Well, there's always more than one way to try to understand the past. You can take the academic approach and go straight to the library, reading through the documents, papers, maps and corroborated information that may or may not is the time consuming route, the route journalists and other people getting paid should take. Sadly some of these were the all-black theaters including Booker Washington, Douglass, Laclede, Casino, Marquette, etc. Saint louis park movie theatre. Busch II lasted for a mere 40 years but its wake of destruction was intense and we're left rking lots.
I tried to connect with him to get his story and understand how he has so much information and experience with St. Louis theaters. The O. T. Crawford chain built the Mikado theater in 1911, the architect was F. A. Duggan. It is a strength of ours and the buildings themselves were built to be an extension of that artistic expression, a gift to the neighborhood or city in which they resided. Show Place Icon Theatres Contact Information. Movie theaters in st louis park mn.com. Turns out, this guy has devoted a tremendous amount of time looking into this same topic and just so happens to have a three-ring binder filled with research, photos and info... Will need to verify this.
History was not on the side of the movie houses. Maffitt: 2812 Vandeventer, 63107. The funding goal is $133K. The Original Japanese design seated 1608, including the balcony. I've spent way too much time on this site dreaming, driving around getting current photos, trying to find where these once stood; but again, the point of this post is to mine through the photos and information and share the St. Louis-centric stuff for your consideration. The Roxy at Lansdowne and Wherry in the Southampton Neighborhood, the building was there from about 1910 through 1975: The Macklind Theater on Arsenal, just west of Macklind in the Hill neighborhood was operational from about 1910-1951: The Melba was at 3608 South Grand near Gravois. If anyone out there reading this has family photos of any of these theaters, please consider sending me a note and we can connect to get them scanned in for the future generations to appreciate. His proposal, titled Ritziata, received more than 42% of votes cast for proposed art installations on the site. The movie would then continue in the cooler outdoors. It formed an arcade which led to the lobby of the theater. For instance, I was interested in the King Bee (great name), Tower and Chippewa Theater at 3897 Broadway which supposedly became the home of an appliance store owned by locale pitchman-legend Steve Mizerany. The Aubert was at 4949 MLK: The Avalon was at 4225 S. Kingshighway just south of Chippewa. This one was operational from 1935-1999 and was popular in its later days for showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Movie theaters in st louis park mn inside. The dark horse method, usually the most fun and personable, you can read from or listen to first hand accounts from people who were there or who devoted their time to research and share it with the public.
The Bijou Casino was at 606 Washington Ave: The Capitol was at 101 N. 6th Street: The Cherokee was at 2714 Cherokee: The Cinderella was at 2735 Cherokee and is currently undergoing a renovation, yay! Mercantile Bank got the demo the fools in charge of the city let it happen. The Princess was at 2841 Pestalozzi and is still there although bastardized with a fairly heavy hand: theater as a church. Go check them out, many are already gone or on their way to the landfills and brick/scrap thieves. The Mikado was renamed the Victory theater in February, 1942.
And the point of this post is to share a list and as many photos of the St. Louis theaters of the past that I could find. Following are those others that we have lost entirely or are still there, waiting for someone with the means to save them. But luckily, Cinema Treasures is a repository for some photos that are invaluable if you are trying to understand the history of St. Louis. The Grand Theater at 514 Market was built in 1852 and destroyed in the 1960s for the latest round of bad ideas (read recent NFL football stadium proposal just north of Downtown) associated with Busch Stadium II which stripped most of Downtown of it's history and brought us a ton of parking lots and surface activity killers. Some were massive losses to Mother Nature, Urban Renewal, or good old fashioned abandonment and neglect. The building was completely redesigned in 1939 in a. modern art deco design. It was razed in 1954. The good news is, there are 59 theaters with photos of the the buildings when they were operational or with enough there to verify it. In many cities a theater named Mikado (a dated term for "Emperor of Japan") would be renamed. Or, you can scour the internet or best of all, get out and see for yourself (my go-to method) and try to imagine the place and how a theater would have fit into the fabric of the neighborhood.
Now Showing: "Burning Question- Victims of the New Sex-Craze". In my humble opinion the biggest losses were the Ambassador, Congress, Granada, Grand, and Loew's all victims of either urban renewal or neglect. 5M people vacated for the exploding suburbs in a mere 50 years. Later, an office building with stores was constructed on the site of the park. It was operational from 1988-2003. When searching for 'St. The Shenandoah at 2300 South Grand and Shenandoah operated from 1912-1977: The Columbia was at 5257 Southwest on the Hill and it is rumored that Joe Garagiola worked there: photo source: Landmarks Association of St. Louis. But in typical St. Louis small town/big city fashion, the plot thickens. Some of this info is crowd-sourced, so it may be more on the subjective or anecdotal side and there are some cases of slightly inaccurate details. It was most recently Salamah's Market and was purchased from the local community development corporation.
You can read the full proposal text below. This is not a St. Louis-only problem: the other three Midwestern cities I scanned (Kansas City, Memphis and Cincinnati) have lost most of their theaters too.