United Artists Theatre

[Gistok]

Thanks for the nice images Krawlspace!

56packman, unfortunately I was never in a single Chicago theatre.

The Chicago United Artists was built in 1920 as the Apollo Theatre, a legitimate playhouse with a classic exterior. It was gutted in 1927 [[using C. Howard Crane's design) as the Chicago UA. Yes there are some features from the previous design that carried over into the newer theatre.

In reading all the comments about the Chicago UA in Cinema Tresures, it seems that they had a serious rodent problem in the theatre [[perhaps they had some restaurants nearby). The rat problem got so bad that they closed off the main floor seating, and only had balcony seating for movies. When the wrecking ball finally came in 1989, the number of rats that hightailed it out of there must have been astonishing!

Interestingly enough the razed Chicago Roosevelt Theatre [[IIRC on the same block as the UA) was a prototype for the much larger Detroit Capitol Theatre 5 years later [[similarly C. Howard Crane also had the 1917 Detroit Madison Theatre used as the prototype for 1919 Orchestra Hall).

One thing about Chicago theatres is that most of the best theatres there were outside of downtown. [[besides the Chicago, Oriental and Auditorium Theatres). The Uptown, Paradise, Marbro, Granada, Tivoli and Southtown were beautiful massive theatres in the outlying neighborhoods... now all sadly razed [[save for the closed decaying Uptown).

Here is a picture of the Chicago UA lobby [[1st pic).

And speaking of Chicago theatres and the use of ingredients in plaster to make for better plaster... here is an outside and inside view of the Chicago Paradise Theatre [[pounded to rubble 1954-56).

On the outside it was considered the world's most beautiful theatre... architect John Eberson couldn't have done a better job of capturing France's "Second Empire" architectural glory.

But on the inside it had what were arguably the world's worst acoustics. Lots of echoes and muffled sound, that even additives to the plasterwork couldn't help. One of the reason it was destroyed so early [[besides having a nearby larger theatre as a competitor) was due to the bad acoustics. It is likely that the flat dome shaped atmospheric ceiling was [[at least partly) responsible for the bad sound.