This pic is from downtown LA. I had no idea it was such a significant addition to the theaters in the Downtown Broadway District. It's even got it's own website....a rarity for most of the signs I take pictures of. Here's the official website of the Los Angeles Theater
Link
All of the below can be found in the webpage above, but I thought I'd summarize and quote some of the more interesting aspects of the theater.
"...the Historic Los Angeles Theatre, the last and most extravagant of the ornate movie palaces built on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles between 1911 and 1931. Designed by S. Charles Lee with a French Baroque-inspired décor, its majestic six-story main lobby and 2,000 seat auditorium of carved plaster ornamentation, mirrors, and cove-lit murals recall the glamorous days of 1930s Hollywood."
This place had it all, on top of all the extravagance it was one of the most technically advanced theaters of the time.
"The projection equipment was ultra-modern and the large booth was able to hold extra projectors in case of a breakdown, as well as two large spotlights and a Brenograph the machine that projected song slides and announcements on the screen. The movie screen measured almost 60 feet wide by 30 feet high, one of the largest in the city. It was built to accommodate the early Magnascope wide-screen process, which unfortunately never really caught on. A unique periscope system designed by an engineer from the California Institute of Technology used a prism and a series of large mirrors to project the film image from the booth down to the basement lounge."
"In 1931 neon lighting was only a few years old and had not yet been used extensively in theatres. Lee used neon not only on the exterior vertical marquee, but also as aisle lighting in the main auditorium.
Blue neon tubes were imbedded under strips of 2 inch thick glass on each side of the main aisles, providing a gentle glow in the darkened theatre."
Costing over $1.5 million to build it was quite an achievement. On opening night they screened the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights.
They don't really build theaters like this anymore. I haven't been inside and as I was walking around the outside I had no idea what was contained within. Some of the pictures in the website's gallery are awesome. Most of the theaters on Broadway are shuttered and some you can't even tell were theaters. I guess I'm glad they're still keeping this one around. It was still in use until the early 1990's but is now just available for rental. I even found a site that had a listing of classic movie screenings held here in the summer of 2007...unfortunately I can't find any listings for any present screenings.
Very cool place.
G
