MLK JR. Drive (formerly Hunter Street) and Mitchell Street.
That block now has addresses from 100 to 134, but the entire even side of the block has been rebuilt with a massive single project, so the modern address would be a guess. The Sanborn map shows 82 about the middle of that block, which then had numbers from 66 to 102 Whitehall. If the lot the Vaudette was on still had its own number it would probably be approximately 116 Peachtree St. SW.
The 1911 map also shows movie theaters in buildings at 98 and 100 Whitehall SW. Whatever theaters they were would have modern addresses of approximately 128 and 130 Peachtree SW.
Sanborn Maps for Georgia can be found at this page of the Digital Library of Georgia, but the format they are presented in does not make them very easy to use. I’m grateful to DLG for making them available, but I wish they’d used a format more like the one the University of North Carolina uses for their collection.
I’ve set Street View to the approximate location of the Vaudette Theatre. Google chooses to number that spot 124 Georgia State Bicycle Route 45, but it’s still Peachtree Street SW.
A footnote in Steve Goodson’s Highbrows, Hillbillies & Hellfire: Public Entertainment in Atlanta, 1880-1930 (Google Books preview) says that the Vaudette Theatre closed in 1924 and the building became part of J. M. High’s department store. The same note says that the Vaudette of 1911 had 800 seats, and cites an Atlanta Constitution article of February 26, 1911, which claimed that the Vaudette was the largest theater showing movies in the south other than Jake Wells’s Bijou, also in Atlanta, which, unlike the Vaudette was a combination house running vaudeville as well as movies.
The Vaudette Theater was located at 74-76 Whitehall St. in Atlanta. It was built by J.G. and A.C. Evins. The front of the theater was an adaptation of the famous “Petit Palais” in Paris, France. The height of the entrance arch was 30 feet and the width 20 feet, flanked by two allegorical figures supporting the half dome above.
Grand opening ad in the photo section.
I remember an old book I used to have that showed a picture of Whitehall St. Below Hunter St. In the picture was the J. M. High department store and the Central Theater. It goes on to say that the Central was the sight of the old Vaudette.