Strand Theatre

Opened in March of 1929 occupying altered space of the former Retina Theatre (it has its own page on Cinema Treasures). The Strand Theatre was advertised as a first run theatre but with a smaller capacity than similar nearby theatres catering to African American audiences in the surrounding Mill Creek neighborhood.

Owner Thomas James (who also owned the nearby Comet Theatre, “The Movie Theater”) had warm relations with the local black political and business establishment, evidenced by occasional articles in the St. Louis Argus praising James for his generosity and kindness and progressive stance towards employing black projectionists of the Motion Picture Operators Union. During the 1930’s the Strand Theatre and Comet Theatre both were sites of contentious labor disputes between the white and black operators unions, James being the chair of the local theatre owners circuit was often the lead negotiator of these disagreements.

James also participated in local charitable causes such as the annual Pine Street YMCA’s “Worthy Boys” Christmas program, opening the Strand Theatre for a free show for program attendees.

Whereas Thomas James eventually closed the Comet Theatre, moving it west to the Vandeventer neighborhood, he maintained the Strand Theatre till the neighborhood’s erasure by the Mill Creek Valley urban renewal project.

Despite claims that the building still stands as a bar neither of James' Market street theaters survived urban renewal. This is substantiated by aerial photography showing both sides of Market completely flattened and online city building permits.

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