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Friedrich Karl Rudolf Bergius
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The Chicago Theatre opens26.10.1921

Wikipedia (18 Oct 2013, 10:10)

The Chicago Theatre, originally known as the Balaban and Katz Chicago Theatre, is a landmark theater located on North State Street in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Built in 1921, the Chicago Theatre was the flagship for the Balaban and Katz (B&K) group of theaters run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban and their partner Sam Katz. Along with the other B&K theaters, from 1925 to 1945 the Chicago Theatre was a dominant movie theater enterprise. Now the Chicago Theatre is a performing arts venue for stage plays, magic shows, comedy, speeches, and popular music concerts. It is owned by Madison Square Garden, Inc.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 6, 1979, and it was listed as a Chicago Landmark on January 28, 1983. The distinctive Chicago Theatre marquee, "an unofficial emblem of the city", appears frequently in film, television, artwork, and photography.


Grand opening, growth, and decline

Abe and Barney Balaban, together with Sam and Morris Katz (founders of the Balaban and Katz theater chain), built the Chicago Theatre in 1921 with plans for it to be one of a large chain of opulent motion picture houses. The theater would become the flagship for 28 theaters in the city and over 100 others in the Midwestern United States that B&K operated in conjunction with the Paramount Publix chain. The building was constructed at a cost of 4 million US$ and was designed by architects Cornelius W. Rapp and George L. Rapp. The Rapp brothers also designed many other B&K properties in Chicago, including the Oriental and Uptown Theatres. Preceded by the now-demolished Tivoli Theatre of Chicago and Capitol Theatre of New York City, the Chicago Theatre was the "...largest, most costly and grandest of the super deluxe movie palaces" palaces built up to that date and thus now the oldest surviving grand movie palace. The Chicago Theatre was one of the first theaters in the nation to be built in Rapp and Rapp's signature Neo-Baroque French-revival style. It is the oldest surviving example of this style in Chicago.

When it opened on October 26, 1921, the 3,880 seat theater was promoted as the "Wonder Theatre of the World". Capacity crowds packed the theater during its opening week. The feature film was First National Pictures' The Sign on the Door starring Norma Talmadge, and other attractions included a 50-piece orchestra, famed organist Jesse Crawford at the 29-rank Wurlitzer organ, and a live stage show. Poet Carl Sandburg, reporting for the Chicago Tribune, wrote that mounted police were required for crowd control. The theater's strategy of enticing movie patrons with a plush environment and top notch service (including the pioneering use of air conditioning) was emulated nationwide.

During its first 40 years of operation, the Chicago Theatre presented premiere films and live entertainment. Throughout its existence, many of the top performers and stars of their day made live appearances at the theater. One of its biggest draws was live jazz, which Balaban and Katz promoted as early as September 1922 in a special event they called "Syncopation Week". This proved so successful that jazz bands became a mainstay of the Chicago Theatre's programming through the 1920s and into the 1930s. In preparation for the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, the Chicago Theatre was redecorated. The building has been associated with popular culture occasions. For example, Ronald Reagan announced his engagement to Jane Wyman at the theater. It was also modernized in the 1950s when stage shows were discontinued.

A slow down in business at the Chicago Theatre, caused by economic and social changes during the 1970s, whilst it was owned by Plitt Theatres, affected ongoing viability. In 1984, the Chicago Theatre Preservation Group purchased the theater and adjoining Page Brothers Building for $11.5 million ($25.8 million today). Attempts at using the structure as a picture theater failed to maintain that viability and the building was closed on September 19, 1985.




(photo source www.compassrose.org)

   
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