638 S. Alvarado St. Los Angeles, CA 90057 | map |
Also see: Westlake Theatre - interior views
Opened:
September 22, 1926 by West Coast Theatres. The opening attraction was
"Other Women's Husbands" plus a Fanchon and Marco stage show. The Westlake was operated for decades by Fox West Coast, the company that West Coast Theatres morphed into in 1929. This pre-opening view is from the Herald Examiner collection at the Los Angeles Public Library. On the marquee: "Grand premiere opening Wednesday September 22 - 'A Night of Nights' Stars! Lights!"
A differently cropped version of the photo appeared in the October 30, 1926 issue of Exhibitors Herald. Thanks to Mike Hume for finding the issue on Internet Archive. The page the photo is on also included two interior views. The caption noted:
News about the grand opening appearing in the September 18, 1926 issue of the Hollywood Daily Citizen. Thanks to Lisa Kouza Braddock for locating it.
In 1935 S. Charles Lee was involved in a decorative upgrade during a short closure. A Friday, March 22 L.A. Times article located by Mike Hume noted:
"Following the performance next Sunday evening, the Fox Westlake Theater, 636 South Alvarado street, will curtail operations for a period of two weeks, during which time extensive remodeling and redecoration will be in progress."
A section drawing from CBRE. The green again designates the office areas separate from the theatre. The yellow main floor area is swapmeet space or available for other use. The pink they've designated as storage.
This November 8, 1927 article in the L.A. Times gave the house the circuit's preview record. Among the titles note the Vitaphone release "The Jazz Singer." But this was almost certainly a silent version. The film had its west coast premiere engagement beginning December 28 downtown at the Criterion Theatre.
Fox West Coast had a new chief, M.S. Leve, beginning in early December 1959. And later that month, perhaps coincidentally, it dropped the Westlake from the circuit. An item in the January 5, 1960 issue of Film Daily noted: "N.P. 'Red' Jacobs, president of Favorite Films of California, has purchased the Westlake Theatre and building, Los Angeles, and assumed active operation on Dec. 30. The deal was consummated with Fox West Coast, which operated the 1,900 seat house for many years."
A January 13, 1960 L.A. Times ad for the Westlake, operated by Favorite as an independent house. Thanks to Mike Hume for the ad as well as for locating the Film Daily item. Visit his Historic Theatre Photography site for historical information as well as thousands of his great photos of the theatres he's explored in the L.A. area and elsewhere.
Later it was taken over by Metropolitan Theatres and ended its
movie days as a Spanish language film house. The neon roof sign got a renovation in 1987 as part of the MacArthur Park Public
Art Program. It hasn't been on recently except two blue curlicues on the bottom. When the theatre opened in 1926 the sign was incandescent, not neon.
Closing: 1991. Metropolitan Theatres sold the building after the closing to Mayer Separzdeh who proceeded to remove the seats and level
the main floor with a new concrete slab. It reopened as a
swap meet. The balcony was not in use during the swap meet days.
The
City of Los Angeles, alarmed at the possibility of additional
alterations, declared the building a Cultural Historic Monument in
September 1991. In addition to buying the theatre in 2008, the city's Community Redevelopment Agency
also acquired some surrounding parcels.
This concept for a mixed use project designed by Utopiad
was floated in 2008 but went nowhere as no interested developers
materialized. Some
CRA news in 2009 had a slightly different proposal for the theatre. It
surfaced in an L.A. Times article: "A home sweet home for Culture Clash in MacArthur Park?" Culture Clash is a local Latino theatre troupe. That was the last of the Community Redevelopment Agency's proposals.
The swap meet operation was closed in 2011. With the 2012 state-wide
disbanding of CRA-type agencies there was a triage going on of the
agency's assets. CRA/LA became the city's operation to
wind down the affairs of the CRA. Some properties were sold,
some the new agency assumed ownership of (such
as the
Westlake), and some seemed to be in endless deliberation.
Eddie Kim did a November 2013 story in the L.A. Downtown News about the process of unloading the properties. There was hope at the time that a
viable project would eventually materialize to renovate the theatre and
create a mixed use building around it.
The theatre finally emerged from post-CRA limbo and in 2016 the City of
Los Angeles issued a Request For Proposals
to redevelop the theatre and adjacent
property they owned. A requirement would have been restoration of the
theatre as a live
performance venue along with whatever else penciled out for the other
properties to benefit the
community: offices, retail, hotel, parking, whatever. They were looking
for a developer with "a strong understanding of the unique
urban fabric and historic and cultural assets of the Westlake
community."
Even after giving tours and extending their deadline for proposals there
were no takers so the theatre was then marketed as a stand-alone
property with no restrictions on its use. Curbed L.A. had a July 2017
article, "Historic Westlake Theatre next to MacArthur Park is for sale." On January 11, 2018 the Oversight Board for CRA/LA unanimously approved the
sale of the theatre to 634 Alvarado, LLP, for $2 million. Cushman & Wakefield was the broker for the sale.
A new owner: The purchaser was a partnership controlled by Dr. David Lee of Jamison Services, a firm with a real estate portfolio with an estimated value of $4 billion, making him the
largest private landlord in L.A. County. A pdf of the sales contract is online. Lee was profiled in a September 2016 article in The Real Deal. His daughter, Jaime Lee, is CEO of the firm. She was profiled in an April 2017 article in CSQ. Thanks to Mike Hume/Historic Theatre Photography for the research. Other than the historic designations protecting the facade, there are no
stipulations going with the sale that restrict the future use of the
building.
"Historic Westlake Theatre sells for $2M,"
a March 8, 2018 Curbed L.A. piece by Bianca Barragan, discussed the
deal
and noted that the new owners intended to restore the theatre. Well,
that latter part was fake news.
It appears they just wanted to lease it out to whatever user it might
attract.
With no takers to lease the building, Jamison Services started
advertising a sale as a possibility in 2019. Property Shark has a listing for the parcel. Several different brokers tried offering the theatre either for sale or lease and by itself or combined with other nearby properties. There were no takers.
Status: In the spring of 2022 the owner reopened the building as a swapmeet. The retail spaces adjacent to the theatre entrance are rented and, as of September, several stalls had been rented in the rear of the auditorium. The stairs to the balcony are walled off and there's also currently a wall in place closing off the auditorium forward of the front of the balcony. Most of the theatre's decor remains intact. In mid-2023 it was for sale again. CBRE had the listing for a while but there were no takers.
More exterior views:
1926 - The Westlake running "Tin Gods" with Thomas Meighan and Renee Adoree. Also on the bill was Fanchon & Marco's "Variety Ideas." It's a photo by the Dick Whittington Studio that's in the USC Digital Library collection.
The photo is part of a set of 21 pictures of theatres and other buildings. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor Godzilla for finding the set and including this one on his Noirish post #17461. Note on the vertical sign they're styling it "West Lake" with a space in the middle.
1929 - "On the walk around the lake, Westlake Park, Los Angeles, California." Note the postmark on this card that was located by Sean Ault. He comments: "This postcard flew on the Zeppelin in 1929 on the last leg of its record-setting around the world flight that stopped in L.A."
1936 - Looking east from Parkview Avenue toward the Westlake's roof sign. Construction had begun on this stretch of Wilshire Blvd. through the park. It's a Los Angeles Public Library photo.
1936 - Construction continuing through Westlake Park in an October Los Angeles Public Library photo.
1936 - A view east after the completion of Wilshire Blvd. across the lake. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for posting the photo on the Facebook page Photos of Los Angeles. Here the signage still says "West Coast Westlake Theatre." The circuit had become Fox West Coast in 1929.
c.1938 - A wonderful postcard view of Westlake Park and the theatre's roof sign from Sean Ault's collection. Thanks, Sean! Another version of the card appears on the LAHTF Facebook page as a post by Kimberly Vinokur Reiss.
c.1938 - A lovely view of the sign at night. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for finding the photo for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook page.
1938 - A Life magazine photo by Peter Stackpole. It makes an appearance on "Life in Los Angeles circa 1938," a Blackwatch blog post about the car culture of Los Angeles. Blackwatch gives us this quip by an unknown author: “They say in L.A. there are only two methods of transportation - car and ambulance."
c.1946 - It's a view through the park by an unknown photographer. The "Now Playing" area above the readerboard had been blacked out, perhaps during WWII when the sign wouldn't have been lit. The copy below: "Let's go out to a movie. Fox West Coast Theatres - The place to go." Thanks to Eric Lynxwiler for sharing the photo from his collection on Flickr. Transit historian Sean Ault notes that the model of bus we see was introduced in L.A. in 1946.
1950s - A look east across the bridge in the renamed MacArthur Park. Thanks to Dave Urov for posting the photo on the Facebook page Vintage Los Angeles.
1950s - A view across the lake toward the theatre and a now-vanished boathouse. Thanks to Michelle Gerdes for sharing the photo from her collection. Note that the "Now Playing" readerboard on the roof sign had been removed.
1950s - An idyllic postcard view looking across the lake toward the Westlake's roof sign. It's from the Richard Wojcik collection on the Facebook page Vintage Los Angeles.
1965 - A look across the lake toward the theatre from the Sean Ault collection. Also see a similar stereo view from Sean's collection on the Facebook group Photos of Los Angeles that was taken in 1955, shortly after the park was renamed to honor General MacArthur. Thanks, Sean!
1978 - Looking north on Alvarado. It's a shot posted by Ken McIntyre on Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group.
c.1980 - A fanciful postcard, "Los Angeles, the City at the End of the Rainbow," with the Westlake Theatre over on the left. Thanks to Sean Ault for the find.
c.1989 - "Un macho en el reformatorio de señoritas" was a June 1989 release. Thanks to Lisa Kouza Braddock for spotting this shot when it was offered on eBay. The theatre closed in 1991.
c.2005 - A facade view from Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. They have a great portfolio of photos of ruined or decaying theatres around the country called Theaters (2005-2021) on their website. Also see their very interesting Ruins of Detroit section.
2006 - A key shop closeup. Photo: Sean Ault
2008 - Need a key at the re-purposed boxoffice? It's a photo from Ken McIntyre appearing on Photos of Los Angeles.
2015 - A view-by-drone as the craft rises southwest of the Westlake Theatre. Photo: Ian Wood, from "Los Angeles," his stunning seven minute tour on Vimeo.
2017 - Howard Gray looked across the park toward the closed theatre. This photo and the two below were featured in a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook page but seem to have vanished from that platform.
2017 - A view of the boxoffice taken by Sandi Hemmerlein that appeared with her Avoiding Regret photo essay "Down the Rabbit Hole..." Thanks, Sandi. And sorry that the explorations didn't go well.
We see the roof sign of the Westlake in this shot from Fred Zinnemann's "Act of Violence" (MGM, 1948). Van Heflin is at a builders and contractors convention in Los Angeles and running to avoid a potentially deadly confrontation with Robert Ryan, a man who was in his unit in World War II. Janet Leigh plays Van Heflin's wife and Mary Astor is a call girl who tries to help him. Phyllis Thaxter plays Ryan's wife. The cinematography is by Robert Surtees.
There was a
lot of filming in MacArthur Park and on the streets of the
Westlake neighborhood in Guy Green's "A Patch
of Blue" (MGM, 1965). Sidney Poitier stars as a young guy who befriends
an isolated and unschooled blind girl played by Elizabeth Hartman. We
get a brief distance view of the Westlake Theatre as Hartman and her
grandfather are walking to the park.
See the Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for a couple of shots of the nearby Lake and Alvarado/Park Theatres.
Eugene Levy (in black leather) and John Candy (in drag) meetup with Meg Ryan at Westlake Park in Mark Lester's "Armed and
Dangerous" (Columbia, 1986).
The cinematography was by Fred
Schuler. Thanks to Sean Ault for spotting the theatre in the film. See
the Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for a closer shot of the trio in the park plus views of the Paramount, the Egyptian, the Cave Theatre and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
More information: See the Cinema Treasures
page on the Westlake Theatre for oodles more historical data and
recollections by many contributors. The page also has links to more
photos from a variety of sources. The Cinema Tour page has several photos from Ken Roe.
A 2019 Abandoned America post about the theatre features fine interior photos by Matthew Christopher. A May 2014 Curbed L.A.story "Mapping the Huge Wave of Gentrification About To Hit Westlake" discusses new housing, transit accessibility and two other nearby theatres in the news: the Hayworth and the Playhouse/Teragram Ballroom.
Sandi Hemmerlein details her adventures at the Westlake in a 2017 Avoiding Regret photo essay "Down the Rabbit Hole..." Check out the 2017 post photographer Matt Lambros did on the Westlake for his After The Final Curtain blog.
Don't miss the terrific article Hadley Meares did for KCET in 2014: "Sign of the Times: Sensation, Scandal and Salvation at Westlake Theater." It's part of their "Lost Landmarks" series.
A February 2018 L.A. Times article by Ruben Vives "As crime and drugs recede..." discusses changes in the area as well as the new Lake on Wilshire project that will include a performing arts center in a 41 story tower. See the five minute 2008 "Tour of the Westlake Theatre" by Pico Union Now on YouTube.
An earlier Westlake Theatre:
The 1912 and 1913 city directories list a Westlake Theatre at 680 S.
Alvarado. There's a listing started for it but not much more information yet.
Pages about the Westlake Theatre: | back to top - history and exterior views | interior views
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