The current Google street view is out of date. Construction on the Cinemark Mall St. Matthews project had not yet begun when it was made. This June, 2012 article from WDRB.com says that the theater was to replace the old Dillard’s department store building (Dillard’s had moved to a new location in the mall several years earlier.) I’ve set Street View to show the former Dillard’s, and hope that when Google updates it will show the theater.
CinemaTour probably got the address from the FDY, and I’m sure that this is one of those cases where the FDY made a mistake and never corrected it in later editions.
In Google Street View, the building at 2501-2503 Portland looks like an old frame house that had a storefront added to its corner at some point, and then later the building was partly covered with a facing of red brick. It looks way too old to have been built as late as the 1950s, and it certainly couldn’t have held a theater. The theater in the photo wasn’t on a corner, either, which is where 2501 is. The theater has houses close to both sides of it.
The clincher is this post by Charlie Porter on Rootsweb. He remembers going to the Norman Theatre in the 1940s and 1950s, and says that it was on Portland Avenue near 22nd Street. It was still being run by members of the Wentzell family at that time.
In this 1949 view from Historic Aerials, the Norman Theatre must have been in the large, oblong building on the north side of Portland a few doors down from 22nd Street. Everything on that side of the block has since been wiped out for a freeway and its ramps.
This multiplex now operates under the name Baxter Avenue Filmworks. Here is their web site. Apex Entertainment also operates the Village 8 Theatres. Louisville’s discount movie house.
I think we have the two middle digits of the Norman Theatre’s address transposed. The January 10, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World mentions the Norman Theatre and its manager, Edward Wentzell. The July 15, 1911, issue of the same publication had this item:
“Louisville, Ky. — J. M. Wentzell filed plans for a moving picture theater in the office of the building inspector. The theater is to be located at 2051 Portland Avenue and will cost $6,500. It is to be completed by August 1.”
Edward Wentzell was probably a relative of J. M. Wentzell. The web site Historic Aerials has views of both 2501 and 2051 Portland Avenue from 1949, when the theater was still listed in the FDY, and while there was a building of the right size for the theater at 2051, the building at 2501 was much too small.
A later report in MPW upped the estimated cost of the new theater to $7,500, and an October 7, 1916, item mentioned that a $1,200 generating plant was being installed in the Norman Theatre by manager Mort Wentzel [sic]. The October 14, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News mentioned W. M. Wentzell of the Norman Theatre, Louisville.
The Strand and the Priscilla are both listed in the 1941 Film Daily Yearbook. The Priscilla, which was closed, had 300 seats, and the Strand, open, had 390.
This house opened as the Strand Theatre, probably in late 1920, and was never called the Priscilla. A 1921 Toledo directory lists both the Strand, at 322 Summit Street, and the Priscilla Theatre, at 330 Summit. A list of Toledo theaters published in 1919 also has the Priscilla at 330 Summit, but no theater listed at 322 Summit.
In a 1921 Toledo city directory, 421 N. Superior Street is listed as the location of the Orpheum Theatre. The Orpheum Theatre, with 634 seats, was also at that address on a list of Toledo theaters published in 1919. An Orpheum Theatre was in operation in Toledo at least as early as 1912.
Something I never knew about the Garfield Theatre is this bit of news from the January 13, 1929, issue of The Film Daily:
“Alhambra House Opens
“Alhambra, Cal. — The Garfield, recently destroyed by fire, has been opened with renovations. The house shows sound picture via Vitaphone.”
I think that the Garfield must have lost some of its original Egyptian decor in this fire, as there was little of it left by the 1950s even though the house then looked like it hadn’t been updated in decades.
Motion Picture News of November 21, 1914, said that the “Maxime” Theatre, then under construction on Mack Avenue, was nearing completion. The Maxine was built by pioneer Detroit exhibitor A. Arthur Caille, who died about a year after this theater opened. His obituary appeared in the January 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World (scan at Google Books.)
The September 16, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Ferry Field Theatre had opened on August 31. The theater was decorated in the Spanish Renaissance style.
The November 21, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Knickerbocker Theatre, then under construction by the Ingersoll-Gaukler Company, was expected to open by May, 1915.
Here is a newspaper article about the proposed Pantheon Theatre, published in the Toledo Times, July 3, 1919.
“TOLEDO TO GET A COSTLY NEW PICTURE HOUSE
“Pantheon Theatre Company Incorporates and Takes Over Kaiserhof Cafe.
“HAS ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS CAPITAL.
“New Theatre to Be One of the Finest in Country; Will Seat 1,200.
“Incorporation of the Pantheon Theater Co. with a capital stock of $100,000 assures Toledo the erection of one of the finest motion picture houses in the country.
“The new company has taken over the property formerly occupied by the Kaiserhof cafe.
“The exterior of the building will be glazed terra cotta.
“A large foyer, which will accommodate more than 300, will be utilized as a dance hall on special occasions, and the dances may be made a regular feature of the program. Back of the lobby will be a large reception and music room, elaborately furnished, where concerts may be held.
“The stage will be 18 feet in depth. The proscenium will measure 30 feet and there will be an elaborate equipment of built-in sets and scenery for special features.
“Elaborate simplicity is designated as the keynote of the decorations which will make the new house one of the most beautiful in this part of the country.
“There will be no balcony, but the theatre will have a seating capacity of 1,200. A $25,000 Hope Jones organ will be installed.
“A large canopy will be built over the street and there will be a double ticket window. A new lighting system, on the order of the ‘flood light,’ will be used.
“Rest rooms, a private projection room and dressing rooms for the ushers and performers will be located in the basement. A play room for children will also be down stairs.
“H. C. Horater, John Kumler and John J. Gardiner are the incorporators of the new company. Horater, who is manager, secretary and treasurer of the Alhambra theatre, will continue as managing director of both companies. Gardiner is president of the Alhambra Co.
“The Alhambra theatre was built eight years ago.
“Four years ago Horater took the active management and with a policy of showing only the best pictures has made it one of the best known motion picture houses in the country. The most promising features procurable in motion pictures have been secured for exhibition at the new house during the coming year.“
The seating capacity needs to be updated. The original Cinema I & II seated 1,805 (705 and 1,100.) The addition of the 1,140-seat third auditorium in 1967 brought the total to 2,945. I don’t know if any seats were lost when two auditoriums were later divided to make this a five-screen multiplex.
The Strand Theatre is listed at 402 E. Fourth Street in city directories from 1921 through 1978. It had the longest run under a single name of any theater in Waterloo, and the longest run of any Waterloo house but the Palace/Waterloo, which operated from 1914 to 1982.
This list of Waterloo’s theaters as they appeared in city directories has the State Theatre listed beginning in 1935. There is no directory available for 1934, so the State might have opened as early as 1933, after that year’s directory had been sent to the printer. The State Theatre is last listed in the 1954 directory.
I’ve been unable to discover if the State was newly built in the 1930s, or was an earlier house called the Crystal, listed at the same address from 1910 through 1928. It might have been remodeled and reopened. No directory is available for 1929, either, so the Crystal might have closed as late as that year. No theater is listed at 212 E. Fourth in directories from 1930, 1931, or 1933.
The Riviera probably opened in January, 1928. The January 3 issue of The Film Daily said that the house would be ready “…around the first of the year….” However, the announcement that the Riviera had opened did not appear until the issue of February 5.
Also, it was the Plaza/Iowa/Orpheum on Fourth Street that was designed by architect Mortimer Cleveland. So far I’ve been unable to discover the architect of the Grand/etc/New Iowa.
Our history for this theater is a bit off, due to two different houses in Waterloo having been called the Iowa Theatre. The house at 608 Commercial Street was never called the Plaza, but it did have the following aka’s: Grand, Family, Garden, Rialto, and Capitol.
This handy list of theaters from the Waterloo Public Library shows that the theater at 608 Commercial Street was first listed in the city directory in 1915 as the Grand Theatre. In 1916 and 1918 it is listed as the Family Theatre. From 1919 through 1921 it is listed as the Garden Theatre.
No theater is listed for this address in the 1922-23 directory, but in 1924 it reappears as the Rialto Theatre. It was still the Rialto in 1928, but no directory is available for 1929, and no theater is listed for the address again until 1936, when it appears as the location of the Capitol Theatre. The name Iowa Theatre first appears at this address in the 1939 directory, and remains through 1961. After that, no theater is listed at 608 Commercial Street.
During most of the 1930s the name Iowa Theatre belonged to the house that opened in 1914 as the Plaza and became the Orpheum sometime in 1938.
A list of Waterloo theaters as they appeared in the city directories shows that the house at 420 W. Fourth Street was first listed, as the Plaza Theatre, in the 1915 directory, and was last listed under that name in the 1928 directory. No directory is available for 1929. In 1930, it was listed as the Iowa Theatre, which it remained through the 1938 directory. In 1939, it was listed as the Orpheum Theatre, and retained that name through the 1952 directory. No directory is available for 1953. In the 1954 directory it is listed as the RKO Orpheum Theatre, and that name remained in the 1954 and 1955 directories. No theater is listed at this address in the 1956 or later directories.
The NRHP registration form for the Babcock Theatre (PDF here) has a detailed history of the theater and numerous photographs, including photos of the original 1907 interior designed by Edwin W. Houghton and of the 1927 interior with decoration in the Spanish Colonial style by Carl F. Berg of the Shearer studios in Seattle. The theater was closed from June 7 to September 24 for the 1927 remodeling project.
The architect for these major alterations, which included moving the theater entrance from an interior arcade to the street front, and the removal of the 300-seat gallery and the boxes, was not named in the document, but it might have been John G. Link, who did work on the building at some point according to this page from the Montana State University Library.
On the night of February 21 and morning of February 22, 1935, the Babcock Theatre was severely damaged by a fire that caused the roof of the auditorium to collapse. The Wutlizer Hope_Jones organ was destroyed. Reconstruction after the fire took almost six months. The rebuilding project was designed by local architect Edwin G. Osness. The decoration, in the Art Deco style, was by the Heinsbergen Studios of Los Angeles.
The Skouras-style remodeling for Fox Theatres, designed by Carl G. Moeller, which is still largely intact, was done in 1955.
I haven’t had much luck finding stuff that has gone missing from earlier comments due to linkrot, but at least I found this page from Boxoffice of March 1, 1947, featuring a couple of interior photos of the Will Rogers Theatre at the bottom of the page.
The current Google street view is out of date. Construction on the Cinemark Mall St. Matthews project had not yet begun when it was made. This June, 2012 article from WDRB.com says that the theater was to replace the old Dillard’s department store building (Dillard’s had moved to a new location in the mall several years earlier.) I’ve set Street View to show the former Dillard’s, and hope that when Google updates it will show the theater.
This more recent article from WDRB has a photo of the completed theater.
I have uploaded to the photo section three photos of the Montgomery Theatre that were published in 1911.
CinemaTour probably got the address from the FDY, and I’m sure that this is one of those cases where the FDY made a mistake and never corrected it in later editions.
In Google Street View, the building at 2501-2503 Portland looks like an old frame house that had a storefront added to its corner at some point, and then later the building was partly covered with a facing of red brick. It looks way too old to have been built as late as the 1950s, and it certainly couldn’t have held a theater. The theater in the photo wasn’t on a corner, either, which is where 2501 is. The theater has houses close to both sides of it.
The clincher is this post by Charlie Porter on Rootsweb. He remembers going to the Norman Theatre in the 1940s and 1950s, and says that it was on Portland Avenue near 22nd Street. It was still being run by members of the Wentzell family at that time.
In this 1949 view from Historic Aerials, the Norman Theatre must have been in the large, oblong building on the north side of Portland a few doors down from 22nd Street. Everything on that side of the block has since been wiped out for a freeway and its ramps.
This multiplex now operates under the name Baxter Avenue Filmworks. Here is their web site. Apex Entertainment also operates the Village 8 Theatres. Louisville’s discount movie house.
I think we have the two middle digits of the Norman Theatre’s address transposed. The January 10, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World mentions the Norman Theatre and its manager, Edward Wentzell. The July 15, 1911, issue of the same publication had this item:
Edward Wentzell was probably a relative of J. M. Wentzell. The web site Historic Aerials has views of both 2501 and 2051 Portland Avenue from 1949, when the theater was still listed in the FDY, and while there was a building of the right size for the theater at 2051, the building at 2501 was much too small.A later report in MPW upped the estimated cost of the new theater to $7,500, and an October 7, 1916, item mentioned that a $1,200 generating plant was being installed in the Norman Theatre by manager Mort Wentzel [sic]. The October 14, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News mentioned W. M. Wentzell of the Norman Theatre, Louisville.
The Strand and the Priscilla are both listed in the 1941 Film Daily Yearbook. The Priscilla, which was closed, had 300 seats, and the Strand, open, had 390.
This house opened as the Strand Theatre, probably in late 1920, and was never called the Priscilla. A 1921 Toledo directory lists both the Strand, at 322 Summit Street, and the Priscilla Theatre, at 330 Summit. A list of Toledo theaters published in 1919 also has the Priscilla at 330 Summit, but no theater listed at 322 Summit.
In a 1921 Toledo city directory, 421 N. Superior Street is listed as the location of the Orpheum Theatre. The Orpheum Theatre, with 634 seats, was also at that address on a list of Toledo theaters published in 1919. An Orpheum Theatre was in operation in Toledo at least as early as 1912.
Something I never knew about the Garfield Theatre is this bit of news from the January 13, 1929, issue of The Film Daily:
I think that the Garfield must have lost some of its original Egyptian decor in this fire, as there was little of it left by the 1950s even though the house then looked like it hadn’t been updated in decades.Motion Picture News of November 21, 1914, said that the “Maxime” Theatre, then under construction on Mack Avenue, was nearing completion. The Maxine was built by pioneer Detroit exhibitor A. Arthur Caille, who died about a year after this theater opened. His obituary appeared in the January 15, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World (scan at Google Books.)
Street View has been set to a location in Highland Park several miles from the Grand River Avenue site of the theater. The zip code is 48208.
The September 16, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Ferry Field Theatre had opened on August 31. The theater was decorated in the Spanish Renaissance style.
The November 21, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World said that the Knickerbocker Theatre, then under construction by the Ingersoll-Gaukler Company, was expected to open by May, 1915.
Here is a newspaper article about the proposed Pantheon Theatre, published in the Toledo Times, July 3, 1919.
The seating capacity needs to be updated. The original Cinema I & II seated 1,805 (705 and 1,100.) The addition of the 1,140-seat third auditorium in 1967 brought the total to 2,945. I don’t know if any seats were lost when two auditoriums were later divided to make this a five-screen multiplex.
The Strand Theatre is listed at 402 E. Fourth Street in city directories from 1921 through 1978. It had the longest run under a single name of any theater in Waterloo, and the longest run of any Waterloo house but the Palace/Waterloo, which operated from 1914 to 1982.
This list of Waterloo’s theaters as they appeared in city directories has the State Theatre listed beginning in 1935. There is no directory available for 1934, so the State might have opened as early as 1933, after that year’s directory had been sent to the printer. The State Theatre is last listed in the 1954 directory.
I’ve been unable to discover if the State was newly built in the 1930s, or was an earlier house called the Crystal, listed at the same address from 1910 through 1928. It might have been remodeled and reopened. No directory is available for 1929, either, so the Crystal might have closed as late as that year. No theater is listed at 212 E. Fourth in directories from 1930, 1931, or 1933.
The Riviera probably opened in January, 1928. The January 3 issue of The Film Daily said that the house would be ready “…around the first of the year….” However, the announcement that the Riviera had opened did not appear until the issue of February 5.
Also, it was the Plaza/Iowa/Orpheum on Fourth Street that was designed by architect Mortimer Cleveland. So far I’ve been unable to discover the architect of the Grand/etc/New Iowa.
Our history for this theater is a bit off, due to two different houses in Waterloo having been called the Iowa Theatre. The house at 608 Commercial Street was never called the Plaza, but it did have the following aka’s: Grand, Family, Garden, Rialto, and Capitol.
This handy list of theaters from the Waterloo Public Library shows that the theater at 608 Commercial Street was first listed in the city directory in 1915 as the Grand Theatre. In 1916 and 1918 it is listed as the Family Theatre. From 1919 through 1921 it is listed as the Garden Theatre.
No theater is listed for this address in the 1922-23 directory, but in 1924 it reappears as the Rialto Theatre. It was still the Rialto in 1928, but no directory is available for 1929, and no theater is listed for the address again until 1936, when it appears as the location of the Capitol Theatre. The name Iowa Theatre first appears at this address in the 1939 directory, and remains through 1961. After that, no theater is listed at 608 Commercial Street.
During most of the 1930s the name Iowa Theatre belonged to the house that opened in 1914 as the Plaza and became the Orpheum sometime in 1938.
A list of Waterloo theaters as they appeared in the city directories shows that the house at 420 W. Fourth Street was first listed, as the Plaza Theatre, in the 1915 directory, and was last listed under that name in the 1928 directory. No directory is available for 1929. In 1930, it was listed as the Iowa Theatre, which it remained through the 1938 directory. In 1939, it was listed as the Orpheum Theatre, and retained that name through the 1952 directory. No directory is available for 1953. In the 1954 directory it is listed as the RKO Orpheum Theatre, and that name remained in the 1954 and 1955 directories. No theater is listed at this address in the 1956 or later directories.
The NRHP registration form for the Babcock Theatre (PDF here) has a detailed history of the theater and numerous photographs, including photos of the original 1907 interior designed by Edwin W. Houghton and of the 1927 interior with decoration in the Spanish Colonial style by Carl F. Berg of the Shearer studios in Seattle. The theater was closed from June 7 to September 24 for the 1927 remodeling project.
The architect for these major alterations, which included moving the theater entrance from an interior arcade to the street front, and the removal of the 300-seat gallery and the boxes, was not named in the document, but it might have been John G. Link, who did work on the building at some point according to this page from the Montana State University Library.
On the night of February 21 and morning of February 22, 1935, the Babcock Theatre was severely damaged by a fire that caused the roof of the auditorium to collapse. The Wutlizer Hope_Jones organ was destroyed. Reconstruction after the fire took almost six months. The rebuilding project was designed by local architect Edwin G. Osness. The decoration, in the Art Deco style, was by the Heinsbergen Studios of Los Angeles.
The Skouras-style remodeling for Fox Theatres, designed by Carl G. Moeller, which is still largely intact, was done in 1955.
The Lynn Theatre’s official web site link is dead. It appears that they are now using this Facebook page in lieu of an actual web site.
I haven’t had much luck finding stuff that has gone missing from earlier comments due to linkrot, but at least I found this page from Boxoffice of March 1, 1947, featuring a couple of interior photos of the Will Rogers Theatre at the bottom of the page.
Here is photo of the Gem Theatre. The building now houses a retail store.