With the Tribeca Film Festival right around the corner, we have movies and movie houses on the brain. And with BuzzFeed’s recent compilation of defunct theaters, we thought we’d present a small selection of our own favorite venues, whether dead or repurposed, in a few Flavorpill cities and beyond, where you could have once seen film.
Vogue Theater, Los Angeles, CA
Photo credit: Kara Tillotson
In 1936, the Vogue was opened on Hollywood Boulevard as a one-floor movie house with a seating capacity of 890. Before it was built, there was a four-room school house on the site that burned down in 1901, killing 25 students and a teacher, Miss Elizabeth. In 1997, the Vogue was rented by the International Society for Paranormal Research (ISPR) as a site for research and psychic performances. Vogue’s most famous ghost is “Fritz,” the projectionist who died of a heart attack in the projection room in the 1980s.
Comments (13)
I’ve always been fascinated by The Palace Theater in Gary, Indiana:
http://chicagoist.com/2010/02/17/in_the_shadow_of_chicago_palace_the.php#photo-1
Another notable restored theater I would mention is The Latonia, in Oil City, PA, which was renovated into a event center. The documentary film “Out in the Silence” featured the couple that bought and renovated the historic theater, and the minor controversy they stirred up in their home town.
LOVE the lettering on the liberty.
You should check out two success stories in my hometown of Wilmington,De..
The Grand Opera House and the recently refurbished Queen Theater on Market St.The Grand was built by the Masons as a meeting place in 1876(that’s right)
and became a movie theater,fell into disrepair and was rescued to be turned into a beautiful opera house again.Now the home of the Delaware Symphony the Grand offers many musical acts and spawned The Baby Grand next door.
The Queen was also a stage for vaudeville,a movie theater.Closed since the 1950′s it has been refurbished into The World Cafe modeled after the WXPN World Cafe in Philadelphia offering acts such as Toad the Wet Sprocket.Hopefully successful as well.Thanks Ger
Check out the tiny but lovingly re-purposed theater in West Denver affectionately renamed “The Bug Theater”! It is surrounded by art galleries now, most famously, the co-op gallery, “Pirate; A Contemporary Art Oasis”.
Surprised not to see the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle on this list. It started out as film a vaudeville theatre and then got transformed into a musical theatre in the 1980s. It’s beautiful inside.
The Wilma in Missoula, MT is gorgeous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilma_Theatre It’s right on the river and used to have a swimming pool too, which is awesome. Too bad I spill White Russians all over it during this year’s Lebowski Fest….
[...] The Most Beautiful Dead and Repurposed Movie Theaters in the US [...]
The John Engeman Theater in Northport, NY (Long Island), was once a one screen theater, and has been re-purposed into a playhouse. Broadway talent (the actors are bussed in from NYC daily) in a small town. Really neat.
Unfortunately, that photo you have of the Vogue theater in Los Angeles is NOT the Vogue in Los Angeles. It is a Vogue in another city; I’m not sure which one. Take it from a Los Angeles native.
Not surprisingly, the stories about the burning school house and Fritz the Projectionist first appeared when the “paranormal society” was renting the property for tours. The theater was never haunted by dead kids and I was working at the Vogue when the projectionist supposedly died of a heart attack. It never happened. Otherwise, nice list.
Patio is not dead. It has been restored and is now open for business. Please remove it from the list. We have a survivor!
http://patiotheater.net/
Her’s some photos of the restored Patio Theater in Chicago.
http://www.gapersblock.com/ac/2011/02/23/the-return-of-the-patio-theater/
The town in Illinois is VAndalia, not VEndalia. That said, we have a Liberty theater in Murphysboro, IL that uses the same lettering…it IS a cool typeface, eh?
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