![]() The theater was remodeled and wired for sound in 1929. It opened in January 1916 and seated three hundred. The Castle Theater was located on the west side of State Street, just south of Madison. It seated 750 and was one of three Loop movie theaters owned by Harry Moir near the intersection of Clark and Madison Streets. ![]() The Boston Theater opened in 1911 and was located on Madison Street near the Columbia Burlesque Theater on Clark Street. The theater was purchased by the Keough Candy Company in 1922 for $255,000. It was located at 178 South State Street, just south of Monroe, next door to the Orpheum Theater. at 176 South State Street. The Bijou Dream opened in 1905 as part of the Jones, Linick, Schaefer chain of motion picture theaters. Barbee filed for bankruptcy, having incurred over $230,000 in debt with the theater. In October 1923, the theater’s former owner, William S. The theater reopened four months later under new management as the Monroe Theater. The theater closed in May 1923, reportedly due to poor business. In 1922, Barbee sought to install a stage so that the theater could present vaudeville, but his plans were blocked by city officials due to the lack of a sufficient number of emergency exits. “The house,” one Variety reviewer observed, “hit a gusher when it decided to bar the men, for the house has been packed every performance since it opened.” Haag later went on to become manager at the Ascher Brothers’ Metropolitan Theater.īarbee’s Theater was located on the south side of Monroe Street, just west of Dearborn. In 1916, he instituted a “women only” policy which allowed the theater to exhibit films, such as “The Unborn,” that local censors deemed too sensational for a mixed male-female audience. ![]() The Band Box Theater, located on Madison Street, opened in October 1915 and was managed by Jack Haag. Opened in 1922, the Astor Theater was located near the corner of Clark and Madison Streets. Moir also owned the Morrison Hotel. During the late 1920s, the Alcazar operated as an all-night movie house. ![]() The Alcazar Theater was one of three Loop movie theaters owned by Harry Moir near the intersection of Clark and Madison Streets. In 1930, buffeted by the combined effects of the Depression and stiff competition from larger Loop movie theaters, the Adams switched to a strict “tabloid talker policy” of newsreels and short movie features. In this way, the Adams occupied a unique position in the cultural and racial landscape of 1920s Chicago. Though yielding mixed outcomes, such lawsuits helped Chicago’s African Americans clarify their civil rights and galvanize opposition against those who violated those rights. A judge found the usher guilty of violating the plaintiff’s civil rights, but the theater’s owner, despite having agreed to prevent such acts of discrimination against black patrons, escaped penalty. Three years later, in 1926, another African-American patron sued the theater after being ordered to sit “down front” against her wishes. ![]() Prosecutors dropped the case only after the theater’s owner assured the court he would no longer permit employees to discriminate against black patrons. In the first instance, in 1923, Morris Lewis, executive secretary of the Chicago branch of the NAACP, filed charges against the theater’s owner after an usher, in violation of the state’s 1885 public accomodations law, refused to sit Lewis, an African American, on the main floor. Interestingly, the Adams was the subject of two notable civil rights lawsuits during the 1920s. Ortenstein’s Vista Amusement Enterprises. It had a seating capacity of about six hundred persons and was initially operated as part of H.M. The Adams Theater was located at 20 East Adams Street and opened in June 1921. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |