C. W. & George L. Rapp, commonly known as Rapp & Rapp, was an American architectural firm famed for the design of movie palaces and other theatres. Active from 1906 to 1965 and based in Chicago, the office designed over 400 theatres, including the Chicago Theatre (1921), Bismarck Hotel and Theatre (1926) and Oriental Theater (1926) in Chicago, the Five Flags Center (1910) in Dubuque, Iowa and the Paramount Theatres in New York City (1926) and Aurora, Illinois (1931).
The Wainwright Building is a 10-story, 41 m (135 ft) terra cotta office building at 709 Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The Wainwright Building is considered to be one of the first aesthetically fully expressed early skyscrapers. It was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and built between 1890 and 1891. It was named for local brewer, building contractor, and financier Ellis Wainwright.
Spyros Panagiotis Skouras was a Greek-American motion picture pioneer and film executive who was the president of 20th Century-Fox from 1942 to 1962. He resigned June 27, 1962, but served as chairman of the company for several more years. He also had numerous ships, owning Prudential Lines.
Francis Hatch Kimball was an American architect practicing in New York City, best known for his work on skyscrapers in lower Manhattan and terra-cotta ornamentation. He was an associate with the firm Kimball & Thompson. His work includes the Empire Building, Manhattan Life Insurance Building, and Casino Theatre. All but one of Kimball's work was in the United States.
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. 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 partner Sam Katz. Along with the other B&K theaters, from 1925 to 1945 the Chicago Theatre was a dominant movie theater enterprise. Currently, Madison Square Garden, Inc. owns and operates the Chicago Theatre as a performing arts venue for stage plays, magic shows, comedy, speeches, sporting events and popular music concerts.
The Washington Avenue Historic District is located in Downtown West, St. Louis, Missouri along Washington Avenue, and bounded by Delmar Boulevard to the north, Locust Street to the south, 8th Street on the east, and 18th Street on the west. The buildings date from the late 19th century to the early 1920s. They exhibit a variety of popular architectural styles of those years, but most are revival styles or in the commercial style that would later come to be known as the Chicago School of architecture. Most are large multi-story buildings of brick and stone construction, built as warehouses for the St. Louis garment district. Many have terra cotta accents on their facades. After World War II, the decline in domestic garment production and the preference for single-story industrial space led to many of the buildings being vacant or underused due to functional obsolescence.
Charles P. Skouras was an American movie executive and president of Fox West Coast, born in Skourohorion, Greece. He and his two brothers, George Skouras and Spyros Skouras, came from Greece as poor sons of a sheep herder who rose to become top movie executives.
George P. Skouras was an American movie executive and president of United Artists Theatres, born in Skourohorion, Greece. He was one of ten children of a sheep herder and his wife. He and two older brothers emigrated to the United States about 1910 and rose in the new movie industry to become top movie executives. The extended Skouras family continue to be actively involved in the Hollywood film industry today.
The Michigan Building is an office building and the former Michigan Theater in downtown Detroit, Michigan. It was constructed in 1925 and stands at 13 floors in height. The building contains a bar, restaurant, retail space, office space, a parking garage, and the shared coworking space Cowork at The Michigan.
The McLean County Courthouse and Square is located in downtown Bloomington, Illinois. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places and encompasses the old McLean County Courthouse and the courthouse-facing sides of three downtown blocks. All 4 floors of the building are now occupied by the McLean County Museum of History for exhibits, collections storage, and offices. The historic buildings at the other side of the square were destroyed by fire in the 1980s. The Square is bordered by four Bloomington streets: Main Street, Center Street, Jefferson Street and Washington Street. The site was home to three previous courthouses before the current one was completed in 1903. The first courthouse at the site was built in 1831, and the second in 1836. The third was built in 1868, but suffered major damage from fire on June 19, 1900.
The Paramount Theatre is a concert venue in Denver, Colorado, located on Glenarm Place, near Denver's famous 16th Street Mall. The venue has a seating capacity of 1,870 but is a popular destination for large acts looking for a smaller concert setting. With spelling as Paramount Theater, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.
The Skouras Brothers Enterprises Inc. was an American movie theater chain from the early days of film-making based in St. Louis, Missouri. It was owned and operated by three brothers: Charles, Spyros and George. Even though it never became as important and famous as other family based companies, like the Warner Brothers, its members came to play important roles in American film industry.
The Detroit-Leland Hotel is a historic hotel located at 400 Bagley Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan. It is the oldest continuously operating hotel in downtown Detroit, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. The ballroom of the Detroit-Leland has hosted a nightclub, the City Club, since 1983. The hotel is now named The Leland and no longer rents to overnight guests.
The Orpheum Theater opened in Champaign, Illinois in 1914 on the site of a vaudeville theater built in 1904. Designed by the Architectural firm Rapp & Rapp, the Orpheum was built to accommodate both live vaudeville performances and the projection of film. After a series of renovations and changes of ownership, the Orpheum screened its final film in 1986.
The Kahl Building is a historic building located in Downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. In 2020 it was included as a contributing property in the Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District. The building also includes the Capitol Theatre.
The Medical Arts Building is an office high-rise located at 603 Main Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Completed in 1931, the 10-story structure originally provided office space for physicians and dentists, and at the time was considered the "best equipped" medical building in the South. The building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of the region's best examples of a Gothic Revival-style office building. It has recently been renovated into mixed-use, principally residential use.
Helfensteller, Hirsch & Watson was an early twentieth-century American architectural firm from St. Louis, Missouri. It succeeded Hirsch and Helfensteller which had been founded in 1903. The firm's partners included Ernest Helfensteller, William Albert Hirsch and Jesse N. Watson. The firm quickly gained prominence with its 1912 design of the Moolah Temple in St. Louis.
The Spivey Building is a 12-story skyscraper located at 417 Missouri Avenue in East St. Louis, Illinois. Built in 1927 by newspaper owner Allen Spivey, the building is the only skyscraper ever constructed in East St. Louis. Architect Albert B. Frankel designed the building in the Commercial style. The building's design features terra cotta spandrels separating its windows vertically and brick pier dividing its window bays. The asymmetrical entrance is surrounded by decorative marble piers, and the first two stories are separated from the rest of the building by a cornice and sill. The top of the building features a two-story parapet with terra cotta surrounds at each window and seven capitals at its peak. During the height of East St. Louis' prosperity through the 1950s, the building housed the offices of professionals in many fields who were considered among the best in the city. However, the building became a victim of the city's steep economic decline and has been abandoned for several decades. The building’s last tenant moved in 1980.
Ely Walker Lofts is a building located at 1520 Washington Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri.
