The complete blog series can be found here, or individually using these links: Intro, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8a, 8b, & 9.
Theater, Then
The photo of the theater's exterior used for this series was done by William Gabel, circa 1971. The theater's architect was B. Marcus Priteca, who designed many of the movie palaces on the West Coast, including those in Washington (Seattle, Tacoma, Yakima, Spokane, Centralia, and Olympia), Alaska (Anchorage & Fairbanks), British Columbia (Vancover), California (Oakland, San Francisco, Fresno, San Diego, Beverly Hills, Huntington Park, and Los Angeles). Others of his were built in Canada, Utah, Minnesota, Montana and Tennessee. The theater's style is Art Deco. Built in 1929-30, the original layout could seat 1468. Pacific Theaters was the last chain to operate this theater. It was twinned early in the 1980's--meaning, the balcony was separated via renovation to install an additional (second) screen in the upper portion of the building.The rest of the chapter has been updated and relocated to my current blog, found here.
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Michael, you really really need to print out this entire series and make sure that whichever historical society serves Huntington Park gets a copy.
ReplyDeleteWhat an awful paint job to a great old piece of art deco. One can only hope that someday the theater is restored to its initial glory.
You always come up with the best suggestions, Corey. I'm looking into that now. You may appreciate this: though I haven't found an historical society, as yet, I'm contacting a source that may help me get there. The Huntington Park Library. Lastly, here's one more eerie fact for you and I. Wikipedia lists 3 references for Huntington Park. Besides this city in California, there's is an actual park in Newport News in Virginia, and the ballpark in your Columbus, Ohio.
ReplyDeleteThank you, my friend.
NO WAY would you get me on that ladder. I get a queasy tum and weak knees just thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteHuntington Park is our lovely new minor league ballpark. It's named for a local bank. :-( I bet your town was named for something or someone better.
Our H.P. is named after industrialist Henry Huntington, Naomi (and the city of Huntington Beach is also named for him). He was responsible building and expanding the old Red Car transit system in So. Cal. That's the system featured in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie--the same one L.A. infamously dismantled to build our freeway system (and traffic woes).
ReplyDeleteI, to this day, don't know how I got back down that ladder. I think not looking bad in front of my brother and his friend was the only thing that got me down. Thanks, Naomi.
In case anyone is interested, I submitted this to the The Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to hear that your series has a more permanent home than cyberspace. It will be interesting to see what those pages 'under construction' will eventually contain.
ReplyDelete