Opened: The Central Theatre opened in 1929 or a bit earlier as a conversion from retail space in a three-story building that dated from perhaps 1900. The first listing for the theatre in a city directory is 1929. It was on the east side of the street right just north of the Cozy Theatre and right across the street from the Million Dollar. The March 1955 image is a detail from a Palmer Connor photo in the Huntington Library collection. That's the Bradbury Building on the left.
Seating: 562
Status: The theatre was running as late as 1956. It's in the phone directory that year. The building was demolished prior to 1960 with the site becoming a parking lot. The current single story building on the site dates from 1988.
A section of a 1931 insurance map from the Los Angeles Public Library's collection showing the Cozy and Central theatres. The Bradbury Building is on the far right, the Central Theatre to the left of Wilson Ct. Thanks to ace theatre explorer Michelle Gerdes for the photograph.
An interior view:
A look up an aisle toward the lobby. The 1940 Dick Whittington Studio photo was taken as documentation following an accident claim. The USC Digital Library has this shot plus two similar ones taken at the same time.
More exterior views:
c.1900 - Looking north on Broadway toward 3rd. That's the tower of City Hall in the distance. It's a detail from a photo in the California Historical Society's C.C. Pierce collection that's on the USC Digital Library website.
The Gilbert Block building this side of the Bradbury with the "T. Billington Carpets" signage is the one that would later house the Central Theatre. Earlier there had been trees on the lot. See a nice 1898 view in the USC collection. The Bradbury dates from 1893.
1908 - Looking north toward the Bradbury and City Hall with the 1906 vintage Blackstone Building, future home of the Cozy Theatre, on the right. Beyond is the building that would later house the Central Theatre. Thanks to Paul Ayers for locating the photo for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook page.
c.1910 - A view of the Bradbury and, on the right, the building that would later be the home of the Central Theatre. The photo is in the Los Angeles Public Library collection from the George H. Wyman Archive. Wyman supervised construction of the Bradbury and is generally credited as the designer. Sumner Hunt did some preliminary plans.
c.1938 - Across 3rd St. it's the Bradbury Building at 304 S.
Broadway with the shorter Central Theatre building just beyond. The
taller building farther south is the Cozy Theatre building. It's a photo
in the Los Angeles Public Library collection taken for the Works Progress Administration.
On the left
of the photo is the Rindge Building, dating from 1898. It's still on
Broadway. Or part of it is. It's been chopped down to a single story and
is unrecognizable. Also see a 1968 photo in the Library's collection taken after the Rindge got chopped. On the far right is a bit of the marquee of the Million Dollar Theatre, here still using milk glass letters.
1940s - A look south with the Central's marquee visible on the left beyond the Bradbuty and the Million Dollar across the street. Thanks to Paul Ayers for sharing this photo from his collection on a Facebook post.
1955 - A photo looking north toward the Bradbury Bldg. and 3rd St. taken by Palmer Connor in March. It's in the Huntington Library collection. The photo at the top of a page is a detail from this image.
1955 - The Central is on the far left in this view from Eric Lynxwiler's collection on Flickr. Thanks, Eric! A version of the photo from Marc Wanamaker's Bison Archives appears on page 23 of the 2008 Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres in Los Angeles" by Suzanne Tarbell Cooper, Amy Ronnebeck Hall and Mr. Wanamaker. The page with the photo is included in the book's preview on Google Books. It's available on Amazon.
1960 - A photo by Jack E. Boucher from the Library of Congress collection showing the Central Theatre's site as a parking lot between the Bradbury Building and the Cozy. It was taken as part of a Historic American Buildings Survey of the Bradbury. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for finding it in the collection.
1964 - Another view of the Central's site as a parking lot. It's a photo taken during LBJ's visit to Los Angeles. Thanks to Sean Ault for spotting the photo on eBay. See Noirish Los Angeles contributor Ethereal Reality's Noirish post #32956 for this photo and five more from the LBJ visit.
The Central Theatre in the Movies:
In "Footlight Parade" (Warner Bros., 1933) we're set in New York but we get a quick blurry shot of the Central and Cozy theatres as we're speeding down Broadway in a bus rushing performers between theatres. We also get a quick look at the Million Dollar. See the Historic L.A. Theatres In Movies post for that one.
We're looking south on Broadway in "Between Midnight and Dawn" starring Edmond O'Brien and Gale Storm (Columbia, 1950). The Central, nearest us, is playing "The Counterfeiters" (1948) along with "The Black Cat" with Alan Ladd (1941), and "The Gay Cavalier" (1946). The Cozy is running "Mr. Wise Guy" (1942) and "Intrigue" with George Raft (1947) along with some unreadable third feature. See the Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for another view looking north where we see the signage for the Million Dollar.
We get a view south on Broadway past the Bradbury toward the Central and Cozy theatres for the finale of "The Killer That Stalked New York" (Columbia, 1950). Evelyn Keyes is up on the Bradbury ledge. She was after her two-timing boyfriend but the real killer is that (gasp!) she has brought smallpox in from Cuba.
Looking down on the Central (below) and the Cozy (at the top) in "The Killer That Stalked New York." The Cozy is running a triple bill with "The Big House" as the main feature. See the Historic L.A. Theatres In Movies post on for several more shots from this sequence. It appears that they used some Main St. locations for several of the closeups on the ledge -- the vertical sign for the Hotel Cecil (640 S. Main) appears in a couple shots.
More information: The Central Theatre page on Cinema Treasures has all the known information about this theatre.
See a lovely 1950s downtown map that shows many theatre locations including the Central and the Cozy. It's from a now-vanished website by Tom Wetzel about the history of L.A. transit.
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