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The Mayfair Theatre, also known as the Auditorium Theatre and Auditorium Music Hall, is a historic theatre site in Baltimore, United States. Originally opened in 1880 as a bathing house, the site was later demolished and rebuilt in 1904 as a theatre, which was closed in 1986.
In 2016 the building was demolished except for the facade and lobby. The remnant is listed as a Baltimore City Landmark and remains the focus of redevelopment plans.
Built in 1880 [1] and opening as the Natatorium on June 17, 1880, the first building was a bathing house and swimming school. After alterations, it became the Howard Auditorium opening April 6, 1891. The name was soon changed to Auditorium and it became an ice skating rink in Spring 1894. It was remodeled to the plans of architect J. B. McElfatrick and reopened September 30, 1895. In 1896 it was remodeled again to the plans of architectural firm J. B. McElfatrick, and a Palm Court was built on the roof garden. The old Auditorium was closed on April 4, 1903 and was demolished.
On the site rose a new Auditorium Theatre, built for $250,000, [2] which opened on September 12, 1904 with Keith's Vaudeville and moving pictures. It was designed by architectural firm J.D. Allen & Co. of Philadelphia. It was taken over by the Shubert Bros. in 1909 until 1913. Briefly operated by Poli, it returned to the Shuberts in 1918. The theatre remained mainly a playhouse, although occasional films were presented. In the summer of 1940, the Auditorium Theatre was remodeled again, this time to the plans of local architect E. Bernard Evander who built a new theatre within the shell of the former Auditorium, by gutting the Auditoriums interior between the dressing rooms and the front entrance and between the first floor and the bottom of the second balcony. He also added a false ceiling below the second balcony or a dropped ceiling that concealed the steeply sloped second balcony and decorative dome above it that still had artworks on it, by adding this false dropped ceiling it brought the towering vault of the Auditorium downward. New flooring was laid a new screen was installed a new Proscenium for the stage was installed and the lobby was completely remodeled. Most of the original designs of the Auditorium was saved due to the closing off of the second balcony above the false ceiling as well as the front and side walls. On the outside the facade was modernized with a new triangular marquee and a new improved box office counter in between the two outer doors leading into the main lobby. The 850 seat building reopened as the re-branded Mayfair Theatre on January 31, 1941 with the movie A Night at Earl Carroll's starring Ken Murray. By 1960 it had been equipped with 70mm projectors. Adjacent, just north of the Mayfair Theatre, a small parking lot marks the spot of the Stanley Theatre, Baltimore's once largest theatre until it was razed in May 1965. [3] The theatre itself closed on April 22, 1986. There was a hope of it reopening when the theatre was put up for auction in 1987 but the auction was cancelled when bidders offered no more than $200.000 for the property. Ever since then the building has been boarded up and deteriorated significantly since then.
Today the Mayfair Theatre is another vacant theatre building in downtown Baltimore City and has been vacant for more than three decades. Its roof collapsed in February 1998 and it was further damaged in a fire that occurred in an adjacent building in September 2014 from the removal of the Marquee from the sparks of the Acetylene Torch. [1] As it was in general disrepair, engineers stated the crumbling building was a threat to public safety, and the structure (except the facade and the front lobby) was demolished in November of 2016. [2] [4] It remains, however, a designated Baltimore City landmark, which sits in the Market Center National Register Historic District. [5]
In 2016, the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) sought a Request For Proposals (RFP) to adaptively reuse the former Mayfair Theatre. [6] By March 6, 2017, the BDC did not receive any bids from interested groups or developers, and reopened bidding in February 2018. [7] In December 2018, the BDC selected Zahlco Development (of the 2 new bids offered), a local design and construction firm, to redevelop the site. [6] Zahlco is planning to turn it into office retail and living space [8] [5] along with shopping venues next door that was once the site of the 1786 Golden Horse Tavern and 1900s New Academy Hotel that was recently torn down also due to structural concerns. The area would be called "Mayfair Place", [5] will include new amenities include office space, a restaurant, gallery space, and an outdoor seating and performance area, as well as constructing new apartments and retail buildings, according to BDC meeting minutes. Plans put together by Zahlco and Moseley Architects to rehabilitate the historic facade of the Mayfair have been approved by CHAP (Commission For Historical Architectural Preservation) as well as the addition of a 6 story apartment complex on the site of the Franklin Delphy Hotel that includes retailing commercial office space a 31 space parking garage and other amenities.
The Fox Theatre is a performing arts center located at 2211 Woodward Avenue in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, near the Grand Circus Park Historic District. Opened in 1928 as a flagship movie palace in the Fox Theatres chain, it was at over 5,000 seats the largest theater in the city. Designed by theater architect C. Howard Crane, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The Capitol is a theatre on Swanston Street in the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Opened in 1924 as part of the Capitol House building, the theatre was designed by American husband and wife architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. It is the oldest of Melbourne's large picture palaces and is known for its extravagant decor and abstract motifs, including an intricate geometric ceiling containing thousands of coloured lights designed to evoke the walls of a crystalline cave.
The Maryland Theatre is a music and entertainment venue located in the Arts and Entertainment District of downtown Hagerstown, Maryland. It was built in 1915, partially destroyed by fire in 1974, reopened in 1978, and expanded into a full performing arts complex in 2019. The theatre's seating capacity is 1,279 people, and it hosts performances of symphony orchestras, country artists, comedians, children's shows, pop stars, recitals, stage shows, and others. Over 81,000 patrons attended performances at the Maryland Theatre in 2005, making it one of Maryland's premier venues for the performing arts. The Maryland Symphony Orchestra performs there regularly and has been headquartered in the building since 2019. The theater features a fully restored Wurlitzer theatre organ.
The Mimi Ohio Theatre is a theater on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, part of Playhouse Square. The theater was built by Marcus Loew's Loew's Ohio Theatres company. It was designed by Thomas W. Lamb in the Italian Renaissance style, and was intended to present legitimate plays. The theater opened on February 14, 1921, with 1,338 seats. The foyer featured three murals depicting the story of Venus, and the balcony contained paintings of Arcadia. Throughout the 1920s, the Ohio had a stock company and hosted traveling Broadway plays.
An atmospheric theatre is a type of movie palace design which was popular in the late 1920s. Atmospheric theatres were designed and decorated to evoke the feeling of a particular time and place for patrons, through the use of projectors, architectural elements and ornamentation that evoked a sense of being outdoors. This was intended to make the patron a more active participant in the setting.
The Hudson Theatre is a Broadway theater at 139–141 West 44th Street, between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. One of the oldest surviving Broadway venues, the Hudson was built from 1902 to 1903. The exterior was designed by J. B. McElfatrick & Son, while Israels & Harder oversaw the completion of the interior. The theater has 970 seats across three levels. Both its exterior and interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the theater is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Mainstreet Theater, also commonly referred to as The Empire Theater, is a historic theater in downtown Kansas City, Missouri in the Power & Light District. The theater was landmarked and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in February 2007.
The State Theatre is a movie palace in Ann Arbor, Michigan, designed by C. Howard Crane in the Art Deco style.
The Rialto Theatre in Tacoma, Washington was built in 1918 to showcase movies. Its design reflects the affluence following World War I. It reflects the character of a palace and is the result of efforts by entrepreneur Henry T. Moore and Tacoma architect Roland E. Borhek. Designed to hold 1500 patrons and retail space. The two-and-a-half-story structure is in the historic downtown of Tacoma. The area has long been associated with theaters and entertainment. The theater is freestanding, with a dramatic view on an incline with a classical façade sheathed of glazed white terra cotta. Both the interior and exterior retain most of the original design of Roland E. Borhek. The theater has an auditorium, proscenium with stage, a relocated projection booth, balcony, lobby, and commercial space. It has been altered with the removal of the storefronts and marquee. On the inside, the lobby's decorative ceiling has been hidden and the concession areas expanded.
The Civic Center Music Hall is a performing arts center located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was constructed in 1937 as Municipal Auditorium and renamed in 1966. The facility includes the Thelma Gaylord Performing Arts Theatre, the Freede Little Theatre, CitySpace, the Meinders Hall of Mirrors and the Joel Levine Rehearsal Hall.
The Paradise Theater is a theater at 2403 Grand Concourse in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, New York. Designed by John Eberson as a movie palace, it opened on September 7, 1929, as one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York City area. Although the building is no longer in use as a movie theater, its facade and interior are preserved as New York City designated landmarks.
The RKO Keith's Theater was an RKO Pictures movie theater at 135-35 Northern Boulevard in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens in New York City. It was designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb and built in 1928. While the RKO Keith's had a plain three-story facade, its interior was elaborately designed in a Spanish Baroque Revival style. The theater had a square ticket lobby and an oval grand foyer, which led to the double-level auditorium. The auditorium was designed as an atmospheric theater with a blue ceiling and gilded-plaster decorations; it contained 2,974 seats across two levels. There were also four lounges and a mezzanine promenade.
The Morris A. Mechanic Theatre was a playhouse at 1 South Charles Street that was part of the Charles Center of Baltimore, Maryland. The theatre was built by and named for owner Morris A. Mechanic who operated a number of theatres in the city such as The Stanton Theatre, Ford's Grand Opera House, the Centre Theatre, and the Century and Valencia Theatres, all of which have since been demolished except for the Centre which the exterior has been restored and the interior has been repurposed as classroom and studio space for Maryland Institute College of Art and Johns Hopkins University film programs. The Mechanic theatre was demolished in 2014.
The Cascade Theatre is a prominent example of the Art Deco style in Redding, California. The cinema was designed by J. Lloyd Conrich of San Francisco in 1934 for the Naify family, who operated the Golden State Theaters chain of movie theaters in northern California, which later became the United Artists Theaters. The new cinema was built in 1935 by Salih Brothers and opened on August 9 with 1348 seats. It was the first air conditioned public building in Redding. In 1979 the large house was subdivided into four smaller theaters, and in 1997 it closed. The Cascade Theatre reopened in 2004 after it was purchased by Southern Oregon University and the JPR Foundation. The house was restored to its original configuration and it is used as a community auditorium and arts center.
The Burton Cummings Theatre is a theatre located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Built by local impresario Corliss Powers Walker, it was originally known as the Walker Theatre. The building was renamed after singer-songwriter and Winnipeg native Burton Cummings in 2002.
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.
The Guild Theatre is a historic former theater building in downtown Portland, Oregon, in the United States. The theater was completed and opened in 1927. It closed in 2006 and was converted for retail use in 2018–2019. Since 2019, a Kinokuniya bookstore has occupied the space.
Henry Eli White, also known as Harry White, was a New Zealand-born architect best known for the many theatres and cinemas he designed in New Zealand and Australia in the 1910s and 1920s. Many of the major surviving historic venues in the two countries are White designs, including the St. James Theatre, Wellington, St. James Theatre, Auckland, the Capitol Theatre and State Theatre in Sydney, and the Palais Theatre and the interiors of the Princess Theatre and Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne. He also designed the City Hall and the attached Civic Theatre in Newcastle, New South Wales.
The Auditorium was an eight-storey Edwardian building at 167–173 Collins Street, Melbourne, between Swanston and Russell streets, named for its great hall, which was intended for concerts, but was mostly used as a cinema.
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