The Rhode Theater was constructed in 1927 and was designed by Rapp and Rapp in what I'd call a Moorish Revival style. It was renamed the Lake Theater in 1963, and twinned in 1976. The theater closed in 1984 and reopened in 1988 by the Lakeside Players. It was renamed the Rhode Theater in 1989.

It looks like the front entrance and sign date back to the 1960s. The theater is still twinned with the original balcony unusable. The Lakeside Players have done a marvelous job in maintaining the theater, but unfortunately since it's not eligible for the National Register they cannot partake of various historic preservation grants available.

I had originally only intended to take some photos of the facade and marquee, but while taking those photos I was invited inside for a tour and was amazed at the lobby and other details including the doors into each theater. I was even shown how many of the interior theater details were chiseled off in the twinning process. Anything can be restored of course if there is enough money, but as it stands now, I'm glad the Lakeside Players are in charge. They seem to really love this theater.

Built in 1925-1926, this Renaissance Revival-style theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp and Louis Comfort Tiffany as the flagship venue in the Shea chain of theaters, located in various parts of Buffalo. The building, like many Rapp and Rapp theaters and large theaters built during the time period, features an impressive facade at the entrance to the theater along the principal street frontage, a long corridor to the auditorium that is made up of a series of beautifully decorated lobbies, a large auditorium in the rear along a secondary frontage, perpendicular to the entrance and parallel to the street, and a commercial building along the principal street frontage that runs from the entrance to the theater to the end of the auditorium, maximizing the usage of the site for economically productive purposes. The theater was acquired by Loew’s in 1948, whom operated the theater until 1975, with the surrounding section of Downtown Buffalo declining during that time, and the theater being sold to the Hepco Realty Company in the 1960s, after which it was leased by Loew’s. In 1974, back taxes led to the theater being taken by the city of Buffalo, and later that year, Loew’s attmepted to strip the building of its interior fixtures and fittings, which was narrowly avoided via court injunction, and though Loew’s no longer owned the building, they still argued that original features and fixtures of the building, which they had not purchased or installed themselves, were theirs to take. The building was subsequently given protective custody by the Friends of the Buffalo Theater, Inc., a nonprofit, which, under the direction of Comptroller George O'Connell, reopened the theater as a live performance venue in the late 1970s. The city of Buffalo took back control of the theater in 1979, helping facilitate the formation of the Shea’s O’Connell Preservation Guild, Ltd. to manage the operations of the theater, with the organization gaining ownership of the theater from the city in 2000, which they continue to own and manage.

The theater’s exterior is clad in red and cream brick to the sides and rear, with terra cotta and green marble on the principal facade. The rear facade, along Pearl Street, is clad in cream brick with a large arched faux window panel made of terra cotta above the bronze doors and small marquee, which provide access to the building’s lobby immediately outside the theater, with stone and terra cotta cladding at the base of the facade, a large metal fire escape for the theater’s balcony mounted to the exterior, circular reliefs with shields above, and a terra cotta cornice at the top of the building. The theater’s fly tower and stage were expanded in a renovation under the direction of Kideney Architects in 1997-1999 to add more room for live performance equipment and sets, along with a new backstage wing with a loading dock, small punched opening windows, and red brick cladding on the north side of the theater, encroaching on the former Greyhound Bus Terminal next door, and creating a small, mostly enclosed courtyard between the two buildings. The front facade features a lower two-story commercial wing clad in terra cotta with retail shopfronts on the first floor, large Chicago-style windows on the second floor with metal mullions, a parapet with a renaissance gable in the middle above the entrance to the second-story spaces and near the north end, which supports a sign for the Shea’s Smith Theater, a smaller venue now located within this section of the complex. At the south end of the principal facade is the main entrance to the theater, which features green marble panels flanking the bronze doors at the base, with the words “The Wonder Theatre” on the large transom above, and bronze display cases for show posters and advertisements on either side of the doors. Above this is a large marquee with decorative trim at the top, a lot of exposed lightbulbs, large lettering, decorative brackets that flank reliefs with fleur-de-lis, and digital signs on the north and south sides that are easily visible along Main Street to advertise shows and performances at the theater. Above the marquee is a massive three-story curtain wall in an arched opening, flanked by decorative terra cotta relief panels and trim, with three smaller one-over-one windows at the south end of the facade behind the iconic and massive blade sign, which features a lot of lightbulbs, and is a 2004 reproduction of the original blade sign, which was replaced in 1942. The top of the building features a decorative frieze with urns, vines, and a fleur-de-lis in the central panel, a cornice with dentils, and a parapet with acroterons at the ends, a broken pediment with volutes, a carved face in the middle and rosettes, and a decorative finial at the top.

The interior of the theater is lavishly decorated and has a similar layout and similar features to many of the other Rapp and Rapp theaters. This includes, in the lobby, marble pilasters separating arched bays with mirrors and decorative draperies, original Louis Comfort Tiffany chandeliers and wall sconces, ceilings with murals and painted beams, archways surrounded by decorative trim, decorative brass railings at the stairs and balconies, carpeted floors, and ornate decorative plasterwork. The vestibule housing the ticket booth features walls clad in green marble, a decorative plaster ceiling, bronze radiator grilles on the side walls, an arched transom over the doors to the lobby, decorative plasterwork around the top of the walls, and a freestanding octagonal ticket booth in the middle of the space with a green marble lower portion, decorative wood trim around its plate glass windows, urns at the corners of the roof of the ticket booth, and small chandeliers. The auditorium features many of the same elements as the lobby, with features unique to the space within the building including a large proscenium stage, domed ceilings above and below the balcony, Spanish Baroque styling on the ceiling and walls, arches with decorative trim and large oxeye bays containing mirrors, a Wurlitzer pipe organ, and a reproduction Tiffany curtain that matches the original design of the auditorium, but had been substituted for a Rapp-designed curtain when the theater opened.

The theater was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 to help facilitate its preservation. Between 2000, when the Shea’s O’Connell Preservation Guild, Ltd. was deeded the theater, and 2014, the theater and its interior were fully restored and the building’s systems modernized, and allowing the building to become a fully-featured Performing Arts Center, anchoring the theater district along Main Street in Downtown Buffalo.

The Rhode Theater was constructed in 1927 and was designed by Rapp and Rapp in what I'd call a Moorish Revival style. It was renamed the Lake Theater in 1963, and twinned in 1976. The theater closed in 1984 and reopened in 1988 by the Lakeside Players. It was renamed the Rhode Theater in 1989.

It looks like the front entrance and sign date back to the 1960s. The theater is still twinned with the original balcony unusable. The Lakeside Players have done a marvelous job in maintaining the theater, but unfortunately since it's not eligible for the National Register they cannot partake of various historic preservation grants available.

I had originally only intended to take some photos of the facade and marquee, but while taking those photos I was invited inside for a tour and was amazed at the lobby and other details including the doors into each theater. I was even shown how many of the interior theater details were chiseled off in the twinning process. Anything can be restored of course if there is enough money, but as it stands now, I'm glad the Lakeside Players are in charge. They seem to really love this theater.

Designed by Rapp and Rapp and opened in 1925 and flaghship of the Shea chain of theaters. It is on the National Register #75001186.

Built in 1925-1926, this Renaissance Revival-style theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp and Louis Comfort Tiffany as the flagship venue in the Shea chain of theaters, located in various parts of Buffalo. The building, like many Rapp and Rapp theaters and large theaters built during the time period, features an impressive facade at the entrance to the theater along the principal street frontage, a long corridor to the auditorium that is made up of a series of beautifully decorated lobbies, a large auditorium in the rear along a secondary frontage, perpendicular to the entrance and parallel to the street, and a commercial building along the principal street frontage that runs from the entrance to the theater to the end of the auditorium, maximizing the usage of the site for economically productive purposes. The theater was acquired by Loew’s in 1948, whom operated the theater until 1975, with the surrounding section of Downtown Buffalo declining during that time, and the theater being sold to the Hepco Realty Company in the 1960s, after which it was leased by Loew’s. In 1974, back taxes led to the theater being taken by the city of Buffalo, and later that year, Loew’s attmepted to strip the building of its interior fixtures and fittings, which was narrowly avoided via court injunction, and though Loew’s no longer owned the building, they still argued that original features and fixtures of the building, which they had not purchased or installed themselves, were theirs to take. The building was subsequently given protective custody by the Friends of the Buffalo Theater, Inc., a nonprofit, which, under the direction of Comptroller George O'Connell, reopened the theater as a live performance venue in the late 1970s. The city of Buffalo took back control of the theater in 1979, helping facilitate the formation of the Shea’s O’Connell Preservation Guild, Ltd. to manage the operations of the theater, with the organization gaining ownership of the theater from the city in 2000, which they continue to own and manage.

The theater’s exterior is clad in red and cream brick to the sides and rear, with terra cotta and green marble on the principal facade. The rear facade, along Pearl Street, is clad in cream brick with a large arched faux window panel made of terra cotta above the bronze doors and small marquee, which provide access to the building’s lobby immediately outside the theater, with stone and terra cotta cladding at the base of the facade, a large metal fire escape for the theater’s balcony mounted to the exterior, circular reliefs with shields above, and a terra cotta cornice at the top of the building. The theater’s fly tower and stage were expanded in a renovation under the direction of Kideney Architects in 1997-1999 to add more room for live performance equipment and sets, along with a new backstage wing with a loading dock, small punched opening windows, and red brick cladding on the north side of the theater, encroaching on the former Greyhound Bus Terminal next door, and creating a small, mostly enclosed courtyard between the two buildings. The front facade features a lower two-story commercial wing clad in terra cotta with retail shopfronts on the first floor, large Chicago-style windows on the second floor with metal mullions, a parapet with a renaissance gable in the middle above the entrance to the second-story spaces and near the north end, which supports a sign for the Shea’s Smith Theater, a smaller venue now located within this section of the complex. At the south end of the principal facade is the main entrance to the theater, which features green marble panels flanking the bronze doors at the base, with the words “The Wonder Theatre” on the large transom above, and bronze display cases for show posters and advertisements on either side of the doors. Above this is a large marquee with decorative trim at the top, a lot of exposed lightbulbs, large lettering, decorative brackets that flank reliefs with fleur-de-lis, and digital signs on the north and south sides that are easily visible along Main Street to advertise shows and performances at the theater. Above the marquee is a massive three-story curtain wall in an arched opening, flanked by decorative terra cotta relief panels and trim, with three smaller one-over-one windows at the south end of the facade behind the iconic and massive blade sign, which features a lot of lightbulbs, and is a 2004 reproduction of the original blade sign, which was replaced in 1942. The top of the building features a decorative frieze with urns, vines, and a fleur-de-lis in the central panel, a cornice with dentils, and a parapet with acroterons at the ends, a broken pediment with volutes, a carved face in the middle and rosettes, and a decorative finial at the top.

The interior of the theater is lavishly decorated and has a similar layout and similar features to many of the other Rapp and Rapp theaters. This includes, in the lobby, marble pilasters separating arched bays with mirrors and decorative draperies, original Louis Comfort Tiffany chandeliers and wall sconces, ceilings with murals and painted beams, archways surrounded by decorative trim, decorative brass railings at the stairs and balconies, carpeted floors, and ornate decorative plasterwork. The vestibule housing the ticket booth features walls clad in green marble, a decorative plaster ceiling, bronze radiator grilles on the side walls, an arched transom over the doors to the lobby, decorative plasterwork around the top of the walls, and a freestanding octagonal ticket booth in the middle of the space with a green marble lower portion, decorative wood trim around its plate glass windows, urns at the corners of the roof of the ticket booth, and small chandeliers. The auditorium features many of the same elements as the lobby, with features unique to the space within the building including a large proscenium stage, domed ceilings above and below the balcony, Spanish Baroque styling on the ceiling and walls, arches with decorative trim and large oxeye bays containing mirrors, a Wurlitzer pipe organ, and a reproduction Tiffany curtain that matches the original design of the auditorium, but had been substituted for a Rapp-designed curtain when the theater opened.

The theater was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 to help facilitate its preservation. Between 2000, when the Shea’s O’Connell Preservation Guild, Ltd. was deeded the theater, and 2014, the theater and its interior were fully restored and the building’s systems modernized, and allowing the building to become a fully-featured Performing Arts Center, anchoring the theater district along Main Street in Downtown Buffalo.

Preservation Wayne's annual Theatre Tour.

Michigan Theatre

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Preservation Wayne's annual Theatre Tour.

Michigan Theatre

The Rhode Theater was constructed in 1927 and was designed by Rapp and Rapp in what I'd call a Moorish Revival style. It was renamed the Lake Theater in 1963, and twinned in 1976. The theater closed in 1984 and reopened in 1988 by the Lakeside Players. It was renamed the Rhode Theater in 1989.

It looks like the front entrance and sign date back to the 1960s. The theater is still twinned with the original balcony unusable. The Lakeside Players have done a marvelous job in maintaining the theater, but unfortunately since it's not eligible for the National Register they cannot partake of various historic preservation grants available.

I had originally only intended to take some photos of the facade and marquee, but while taking those photos I was invited inside for a tour and was amazed at the lobby and other details including the doors into each theater. I was even shown how many of the interior theater details were chiseled off in the twinning process. Anything can be restored of course if there is enough money, but as it stands now, I'm glad the Lakeside Players are in charge. They seem to really love this theater.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

The Chicago Theater marquee, seen from the State and Lake el platform

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

The present Corn Palace was completed in 1921 with the Russian-style onion domes and Moorish minarets added in 1937. Its façade is decorated with murals made of corn. Each year, it is redecorated using naturally colored corn, grains, and native grasses. The building serves multiple purposes, such as an exhibit hall, venue for dances, stage shows, meetings, special events, and an arena for high school and college basketball games. The Corn Palace is a Primary Buildings in the Mitchell Historic Commercial District listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1925-1926, this Renaissance Revival-style theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp and Louis Comfort Tiffany as the flagship venue in the Shea chain of theaters, located in various parts of Buffalo. The building, like many Rapp and Rapp theaters and large theaters built during the time period, features an impressive facade at the entrance to the theater along the principal street frontage, a long corridor to the auditorium that is made up of a series of beautifully decorated lobbies, a large auditorium in the rear along a secondary frontage, perpendicular to the entrance and parallel to the street, and a commercial building along the principal street frontage that runs from the entrance to the theater to the end of the auditorium, maximizing the usage of the site for economically productive purposes. The theater was acquired by Loew’s in 1948, whom operated the theater until 1975, with the surrounding section of Downtown Buffalo declining during that time, and the theater being sold to the Hepco Realty Company in the 1960s, after which it was leased by Loew’s. In 1974, back taxes led to the theater being taken by the city of Buffalo, and later that year, Loew’s attmepted to strip the building of its interior fixtures and fittings, which was narrowly avoided via court injunction, and though Loew’s no longer owned the building, they still argued that original features and fixtures of the building, which they had not purchased or installed themselves, were theirs to take. The building was subsequently given protective custody by the Friends of the Buffalo Theater, Inc., a nonprofit, which, under the direction of Comptroller George O'Connell, reopened the theater as a live performance venue in the late 1970s. The city of Buffalo took back control of the theater in 1979, helping facilitate the formation of the Shea’s O’Connell Preservation Guild, Ltd. to manage the operations of the theater, with the organization gaining ownership of the theater from the city in 2000, which they continue to own and manage.

The theater’s exterior is clad in red and cream brick to the sides and rear, with terra cotta and green marble on the principal facade. The rear facade, along Pearl Street, is clad in cream brick with a large arched faux window panel made of terra cotta above the bronze doors and small marquee, which provide access to the building’s lobby immediately outside the theater, with stone and terra cotta cladding at the base of the facade, a large metal fire escape for the theater’s balcony mounted to the exterior, circular reliefs with shields above, and a terra cotta cornice at the top of the building. The theater’s fly tower and stage were expanded in a renovation under the direction of Kideney Architects in 1997-1999 to add more room for live performance equipment and sets, along with a new backstage wing with a loading dock, small punched opening windows, and red brick cladding on the north side of the theater, encroaching on the former Greyhound Bus Terminal next door, and creating a small, mostly enclosed courtyard between the two buildings. The front facade features a lower two-story commercial wing clad in terra cotta with retail shopfronts on the first floor, large Chicago-style windows on the second floor with metal mullions, a parapet with a renaissance gable in the middle above the entrance to the second-story spaces and near the north end, which supports a sign for the Shea’s Smith Theater, a smaller venue now located within this section of the complex. At the south end of the principal facade is the main entrance to the theater, which features green marble panels flanking the bronze doors at the base, with the words “The Wonder Theatre” on the large transom above, and bronze display cases for show posters and advertisements on either side of the doors. Above this is a large marquee with decorative trim at the top, a lot of exposed lightbulbs, large lettering, decorative brackets that flank reliefs with fleur-de-lis, and digital signs on the north and south sides that are easily visible along Main Street to advertise shows and performances at the theater. Above the marquee is a massive three-story curtain wall in an arched opening, flanked by decorative terra cotta relief panels and trim, with three smaller one-over-one windows at the south end of the facade behind the iconic and massive blade sign, which features a lot of lightbulbs, and is a 2004 reproduction of the original blade sign, which was replaced in 1942. The top of the building features a decorative frieze with urns, vines, and a fleur-de-lis in the central panel, a cornice with dentils, and a parapet with acroterons at the ends, a broken pediment with volutes, a carved face in the middle and rosettes, and a decorative finial at the top.

The interior of the theater is lavishly decorated and has a similar layout and similar features to many of the other Rapp and Rapp theaters. This includes, in the lobby, marble pilasters separating arched bays with mirrors and decorative draperies, original Louis Comfort Tiffany chandeliers and wall sconces, ceilings with murals and painted beams, archways surrounded by decorative trim, decorative brass railings at the stairs and balconies, carpeted floors, and ornate decorative plasterwork. The vestibule housing the ticket booth features walls clad in green marble, a decorative plaster ceiling, bronze radiator grilles on the side walls, an arched transom over the doors to the lobby, decorative plasterwork around the top of the walls, and a freestanding octagonal ticket booth in the middle of the space with a green marble lower portion, decorative wood trim around its plate glass windows, urns at the corners of the roof of the ticket booth, and small chandeliers. The auditorium features many of the same elements as the lobby, with features unique to the space within the building including a large proscenium stage, domed ceilings above and below the balcony, Spanish Baroque styling on the ceiling and walls, arches with decorative trim and large oxeye bays containing mirrors, a Wurlitzer pipe organ, and a reproduction Tiffany curtain that matches the original design of the auditorium, but had been substituted for a Rapp-designed curtain when the theater opened.

The theater was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 to help facilitate its preservation. Between 2000, when the Shea’s O’Connell Preservation Guild, Ltd. was deeded the theater, and 2014, the theater and its interior were fully restored and the building’s systems modernized, and allowing the building to become a fully-featured Performing Arts Center, anchoring the theater district along Main Street in Downtown Buffalo.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Cadillac Palace Theatre

151 West Randolph Street

Chicago, Illinois

1926, Rapp and Rapp

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

The Riviera Theatre was built in 1918 as a neighborhood movie house for the Uptown district. Smaller than the enormous Uptown Theatre (just a block north), its smaller size probably helped it survive to this day as a live performance venue.

Photograph by James Russiello - One of Loew's original five "wonder theaters" in New York City, "designed by the renowned firm of Rapp & Rapp, Kings Theatre opened in 1929 as Loew’s flagship theater. Its French Renaissance style architecture was inspired by the Palace of Versailles and the Paris Opera House. It features high, curved ceilings, ornate plaster walls, wood paneling, pink marble, and a glazed terra-cotta ornamental façade, making it a classic, early 20th century movie palace. The theater has been vacant since 1978." Restored by ACE Theatrical Group, LLC of Houston, Texas, a "firm specializing in historic restoration and theater operation, ACE will lease the theater from the City. ACE's many projects include the Boston Opera House, the Chicago Theatre and the Warner Theatre in Washington DC. ACE will host about 200 to 250 productions a year." History of the restoration: www.nycedc.com/project/kings-theatre

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

The Rialto theatre facade above the main entryway. A Rapp and Rapp designed theatre built in 1926, the Rialto has been called 'The Jewel of Joliet' and one of the ten most beautiful theatres in the country.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

The Rhode Theater was constructed in 1927 and was designed by Rapp and Rapp in what I'd call a Moorish Revival style. It was renamed the Lake Theater in 1963, and twinned in 1976. The theater closed in 1984 and reopened in 1988 by the Lakeside Players. It was renamed the Rhode Theater in 1989.

It looks like the front entrance and sign date back to the 1960s. The theater is still twinned with the original balcony unusable. The Lakeside Players have done a marvelous job in maintaining the theater, but unfortunately since it's not eligible for the National Register they cannot partake of various historic preservation grants available.

I had originally only intended to take some photos of the facade and marquee, but while taking those photos I was invited inside for a tour and was amazed at the lobby and other details including the doors into each theater. I was even shown how many of the interior theater details were chiseled off in the twinning process. Anything can be restored of course if there is enough money, but as it stands now, I'm glad the Lakeside Players are in charge. They seem to really love this theater.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.

The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.

The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.

The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016.

Times Square, New York

Designed by Rapp and Rapp and opened in 1925 and flaghship of the Shea chain of theaters. It is on the National Register #75001186.

Built in 1921, this French Renaissance Revival-style building was designed by Rapp and Rapp to house the Chicago Theatre, part of the Balaban and Katz chain to serve as their flagship theater, hosting movie screenings and live performances. The building originally housed a 3,880-seat auditorium, and was among the first movie palaces to be built in the United States, and is the oldest surviving example of a French Renaissance Revival or Neo-Baroque theater building in Chicago designed by Rapp and Rapp. The building hosted many notable live stage shows during its early history, with jazz performances being particularly popular in the early years.

The building’s large auditorium fills up the entire middle half of the block the building stands on, with a separate commercial building to the rear, along Wabash Street, and the historic Page Building, which was built to house offices on the upper floors and retail space on the ground floor, on the north side of the lobby wing along State Street. The exterior of the auditorium is rather plain, and is clad in brick with terra cotta trim at the bays that contain doors at street level, with a large vaulted roof over the auditorium and a separate, smaller, low-slope roof high above the stage house in the rear. The most ornate portion of the exterior is the facade of the lobby along State Street, which is clad in terra cotta with decorative reliefs, a large arched window with a circular panel containing stained glass, sculptures, cartouches, broken pediments, windows on the upper portion flanked by reliefs below an intricate cornice with dentist and rosettes, windows at the top of the facade with arched pediments and cartouches above them, stone panels at the base, a large and intricate marquee over the street, and a tall blade sign mounted in front of the north bay of the facade. The Page Building, which stands north of the lobby, features a brick facade with a curtain wall facade at the base with Chicago windows, paired one-over-one double-hung windows on the upper floors, cartouches above the end window bays and pilasters between the intermediate bays, and a cornice with modillions. Inside, the theater lobby is richly decorated with a grand staircase featuring a decorative metal balustrade, broken pediments richly trimmed with sculptural reliefs, cartouches, and garlands, paneled walls, decorative cornice trim on the ceilings, decorative columns, a vaulted ceiling, chandeliers, marble and carpet floors, marble cladding on the walls and columns immediately inside the front entrance, brass torchiere light fixtures on the balcony over the front entrance, and coffered ceilings over the balconies. The interior of the auditorium features a ceiling with a domed central section, decorative trim work on the ceiling, murals by artist Louis Grell around the edges of the ceiling, decorative sculptural reliefs, cartouches, and pediments on the walls, a Wurlitzer organ, box seats with half-domed hoods, engaged fluted corinthian columns, decorative balustrades and semi-circular balconies, arched bays on the walls ringing the balcony, a decorative and ornate proscenium arch that terminates in a mural at the top, decorative chandeliers, box seats beneath the balcony, and a vaulted ceiling under the main balcony.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1983. The theater went through a period of decline in the 1970s, which led to the building becoming host to live performances once again, after a period of functioning solely as a cinema that started in the 1950s. The theater and adjacent Page Building were purchased by the Chicago Theatre Preservation Group in 1984, and in 1985, due to no longer being viable as a cinema, the last first-run motion picture screening was held at the theater. The building was renovated in 1986 to modernize building system and restore historic elements, carried out under the direction of Daniel P. Coffey and Associates, Ltd and A.T. Heinsbergen and Company. As part of the renovations, the building’s interior was reverted to its circa 1930s appearance, and the theater capacity was reduced to 3,600 seats. In 1994, another renovation replaced the 1949 marquee with a new one that was identical, with the old marquee being donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 2004. In 2004, the building was purchased by TheatreDreams Chicago, LLC, which sold it to Madison Square Garden Entertainment in 2007. The building today still hosts a variety of shows and live performances, being an anchor of Chicago’s historic downtown theater district, and a significant local landmark.

Designed by Rapp and Rapp and opened in 1925 and flaghship of the Shea chain of theaters. It is on the National Register #75001186.

Designed by Rapp and Rapp and opened in 1925 and flaghship of the Shea chain of theaters. It is on the National Register #75001186.

As I was driving home tonight, catching a glimpse of this theatre out my window literally made me exclaim "Damn!" as I distractedly turned my car the wrong way on a one-way street to get a better look. Fortunately it was after ten o' clock and nobody was around.

This Rapp and Rapp beauty dates from 1931 and is done in Art Deco grandeur. I must see a show here some time. Here is the Cinema Treasures page for this theatre: cinematreasures.org/theater/445/

Built in 1921, this French Renaissance Revival-style building was designed by Rapp and Rapp to house the Chicago Theatre, part of the Balaban and Katz chain to serve as their flagship theater, hosting movie screenings and live performances. The building originally housed a 3,880-seat auditorium, and was among the first movie palaces to be built in the United States, and is the oldest surviving example of a French Renaissance Revival or Neo-Baroque theater building in Chicago designed by Rapp and Rapp. The building hosted many notable live stage shows during its early history, with jazz performances being particularly popular in the early years.

The building’s large auditorium fills up the entire middle half of the block the building stands on, with a separate commercial building to the rear, along Wabash Street, and the historic Page Building, which was built to house offices on the upper floors and retail space on the ground floor, on the north side of the lobby wing along State Street. The exterior of the auditorium is rather plain, and is clad in brick with terra cotta trim at the bays that contain doors at street level, with a large vaulted roof over the auditorium and a separate, smaller, low-slope roof high above the stage house in the rear. The most ornate portion of the exterior is the facade of the lobby along State Street, which is clad in terra cotta with decorative reliefs, a large arched window with a circular panel containing stained glass, sculptures, cartouches, broken pediments, windows on the upper portion flanked by reliefs below an intricate cornice with dentist and rosettes, windows at the top of the facade with arched pediments and cartouches above them, stone panels at the base, a large and intricate marquee over the street, and a tall blade sign mounted in front of the north bay of the facade. The Page Building, which stands north of the lobby, features a brick facade with a curtain wall facade at the base with Chicago windows, paired one-over-one double-hung windows on the upper floors, cartouches above the end window bays and pilasters between the intermediate bays, and a cornice with modillions. Inside, the theater lobby is richly decorated with a grand staircase featuring a decorative metal balustrade, broken pediments richly trimmed with sculptural reliefs, cartouches, and garlands, paneled walls, decorative cornice trim on the ceilings, decorative columns, a vaulted ceiling, chandeliers, marble and carpet floors, marble cladding on the walls and columns immediately inside the front entrance, brass torchiere light fixtures on the balcony over the front entrance, and coffered ceilings over the balconies. The interior of the auditorium features a ceiling with a domed central section, decorative trim work on the ceiling, murals by artist Louis Grell around the edges of the ceiling, decorative sculptural reliefs, cartouches, and pediments on the walls, a Wurlitzer organ, box seats with half-domed hoods, engaged fluted corinthian columns, decorative balustrades and semi-circular balconies, arched bays on the walls ringing the balcony, a decorative and ornate proscenium arch that terminates in a mural at the top, decorative chandeliers, box seats beneath the balcony, and a vaulted ceiling under the main balcony.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1983. The theater went through a period of decline in the 1970s, which led to the building becoming host to live performances once again, after a period of functioning solely as a cinema that started in the 1950s. The theater and adjacent Page Building were purchased by the Chicago Theatre Preservation Group in 1984, and in 1985, due to no longer being viable as a cinema, the last first-run motion picture screening was held at the theater. The building was renovated in 1986 to modernize building system and restore historic elements, carried out under the direction of Daniel P. Coffey and Associates, Ltd and A.T. Heinsbergen and Company. As part of the renovations, the building’s interior was reverted to its circa 1930s appearance, and the theater capacity was reduced to 3,600 seats. In 1994, another renovation replaced the 1949 marquee with a new one that was identical, with the old marquee being donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 2004. In 2004, the building was purchased by TheatreDreams Chicago, LLC, which sold it to Madison Square Garden Entertainment in 2007. The building today still hosts a variety of shows and live performances, being an anchor of Chicago’s historic downtown theater district, and a significant local landmark.