Los Angeles Theatres: Grauman's Chinese: upstairs boxes and offices

A view up the stairs to the booth, the offices, and the two private box areas. The stairs are on the south side of the lobby, inside the doorway leading down to the men's room. On the left, half way up, it's the accounting office. At the top, take a right and you're headed to the house right private box. Photo: Bill Counter - 2019

The upstairs layout, a detail from a second floor plan in the Huntington Library collection. See the full drawing. That's the booth over on the left, flanked by the private boxes. On the right we get the accounting office and manager's office on the house right side of the two-story main lobby. Offices for Sid and his secretary as well as the exit stairs to the forecourt are seen in the lower right.

Somehow a number of Meyer & Holler drawings for the Chinese ended up in the Morgan Walls & Clements Archive at the Huntington. The second floor plan is on their site as image #3870. The set is on ten pages of their site running from image #3864 to image #3873. Thanks to Mike Hume for locating these. Visit the page about the Chinese on his Historic Theatre Photography site as well as his Index to the MW&C Drawings. There's also an index by Mike Callahan on Internet Archive.

The skylit reception area upstairs. Photo: Bill Counter - 2019

The corridor behind the booth looking west -- the booth is behind the wall on the right. See the page on the projection booth for photos. The stairs up from the lobby are behind us and off to the left. Back up a bit and take a right to get to the booth entrance and the house right private box. A left down at the end of the corridor will get you to Sid Grauman's office. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012

Another view of the corridor behind the booth. Photo: Michelle Gerdes on Flickr - 2012

A sign directing us to one of the private boxes that flank the booth. Photo: Escott O. Norton - Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation Facebook page - March 2015

The auditorium from the house right box after the Imax renovations. Photo: Wendell Benedetti - LAHTF Facebook page - September 2013. Thanks Wendell!

The view with the curtain open. The new screen is 46' x 94.' Photo: Wendell Benedetti - LAHTF Facebook page - September 2013

A closer view of the cleaned and relamped chandelier. Thanks to Stephen Russo for his September 2013 photo, one that originally appeared on the LAHTF Facebook page.

The auditorium from the house right box during the Imax renovations. Note the peek we get through the steel studs at what's left of the trap room. Over on the left of the photo you can see the height of the stage compared to that of the new auditorium floor. Photo: Bob Freeman - Curbed L.A. - July 2013

Bob's photo appeared with Adrian Glick Kudler's Curbed L.A. article "Inside the Chinese Theatre's 1st Big Makeover in 85 Years." Also on Curbed see an April 30, 2013 story "Touring the Chinese Before it Closes" by Mr. Kudler. The versions of the articles now online are missing the photos that once accompanied them.

A pre-renovation view toward the screen from the house right box. The occasion was a 2013 Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation tour of the building. Photo: Wendell Benedetti - LAHTF Facebook page - April 2013

The view toward the sidewall out of the house left box. Photo: Michelle Gerdes - 2012

The rear of the sidewall house left. Photo: Michelle Gerdes - 2012

The view across from the house left box. Thanks to Michelle Gerdes for this 2012 photo as well as the others appearing here. For more views see her Chinese Theatre set on Flickr.

The rear of the sidewall house right. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012

From the house right box looking across the front of the booth toward the house left wall. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012

The floodlights adjacent to the house right box. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012

The ceiling "doily" as viewed from one of the private boxes. It's a pre-Imax renovation view. Photo: Stephen Russo - LAHTF Facebook page - 2013

The frosted glass windows in Sid's office. These are the windows looking onto the forecourt on the west side of the theatre entrance. Photo: Stephen Russo - LAHTF Facebook page - 2012

The office is L-shaped. These are the windows facing west. In the corridor outside the office, there's a set of stairs leading down to the west side of the forecourt. Photo: Stephen Russo - LAHTF Facebook page - 2012

Stephen Stanton notes: "Stephen Russo's photo of the etched windows shows a picture on the wall from May 1984 when Steven Spielberg & George Lucas put their hand & footprints in the forecourt. I was there that day and am fairly certain the man in the photo pressing on Steven's foot is District Manager Alan Bamossy -- who actually worked out of Sid's office in the 1980s."

Another office window view. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012

The desk in the office -- obviously not the one Sid used. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012

Sid Grauman's office window. Photo: Stephen Stanton - 1981

Thanks to actor Stephen Stanton for the use of his photos taken when he was a manager at the theatre in the early 80s. You can find him on IMDb and Facebook.