Reference no. 450 Architect S. Charles Lee | Phone +1 213-629-2939 | |
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Location 800 S. Broadway, Los Angeles Address 802 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014, USA Architectural style Baroque Revival architecture Similar Los Angeles Theatre, Million Dollar Theater, Orpheum Theatre, Eastern Columbia Building, Ace Hotel Los Angeles | ||
The Tower Theatre, at 802 S. Broadway, is a historic movie theater that opened in 1927 in the Broadway Theater District of Downtown Los Angeles.
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History
The Tower Theatre, at S. Broadway and W. 8th Street, was commissioned by H.L. Gumbiner. He would also build the Los Angeles Theatre in 1931.
The Tower was the first theater designed by architect S. Charles Lee. Seating 900 on a tiny site, it was designed in powerful Baroque Revival style with innovative French, Spanish, Moorish, and Italian elements all executed in terra-cotta. Its interior was modeled after the Paris Opera House. Its exterior features a prominent clock tower, the very top of which was removed after an earthquake.
The Tower was the first filmhouse in Los Angeles to be wired for talking pictures, and it was the location of the sneak preview and Los Angeles premiere of Warner Bros.' revolutionary part-talking The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson.
The theater was the first in Los Angeles to be air conditioned.
It opened in 1927 with the silent film The Gingham Girl starring Lois Wilson and George K. Arthur.
For a while during the early 1950s, the name was changed to the Newsreel Theater.
Use as a Hollywood filming location
The Tower Theater's exterior and/or interior can be seen in the following films:
Landmark status
The Tower Theatre has been declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, HCM #450, by the Office of Historic Resources, Department of City Planning, City of Los Angeles.
Current use
As with many other historic theaters in Downtown Los Angeles, though largely intact, the theater was abandoned for many years because of migration of cinema attendance to Hollywood Boulevard and other Los Angeles locations. Over the years, its lobby has been leased to various vendors, and the auditorium has been used by the Living Faith Evangelical Church.