<![CDATA[Explore 91ÊÓƵ]]> /items/browse?output=rss2&tags=Theatres Wed, 12 Mar 2025 11:47:13 -0400 info@baltimoreheritage.org (Explore 91ÊÓƵ) 91ÊÓƵ Zend_Feed http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[Hippodrome Theatre]]> /items/show/125

Dublin Core

Title

Hippodrome Theatre

Subject

Entertainment

Creator

Theresa Donnelly

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Designed by noted Scottish American theatre architect Thomas Lamb, the Hippodrome Theatre opened in 1914 as one of the first theatres in the United States to operate both as a movie house and a vaudeville performance venue. Local theatre impresarios Marion Pearce and Philip Scheck (who owned six theatres and exclusively distributed Hollywood films), commissioned the theater on the site where the nineteenth century luxury hotel Eutaw House (1835) once stood.

The original theatre seated 3,000 people and visitors entered the grand building through glorious doors that featured stained glass transoms, opening into red carpeted rooms adorned with painted gold plasterwork and heavy crimson curtains. The Hippodrome's opening night featured a screening of the film "The Iron Master," vaudeville acts, a man juggling a barrel with his feet, and a group of four performing elephants. Pearce and Scheck operated the theatre until 1917, when it was sold to the Lowe's Theatre Chain, who held it until 1924.

By 1920, around 30,000 people visited the theater every week—one of the most well-attended theaters in the city. After a prosperous decade, in which the theatre often featured three shows a day, declining attendance put the Hippodrome into receivership in 1931. L. Edward Goldman purchased the property, plus debts, for a mere $14,000 and hired Philadelphian, Isidor "Izzy" Rappaport, to manage the ailing venue.

During Rappaport's tenure, the Hippodrome saw a second golden age. Rappaport, who later bought the Hippodrome himself, oversaw the installation of a grand new marquee , outfitted the theatre with new seats, and brought in numerous notable acts, such as Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and many others, securing its reputation as one of America's premier vaudeville houses. The lure of new, high-paying gigs in Las Vegas along with the arrival of television and televised variety shows in the 1950s, however, brought the demise of many vaudeville houses across the country and the Hippodrome held its final live show in 1959. Business continued to decline in the 1970s and 1980s and though it had become the last operating movie theatre on the west side of Baltimore's downtown, the Hippodrome shut its doors in 1990.

Fortunately, this landmark theater has been reborn, reopening in 2004 as the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, combining new construction with the preservation and reuse of the Western National Savings Bank, the Eutaw Savings Bank, and the original Hippodrome Theatre. The Performing Arts Center has brought the Hippodrome back as a state-of-the-art showcase featuring touring Broadway shows and much more.

Official Website

Street Address

12 N. Eutaw Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Hippodrome Theatre (2012)
Cornice detail, Hippodrome Theatre (2012)
Hippodrome Theatre (c. 1916-1918)
Hippodrome Theatre (2015)
]]> Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:53:44 -0400 <![CDATA[Centre Theatre]]> /items/show/17

Dublin Core

Title

Centre Theatre

Subject

Architecture
Entertainment
Economy

Description

The Centre Theatre opened on a February evening in 1939 with a Hollywood-style opening as "a thousand invited guest walked through the glare of spotlights while newsreel photographs turned their cranks and candid camera fans sniped from the sidelines." Crowds poured in to the theatre and turned to the circular proscenium covered with gold leaf and illuminated by hundreds of lights for a preview showing of "Tail Spin." The $400,000 new building was not just a theatre but included a whole complex with the WFBR radio station and studios, a branch bank office for the Equitable Trust Company, and a garage. Owner Morris A. Mechanic was born in Poland on December 21, 1904 and emigrated to Baltimore with his parents as a child. In 1929, Mechanic worked as the principal at a Hebrew School on West North Avenue and owned a chocolate shop downtown, when he decided to purchase the New Theatre as a real estate investment. The New Theatre's "box-office bonanza" success during a showing of "Sunny Side Up" encouraged him to stick with the theatre business for the rest of his life, owning dozens of theaters over the years before his death of a heart attack in July 1966.

The interior of the Centre Theatre featured a mural symbolizing entertainment and captioned, "Man works by day; night is for romance." by R. McGill Mackall, a MICA-trained Baltimore native who painted 53 large public murals in the city over his career. The design by Philadelphia architect Armand Carroll, described by the Sun as "conservatively modern" with decoration "intended to soothe rather than startle the spectator," won an award for "architectural attainment" from the Baltimore Association of Commerce as the best "Retail Commercial Building" built in 1939. When the theatre opened, Mechanic had an office on the second floor with a window "fitted with special glass... invisible from the theatre, the window permits anyone in the office to see the picture on the screen."

Morris Mechanic closed the theatre, later known as the Film Centre Theatre, on April 16, 1959, after the Equitable Trust Company announced plans to enlarge the complex and move their operations department into the building early in 1960. The bank planned to add a third story and "special dust-free areas... to create the exact atmospheric conditions required for the most efficient use of highly sensitive automated electronic equipment." One example offered for this new equipment included a $55,000 sorting machine that sorted checks and other documents at a rate of 1,000 a minute guided by "magnetic ink" rather than "the familiar punch card holes." The radio station and the bank remained through the 1990s, later purchased by a church and over the past few years has deteriorated significantly.

The building has a new future ahead after it was purchased by local non-profit developer Jubilee Baltimore with support from MICA and the American Communities Trust. The building will be restored and re-used as a for film screenings, music, artists' studios, galleries, a playhouse and more.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Bright Marquee Lights and a Restored North Avenue Landmark

Lede

The Centre Theatre opened on a February evening in 1939 with a Hollywood-style opening as "a thousand invited guest walked through the glare of spotlights while newsreel photographs turned their cranks and candid camera fans sniped from the sidelines." Crowds poured in to the theatre and turned to the circular proscenium covered with gold leaf and illuminated by hundreds of lights for a preview showing of "Tail Spin."

Story

The $400,000 building (a transformation of an earlier auto dealership) was not just a theatre but included a whole complex with the WFBR radio station and studios, a branch bank office for the Equitable Trust Company, and a garage. Owner Morris A. Mechanic was born in Poland on December 21, 1904 and emigrated to Baltimore with his parents as a child. In 1929, Mechanic worked as the principal at a Hebrew School on West North Avenue and owned a chocolate shop downtown, when he decided to purchase the New Theatre as a real estate investment. The New Theatre's "box-office bonanza" success during a showing of "Sunny Side Up" encouraged him to stick with the theatre business for the rest of his life, owning dozens of theaters over the years before his death of a heart attack in July 1966.

The interior of the Centre Theatre featured a mural symbolizing entertainment and captioned, "Man works by day; night is for romance." by R. McGill Mackall, a MICA-trained Baltimore native who painted 53 large public murals in the city over his career. The design by Philadelphia architect Armand Carroll, described by the Sun as "conservatively modern" with decoration "intended to soothe rather than startle the spectator," won an award for "architectural attainment" from the Baltimore Association of Commerce as the best "Retail Commercial Building" built in 1939. When the theatre opened, Mechanic had an office on the second floor with a window "fitted with special glass... invisible from the theatre, the window permits anyone in the office to see the picture on the screen."

Morris Mechanic closed the theatre, later known as the Film Centre Theatre, on April 16, 1959, after the Equitable Trust Company announced plans to enlarge the complex and move their operations department into the building early in 1960. The bank planned to add a third story and "special dust-free areas... to create the exact atmospheric conditions required for the most efficient use of highly sensitive automated electronic equipment." One example offered for this new equipment included a $55,000 sorting machine that sorted checks and other documents at a rate of 1,000 a minute guided by "magnetic ink" rather than "the familiar punch card holes." The radio station and the bank remained through the 1990s before the theater was turned into a church. Unfortunately, without the resources for essential maintenance the building deteriorated significantly and was mostly abandoned for a decade.

In 2011, Jubilee Baltimore acquired the building at auction for $93,000 and started working to redevelop the sadly neglected site. In partnership with Johns Hopkins University and Maryland Institution College of Art (MICA), along with support from the American Communities Trust and TRF, Jubilee Baltimore restored the exterior back to its original appearance, lit up the marquee, and transformed the interior into offices and community space for film screenings, music, classrooms, galleries, and more. The Centre Theater reopened to the public in 2015.

Related Resources

Official Website

Street Address

10 E. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21218
Centre Theatre (1939)
Centre Theatre (1939)
Equitable Trust Company (1971)
Equitable Trust Company (1971)
Detail, Centre Theatre (2012)
Centre Theatre (2012)
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