Current scene in Fox Park Neighborhood. Well, there's always more than one way to try to understand the past. Many were simply places to get the hell out of the heat, a brief respite from the hot and humid St. Louis summer before the onset of affordable central HVAC. For the latter, there is a fantastic source: This online catalog of movie theaters past and present has some incredible photos and snippets of information. The newly modernized Mikado added a permanent marquee projecting over the entrance. The Lyric was demo'd for the current Busch Stadium parking garages. Here's a story and excerpt from NextSTL: "A proposal by artist Walter Gunn has been chosen by popular vote to seek funding. The O. T. Crawford chain built the Mikado theater in 1911, the architect was F. Movie theatre st louis park. A. Duggan. The Comet was at 4106 Finney (all black theater): The Empress was at 3616 Olive, it hosted many performances by Evelyn West, a beautiful dancer some called "the Hubba-Hubba Girl" or "the $50, 000 Treasure Chest" as she apparently insured her breasts to the tune of $50, 000 through Llyod's of London: The Gravois was at 2631 South Jefferson: The Hi-Way was at 2705 North Florissant: The Kings was at 818 N. Kingshighway: The Kingsland was at 6461 Gravois near the intersection with S. Kingshighway. The Mikado was renamed the Victory theater in February, 1942. These signs are disappearing at a tragic rate. But in typical St. Louis small town/big city fashion, the plot thickens.
His proposal, titled Ritziata, received more than 42% of votes cast for proposed art installations on the site. After adding a long succession of neighborhood houses, Fred Wehrenberg acquired the Melba Theatre. Some were massive losses to Mother Nature, Urban Renewal, or good old fashioned abandonment and neglect. Movie theaters in st louis park mn.org. The marquee from the Melba Theatre was moved to the Melba Theatre in DeSoto, Missouri, another theater acquired by the Wehrenberg chain. Movie Theaters / Cinemas Near Me. We connected briefly via social media channels, but there was no interest to meet or do an interview. 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.
Find the best Movie Theaters / Cinemas near you. Movie theaters in st louis park mn.com. 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. Movie theaters and cinema in general are one of the greatest things 20th Century American's gave the world. When built, the Melba Theatre had a park in front of it. 5M people vacated for the exploding suburbs in a mere 50 years.
As a result of my online research, I've also become fascinated with the all-black movie and vaudeville houses and will be posting my findings on them as soon as I do a little more poking around and after I read this recent find on eBay: But, my true fascination with movie theaters started with something very simple: the metal and neon of the grand marquees. Address: Park Place Blvd & W 16th St. St Louis Park, MN 55416. You can read the full proposal text below. Now Showing: "Burning Question- Victims of the New Sex-Craze". Here's a list of the 38 theaters with no photo images on Cinema Treasures: Dig a bit deeper and you can find some photos of some of these missing places. The Lafayette was at 1643 South Jefferson (the building in white); this is now a Sav-A-Lot: The Lindell was at 3521 North Grand: The Loew's Mid City was at 416 N. Grand: The Martin Cinerama was at 4218 Lindell and was pretty mod, with a curved screen and plenty of mid-century charm: The Melvin was at 2912 Chippewa and is still there to see: The Michigan was at 7226 Michigan and was freaking ~1999 when it was razed: The Missouri was at 626 N. Grand (currently being renovated, yay! 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 address was 5951 Easton Avenue (today Dr. Martin Luther King Drive., St. Louis, MO 63133. Later, an office building with stores was constructed on the site of the park. Here's the current site use: Now (image via Google Street View).
Shamefully, this was destroyed in 1996. St. Louis was built to be amazing and special and boomed when America its bust years were devastating as ~0. Of those 132, 38 have no photos available so there is no current photographic evidence readily available online. At 411 North 7th Street was a Downtown treasure. Then came T. V. in the 1950s, burlesque/go-go dancers in the 1960s, XXX adult films in the 1970s and VHS/Beta in the the 90s most of the theaters were all gone (except the Hi-Pointe and Union Station Cine).. seems these buildings were under constant attack by technology and the changing times. This guy obviously has a ton of experience and first hand knowledge of the city's theaters.
Louis' on Cinema Treasures, it counts 160 theaters, of those 132 are actually in St. Louis (many are in the 90 or so cities in St. Louis County and unincorporated parts of the suburbs that will not be discussed here). 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. While looking into their backgrounds, I became fascinated with the history of the past theaters of St. of which are long gone. Instead of a big city work of art we have a dead zone "plaza" in the heart of downtown: The Congress at 4023 Olive Street was in the Central West End. 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.
Show Place Icon Theatres Contact Information. These chance connections are one the things that makes St. Louis such a charming place to live. There are other valuable resources out there for documenting St. Louis theaters, usually the ones that are being demolished, like Built St. Louis, Vanishing STL, Ecology of Absence, Pinterest and several Flikr accounts I stumbled upon. The 1, 190-seat house on Grand Avenue had an airdome next to it. In my humble opinion the biggest losses were the Ambassador, Congress, Granada, Grand, and Loew's all victims of either urban renewal or neglect. Maffitt: 2812 Vandeventer, 63107. Then (image via Cinema Treasures). 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...
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. 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. It formed an arcade which led to the lobby of the theater. It was operational from 1988-2003. The Aubert was at 4949 MLK: The Avalon was at 4225 S. Kingshighway just south of Chippewa. It was most recently Salamah's Market and was purchased from the local community development corporation. The Virginia was at 5117 Virginia and is still standing: The West End was at 4819 Delmar: Here's another one right before its demo in 1985: The Whiteway was at 1150 S. 6th Street: The World Playhouse was at 506 St. Charles was known for burlesque: Thanks to Charles Van Bibber for the time and effort you've shared with us for future consideration and pondering. The Grenada at 4519 Gravois was in the Bevo Mill Neighborhood at Taft and Gravois from 1927 - 1992. This one was operational from 1935-1999 and was popular in its later days for showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, that should not stop you from exploring this amazing site. Go check them out, many are already gone or on their way to the landfills and brick/scrap thieves. All photos were sourced from the Cinema Treasures website.
How the hell do we continue to allow this kind of thing to happen? I have connected with him and hope to revisit that conversation and follow up on this fun topic. It was tough to keep up, many older theaters were reconfigured to skating rinks or bowling alleys. A good example of this eventual demise is the Garrick Theater built in 1904 and eventually razed in 1954. When the theater was torn down, the office building remained. How'd I find out about these places? But for a central repository for vintage photos of the cinemas, you can't beat Cinema Treasures. The Loew's State Theatre was at 715 Washington Boulevard. Pair that with the intense wave of suburban flight that continues to suck people from St. Louis to the tune of nearly 550, 000 people lost since customers up and left and demanded newer multi-plex theaters surrounded by a sea of surface parking. The Apache was at 411 N. 7th Street: The Apollo Art was at 323-329 DeBaliviere and was raided several times by the police because they were showing foreign and independent films: The Arco was at 4207-11 Manchester in Forest Park Southeast, now called the Grove: The Armo Skydome was at 3192 Morgan Ford, now a 7-11. Too bad we lost so many of these places. It started as Loew's playhouse and transitioned to vaudeville around the time of World War I, legend has it Al Jolson and Fanny Brice performed here. I've shown the most grand losses, but there are many, many others worth noting.
It's destruction was captured within the "Straightaways" album inset by Son Volt showing the stage on display for the final time amongst the piles of red brick: Album inset photo: Son Volt "Straightaways", 1997 Warner Bros. Records. Sadly some of these were the all-black theaters including Booker Washington, Douglass, Laclede, Casino, Marquette, etc. The Stadium Cinema II was at 614 Chestnut and was once converted to Mike Shannon's restaurant: The Sun was at 3627 Grandel Square and was lovingly restored and in use by a public charter school Grand Center Arts Academy: The Thunderbird Drive-In was at 3501 Hamilton (I'm dying to find better photos of this one): The Towne (formerly Rivoli) was at 210 N. 6th Street and was a well known adult film spot: Union Station Ten Cine was at 900 Union Station on the south side of the property.