Kaye Theater
207 W. Main Street,
Havana,
IL
62644
207 W. Main Street,
Havana,
IL
62644
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: Kerasotes Theatres
Architects: Cletis R. Foley
Functions: Retail
Nearby Theaters
The Kaye Theatre was opened in 1949 and closed in 1959. It is now a hardware store.
Contributed by
Lost Memory
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
Actually the Kaye building is still standing. if you look at the photo, the theater is the part of the hardware store with the brown bricks on the top. it replaced the Havana Theater in 1949 when the Havana Theater was destroyed in a fire.
The Havana Theatre was a streamline moderne movie house in downtown Havana, Illinois that lasted nine years before being suffering a major fire. It was retrofitted and reopened as the Kaye Theater with the theatre running for 20 years.
During the Depression and movie theater’s expensive conversion to sound, Havana lost its silent-era Castle Theatre as a movie house. It was unable to make the transition to sound and continued with sporadic live events as the Havana Theatre in the early 1930s before closing permanently.
Kerasotes Brothers Circuit likely inherited the closed Havana Theatre along with its operation of the Lawford Theatre. Kerasotes leased a building in 1936 and made a quick conversion combining the two-floor retail building into a single floor, streamline moderne movie theater. The “new” Havana Theatre opened on Christmas Day 1936 with “Adventure in Manhattan” with Jean Arthur and Joel McRae. It operated through World War II with a Kroger food store as its neighbor.
That more or less ended on November 3, 1945 when, at a 2p kids matinee, fire spread from the alley to the theater’s roof prompting Manager Edward Walker to move the kids and the film print to the nearby Lawford Theatre where the matinee took place. The theater was rebuilt pretty much entirely in a two month period reopening as the Kaye Theatre on January 18, 1946. The streamline moderne venue used the same cream porcelain used in other George and Louis Kerasotes movie houses. It also housed an internal concession stand and its seats were recushioned.
When Kerasotes was converting venues to widescreen for CinemaScope presentations, the Kaye appears to have been left out while the Lawford and the two-year old Havana Drive-In were transitioned. The Kaye appears to have closed in 1955 at the end of its 20-year leasing period.