Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Entertainment |
Founder | Jack Fruchtman Sr. |
Area served | Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area |
Services | Movie theaters |
Owner | Jack Fruchtman Sr. |
JR Theatres was a chain of cinemas in the Baltimore metropolitan region. Now defunct, it was one of the largest movie theatre chains in Maryland between the 1950s and the 1980s. At its height, JF Theatres owned over 50 movie theatres, including all of the major cinemas in Baltimore, including the Royal Theatre and what is now the Charles Theatre. [1]
JF Theatres was founded and owned by Jack Fruchtman Sr., an office manager and chief accountant at the Washington, D.C. office of Paramount Pictures. Fruchtman was born on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants. Fruchtman's wife Goluem K. Bragg and their son Jack Fruchtman, Jr. were also involved in the family business. [2] Publicity for JF Theatres was managed by Herbert A. Schwartz. [3] [4] Following white flight to the suburbs in the 1960s, movie attendance fell at JF Theatres. An avowed liberal, Fruchtman began to cater to Black audiences. During the 1960s and 1970s, Fruchtman helped make Baltimore a major market for blaxploitation films. [5]
The Royal Theatre in Baltimore, then owned by JF Theatres, was damaged during the Baltimore riot of 1968. [6] Physical damage to facilities owned by JF Theatres was generally mimimal. However, according to the film historian Robert Headley, the "psychic damage to the theater going public was terrible" and a wave of cinemas closed in the following decade. [1]
Loews Cineplex Entertainment, also known as Loews Incorporated, is an American theater chain operating in North America. From 1924 until 1959, it was also the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM). It was formerly jointly owned by Sony Pictures and Universal Studios and operated theatres in the United States, Canada, South Korea, Spain and Mexico.
AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. is an American movie theater chain founded in Kansas City, Missouri and now headquartered in Leawood, Kansas. It is the largest movie theater chain in the world. Founded in 1920, AMC has the largest share of the U.S. theater market ahead of Regal and Cinemark Theatres.
A movie palace is any of the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 1925 and 1930. With the advent of television, movie attendance dropped, while the rising popularity of large multiplex chains in the 1980s and 1990s signaled the obsolescence of single-screen theaters. Many movie palaces were razed or converted into multiple-screen venues or performing arts centers, though some have undergone restoration and reopened to the public as historic buildings.
Thomas White Lamb was a Scottish-born, American architect. He was one of the foremost designers of theaters and cinemas in the 20th century.
Landmark Theatres is a movie theatre chain in the United States. It was formerly dedicated to exhibiting and marketing independent and foreign films.
The Kings Theatre, formerly Loew's Kings Theatre, is a live performance venue in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Opened by Loew's Theatres as a movie palace in 1929 and closed in 1977, the theater sat empty for decades until a complete renovation was initiated in 2010. The theater reopened to the public on January 23, 2015 as a performing arts venue. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 22, 2012.
Magic Johnson Theatres is a chain of movie theaters, originally developed in 1994 by Johnson Development Corporation, the business holding of basketball player-turned-entrepreneur Magic Johnson, and Sony Pictures Entertainment through a partnership with Sony-Loews Theatres.
The Royal Theatre, located at 1329 Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, first opened in 1922 as the black-owned Douglass Theatre. It was the most famous theater along West Baltimore City's Pennsylvania Avenue, one of a circuit of five such theaters for black entertainment in big cities. Its sister theaters were the Apollo in Harlem, the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C., the Regal Theatre in Chicago, and the Earl Theater in Philadelphia.
The Senator Theatre is a historic Art Deco movie theater on York Road in the Govans section of Baltimore, Maryland. It is the oldest operating movie theater in central Maryland and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a designated Baltimore City Landmark.
Heinz Hall is a performing arts center and concert hall located at 600 Penn Avenue in the Cultural District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Home to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) and the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra, the 2,676 seat hall presents about 200 performances each year. Originally built in 1927 as Loew's Penn Theatre, the former movie palace was renovated and reopened as Heinz Hall in 1971.
John Adolph Emil Eberson was an Austrian-American architect best known for the development and promotion of movie palace designs in the atmospheric theatre style. He designed over 500 theatres in his lifetime, earning the nickname "Opera House John". His most notable surviving theatres in the United States include the Tampa Theatre (1926), Palace Theatre (1928), Majestic Theatre (1929), Akron Civic Theatre (1929) and Paramount Theatre (1929). Remaining international examples in the atmospheric style include both the Capitol Theatre (1928) and State Theatre (1929) in Sydney, Australia, The Forum, the Lewis J. Warner Memorial Theater (1932) at Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts and Le Grand Rex.
The Landmark Theatre, originally known as Loew's State Theater, is a historic theater from the era of movie palaces, located on South Salina Street in Syracuse, New York, United States. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb, it is the city's only surviving example of the opulent theatrical venues of the 1920s. The Landmark is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Palladium Times Square is an indoor live events venue in New York City, located in One Astor Plaza, at the corner of Broadway and 44th Street. It was designed by architect David Rockwell and opened in September 2005. The venue has a large standing room orchestra section, combined with a large area of seating towards the rear of the auditorium.
The Hippodrome Theatre is a theater in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Capitol Theatre was a movie palace located at 1645 Broadway, just north of Times Square in New York City, across from the Winter Garden Theatre. Designed by theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, the Capitol originally had a seating capacity of 5,230 and opened October 24, 1919. After 1924 the flagship theatre of the Loews Theatres chain, the Capitol was known as the premiere site of many Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) films. The Capitol was also noted for presenting live musical revues and many jazz and swing bands on its stage.
John Jacob Zink (1886–1952) was an American architect who designed movie houses in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
Loew's State Theatre was a movie theater at 1540 Broadway on Times Square in New York City. Designed by Thomas Lamb in the Adam style, it opened on August 29, 1921, as part of a 16-story office building for the Loew's Theatres company, with a seating capacity of 3,200 and featuring both vaudeville and films. It was the first theater on Broadway to cost $1 million. It was initially managed by Joseph Vogel, who later became president of Loew's Inc. and then MGM.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Parkway, or simply the Parkway, is a movie theater located at 5 West North Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland. The Parkway is open as of May 3, 2017, and is the new permanent home of MdFF. The Maryland Film Festival, a 5-day annual festival created and operated by MdFF, is housed in and around the Parkway and throughout the Station North Arts and Entertainment District.
Bengies Drive-In is a drive-in theater in Middle River, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, with the largest movie screen remaining in the United States.