Vintage California Theatres | Tower Theatre, Sacramento, California

Vintage California Theatre blog series #4
In the mid '90's, I had a press check at a Sacramento printer for the Golden State Warriors basketball team media guide. Between press setups, I went to the Tower Theatre for an afternoon screening of the movie Stargate. Not ten minutes into the movie, I got a tap on my shoulder that the printer was ready for my approvals. To this day, I have not seen Stargate in its entirety. I did get opportunity to experience a Sacramento landmark that was built at the end of movie palace era.

In 2004, I was commissioned to produce a series of Sacramento landmarks for Blue Moon Printing. The first image I produced was the Tower Theatre. It was also the first illustration of what was to become my Vintage California Theatre series.

Tower Theater | Tower Drugs | Tower Records

Tower Theatre, Sacramento - 2508 Land Park Drive, corner of Broadway and 16th Drive

The Tower Theatre, a classic example of Streamline Moderne of architecture, was opened on December 27, 1938 featuring Algiers with Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr. An adult ticket was 25 cents when the Sacramento downtown theaters charged 50 cents for first run movies. Strict distribution laws of the 1940s kept small movie theaters from screening any top American films. Laws changed in 1948 and The Tower became a neighborhood gem.

The Tower Theatre was designed by California theater architect William B. David and features a neon-lit 100-foot tower. Y Street was renamed Broadway with the hope that an entertainment district (Greater Broadway District) would emerge bordering the then-new residential district, Land Park.

Tower Theatre, Sacramento Facts:

• In the 40’s, Clayton Solomon opened Tower Drugs next door to the Tower Theatre. At age 16, Russ Solomon, Clayton’s son, started selling used 78 rpm records from the soda fountain jukebox. He would later build the record empire known as Tower Records and eventually moved out of Tower Theater and expand to nearly 200 stores in 15 countries and more than $1 billion in annual sales. Colin Hanks explores the rise and demise of Tower Records in a documentary All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records.

• A 1950’s neon sign of dancing kids decorates the side of the Tower Theater above the Tower Cafe and serves as a reminder of what once was there.

• Tower Theatre became a National Historic Landmark in 2013 and is the oldest remaining, continuously running picture palace.

• Before the building of the Tower Theatre in 1938, the site was a city dump.

Next Up: State Theater, Auburn, CA

Vintage California Theatres | Orinda Theatre, Orinda, California

Vintage California Theatre blog series #3
In 1991 I moved from Alameda to what was called in the county (Contra Costa County) between Walnut Creek and Alamo. The properties there were soon annexed into Alamo. To get to Alamo, I had to drive from Oakland where I worked, through the Caldecott, a tunnel in the Berkeley Hills between Oakland and Orinda, California. Just outside of the Caldecott Tunnel, you get a glimpse of the Orinda Theatre marquee next to State Highway 24.

Having grown up in grand movie theaters discussed in the first two blogs of my Vintage California series, the Alameda Theatre and Grand Lake Theatre, I was pleased to find a movie palace closer to my house. Walnut Creek had The Festival Cinemas, a block style building with two, not connected entrances. It was not the movie experience I remembered and enjoyed. The Festival closed and was demolished in 2001. 

- Orinda Theatre from Highway 24 - Interior mural

Orinda Theatre - Moraga Way and Brookwood Road, Orinda, CA 94563

The Orinda Theatre, a classic example of Streamline Moderne style, was opened on December 27, 1941 featuring  the American Western film Texas with William Holden, Glenn Ford and Claire Trevor in Texas with William Holden, Glenn Ford and Claire Trevor. 
In 1937, Donald Rheem, the son of William S. Rheem, President of Standard Oil Company bought land at the Orinda Crossroads. Other than a building across the street the site was empty. The Caldecott Tunnel opened in 1937 allowing greater access between Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
In 1984 the Orinda Theatre was slated for demolition. Through the efforts of The Friends of the Orinda Theater, it was fortunately saved and reopened in 1989 as part of Orinda Theater Square. Two screens were added, to the theatre. One features murals saved from the Garden Theatre in San Jose when it was torn down. The original lobby and main theatre are as they were when the theatre opened in 1941.

Orinda Theatre Facts:

• Placed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1982.

• The original murals representing "air, fire, water and earth" that decorate the walls and foyer ceiling are by Anthony Heinsbergen who also created murals for the Oakland Paramount Theater.

Next Up: Tower Theatre, Sacramento, CA

Vintage California Theatres | Grand Lake Theatre, Oakland, California

This is the second in my Vintage California Theatre blog series.Growing up in Alameda, the neighboring island city to Oakland, I discovered the Grand Lake Theatre when I started to drive in high school. The theater became one of my favorite Bay Area landmarks as a teen and young adult. The place where I first held hands with a date. We would sit in the balcony where I remember seeing the first running of The Godfather, The Exorcist and The Sting.

Years later, I worked at the Golden State Warriors Downtown Oakland practice facility and office. Early mornings before work, I would use the Warriors weight room and do a five mile run from downtown, around Lake Merritt and back. At the top of the lake on Grand Avenue, I knew I was half way into my run, when I would see the Grand Lake Theatre roof sign over the top of the freeway overpass a block or so away.

Paramount Theatre, Fox Oakland before and after renovation

I was spoiled by my hometown movie house, the Alameda Theatre. Oakland has other architectural masterpieces that served as movie theaters including the Paramount Theatre and the Fox Oakland. I saw very few movies at the Paramount and attended a few live performances. The Fox Oakland was closed for all of the years I lived in the Bay Area. It was closed for 30 years in extreme disrepair. I would drive by on my way to The College of the Arts in the 70’s and admire the architecture, wondered what it looked like in the 30’s through the 50’s. It is now open as a live music venue, arts school, and restaurant. It looks stunning.

Grand Lake Theatre - Designated as one of the top ten vintage theaters in the United States
3200 Grand Avenue, Oakland, California
The historic  Grand Lake Theater is located on the corner of Grand Avenue and Lake Park Avenue in the Grand/Lakeshore District of Oakland. It opened as a as a vaudeville and silent movie house on Saturday, March 6, 1926. Two years later, the theatre was added to the Fox Theater chain and vaudeville performances were dropped with the introduction of talking pictures. With an Art Deco design and Egyptian Revival and Moorish touches the Grand Lake Theater celebrates a time when going to a movie was a larger than life shared experience. Complete with an ornate foyer with a crystal chandelier, a Wurlitzer Organ that stands in the main auditorium and is still played before Friday and Saturday movies, a dramatic stage and working curtain, and luxuriously appointed walls and ceiling, the 1920s unique theatre style has been preserved.
Above the theatre sits a 52-foot high by 72-feet long rotary contact sign (the largest west of the Mississippi River), illuminated by  2,800 colored incandescent bulbs and looks like a series of fireworks explosions.
Allen Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake is dedicated to keeping the theatre open and and preserving the classic movie palace experience in an era of declining local theaters and changing cultural choices with digital entertainment options. He comments in a SFGate article, "What I've tried to do here at the Grand Lake is preserve the classic golden age of Hollywood moviegoing experience, and it doesn't exist anywhere else. We don't play commercials. We serve real butter on the popcorn. We don't fill our lobbies with video games. We have the Wurlitzer pipe organ playing in the main auditorium on Friday and Saturday nights before the feature. I don't think there's a first-run theater across the country that is doing that right now."

Grand Lake Theatre Facts:

• Winner of the East Bay Express Reader Poll as the Best Movie Theater almost every year.

• Former Grand Lake patrons include Tom Hanks and Frank Oz.

Next Up: Orinda Theatre, Orinda, CA