The Tivoli Theatre was designed by prominent New York architect Thomas W. Lamb. It reflects Italian Renaissance revival and Mediterranean Revivalarchitectural styles with its stucco exterior, red tile roof, ornate cornices, and numerous graceful arches. Completed in 1924 at a cost of $1 million, the theater was, until its closing in 1976, one of the most elegant movie houses in Washington, D.C. In addition to the main theater auditorium, the building contained offices on the upper floors and several two-story shops along the 14th Street and Park Road frontages. In the quarter century it has lain vacant, the building has suffered from neglect, extensive vandalism, and severe water damage due to a leaking roof.
The history of the Tivoli is closely associated with that of the Knickerbocker Theater, designed by Reginald Geare, and built during the First World War. The owner of the Knickerbocker, theater magnate Harry M. Crandall, operated a chain of movie theaters in Washington. Geare was his primary Washington architect and, in addition to the Knickerbocker, had designed the Metropolitan in 1917 and the Lincoln in 1921. The Knickerbocker was located on the southwest corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road in Adams-Morgan, the present location of a SunTrust Bank.
In a brief 24-hour period spanning January 27–28, 1922, a massive storm dropped 26inches of snow on the city, causing the fragile roof of the Knickerbocker to collapse. Few of the patrons who had filled the theater that evening for a screening of the comedy hit "Get Rich Quick Wallingford" escaped unharmed. In the heaped rubble of the auditorium, 98 people were found dead and 136 injured. Following the collapse of the Knickerbocker, Crandall released Geare as his primary architect, even though Geare had already begun work on a new theater in the fashionable neighborhood of Columbia Heights.
In his place, Crandall appointed the reputable young Thomas Lamb from New York as architect for all of his subsequent designs, including the Ambassador, built from the remains of the Knickerbocker, and the Tivoli. Lamb began designing the Tivoli less than six months after the Knickerbocker collapse. Incorporating a new understanding of structural integrity which followed in the wake of the disaster, Lamb designed the Tivoli as three separate bodies-stage, auditorium, and perimeter.
The earliest architectural drawings of the Tivoli are labeled Scheme A and date to June 15, 1922 at which point the theater did not have a name but was simply referred to as "Theater Building." Lamb's original proposal features ornate, decorative detail throughout the exterior. There is far more stucco detail surrounding the numerous windows on the second floor of this original conceptual design.
Tivoli Theatre (Detail)
The canopy and marquee from these Scheme A drawings also differ from what was eventually built. The artistic streetscape rendering at the beginning of this series of pages reflects this grand original concept. (These original architectural drawings were found in the archives of the Avery Library of Columbia University, New York City.)
Ornate Scheme A drawings were still being produced as late as December 11, 1922. However, by April 12, 1923, the date of the final architectural drawings, the theater building had been given the name Tivoli and the drawings had become simpler and streamlined, nevertheless still fully reflective of the Italian Renaissance style. The change in design was most likely due to constraints imposed by owner Harry M. Crandall, whose initial building cost estimate was $650,000.
On Monday December 4, 1923 construction commenced on the Tivoli, which became the ninth in the chain of Washington theaters owned by Crandall. Although the final building was less ornate than the original conceptual drawings, it still cost over $1 million when it was completed in 1924.
The cross-section of the exterior reveals the wooden brackets and tin soffits under the eaves of the tile roof, masterful detail easily overlooked given the current condition of the building. One of the grand old palaces of Washington, D.C., the Tivoli was almost saved by a group of local supporters during the 1970s.
History since 1976
In 1976, the Tivoli was closed due to increased deterioration of the theater and the local area. After over 25 years closure, the Tivoli has benefited from a revitalization of the Columbia Heights neighborhood. In 2005, the Tivoli was reopened after an almost six year renovation. The Tivoli is now the home of GALA (Grupo de Artistas LatinoAmericanos) Hispanic Theatre, a local non-profit committed to sharing Hispanic culture through the arts.[1] GALA currently uses the former balcony and there is mixed retail and restaurant use in the rest of the building.
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre is a historic movie theater located at 6706 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood, California. Opened in 1922, it is an early example of a lavish movie palace and is noted as having been the site of the first-ever Hollywood film premiere. From 1998 until 2020, it was owned and operated by the American Cinematheque, a member-based cultural organization.
The Audubon Theatre and Ballroom, generally referred to as the Audubon Ballroom, was a theatre and ballroom located at 3940 Broadway at West 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1912 and was designed by Thomas W. Lamb. The theatre was known at various times as the William Fox Audubon Theatre, the Beverly Hills Theater, and the San Juan Theater, and the ballroom is noted for being the site of the assassination of Malcolm X on February 21, 1965. It is currently the Audubon Business and Technology Center, which is part of Columbia University's Audubon Research Park.
Columbia Heights is a neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., United States. It has diverse demographics, the DC USA shopping mall and many restaurants, BloomBars, Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park, Howard University, Banneker Recreation Center, and All Souls Church.
Thomas White Lamb (1871–1942) was a Scottish-born, American architect. He is noted as one of the foremost designers of theaters and cinemas in the 20th century.
The Uptown Theatre was a historic movie theatre in Toronto, Ontario which was demolished in 2003. The entrance to the theatre was located on Yonge Street just south of Bloor. Like many theatres of the time it was constructed so that only the entrance was on a major thoroughfare while the main building fronted on a side street. A bridge connected the two buildings.
The Auditorium Theatre is a music and performance venue located inside the Auditorium Building at 50 Ida B. Wells Drive in Chicago, Illinois. Inspired by the Richardsonian Romanesque Style of architect Henry Hobson Richardson, the building was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and completed in 1889. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed in the theatre until 1904 as well as the Chicago Grand Opera Company and its successors the Chicago Opera Association and Chicago Civic Opera until its relocation to the Civic Opera House in 1929. The theatre currently hosts performances by the Joffrey Ballet, in addition to a variety of concerts, musicals, performances and events. Since the 1940s, it has been owned by Roosevelt University and since the 1960s refurbished and managed by an independent non-profit arts organization.
The Knickerbocker storm was a blizzard on January 27–28, 1922 in the upper South and the middle Atlantic United States. The storm took its name from the resulting collapse of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C., shortly after 9 p.m. on January 28, which perished 98 people and injured 133.
The Bagdad Theatre is a movie theater in the Hawthorne District of Portland, Oregon, United States. It originally opened in 1927 and was the site of the gala premiere of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975, and of My Own Private Idaho in 1991.
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.
Columbia Road is a street in Washington, D.C., that forks from Connecticut Avenue north of Dupont Circle, and branches north and east through 16th Street to the McMillan Reservoir. Along its route, it marks the southern border of the Kalorama Triangle neighborhood, the principal east/west passage through the Adams Morgan neighborhood, and is one of the primary thoroughfares in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. In Adams Morgan, it is bordered by a great deal of street-level retail, constituting the main commercial area within Adams Morgan.
The Ambassador Theater was a theater located at 2454 18th Street and Columbia Road, NW, Washington, D.C. It was most notable for a six-month period in the 1960s when it was a psychedelic concert and dance hall.
Young Playwrights' Theater (YPT) is a not-for-profit theater arts-based education organization in Northwest Washington, D.C. It provides interactive in-school and after-school programs presenting and discussing student-written work to promote community dialogue and respect for young artists.
The Knickerbocker Theatre was a movie theater located at 18th Street and Columbia Road in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. in the United States. The theater's roof collapsed on January 28, 1922, under the weight of snow from a two-day blizzard that was later dubbed the Knickerbocker Storm. The theater was showing Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford at the time of the collapse, which killed 98 patrons and injured 133.
John Jacob Zink (1886–1952) was an American architect who designed movie houses in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
Reginald Wycliffe Geare was an American architect known for his design of theaters. His career was ended by the Knickerbocker Theatre disaster, when a record snowfall collapsed the theater's flat roof, killing many.
Harry Milton Crandall (1879–1937) was an American businessman who owned a theater empire.
GALA Hispanic Theatre is a theater located at 3333 14th St NW in Washington, D.C. It hosts plays in Spanish and English, as well as dance, music, poetry, spoken word, art and films.
Henry Eli White, also known as Harry White, was a New Zealand-born architect who is best known for the many theatres and cinemas he designed in Australia and New Zealand 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.
Hugo Medrano is an Argentinian-born theatre director, playwright, and actor. He co-founded the GALA Hispanic Theatre in Washington D.C. with his wife Rebecca Read Medrano. The GALA Hispanic Theatre features Spanish and Latin American plays and has staged over 220 productions since its founding in 1976. Hugo Medrano serves as the theatre's Founding Producing Artistic Director. Along with directing Latino theatre, Medrano is an accomplished actor. He received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor for his role as Molina in El Beso de la Mujer Arana in 1994. Medrano's work with the Gala Hispanic Theatre has earned international acclaim. For his dedication to promoting Spanish culture in the United States, Medrano was bestowed the Order of Queen Isabella by Carlos I, former King of Spain.
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