Opened: Sometime around 1909. It gets a listing under theatres in the 1909 city directory as J.U. Imoto, as Weinstein & Levi in 1910, and for a Mr. Hamada in 1912. All the listings use a 414 E. 1st address.
In the 1914 city directory it's as the Pearl Theatre, 416 E. 1st. In the 1915 and 1916 city directories it's listed as the Pearl at 414 E. 1st. It was on the south side of the street between Central Ave. and Alameda St.
The theatre was also known as the Toyo-za. Toyo is a silken fiber used for making hats in Japan. This was the second Japanese language film house in Los Angeles, following the opening in 1907 of the International Theatre, also known as the Bankoku-za.
Thanks to UCLA researchers Ashley Huendo and Sagarika Roychoudhury for researching the Japanese name of the theatre as part of their 2020 project documenting early foreign language theatres in L.A. See the listings they've assembled on Map Hub. A companion timeline is on Time Mapper. Also see the related UCLA site Architectural Reconstructions on Broadway.
Closing: Perhaps 1916 was it. It's not in the 1917 or 1918 city directories. In 1916 it was advertised for sale in the Japanese language newspaper Rafu Shimpo.
The south side of the 400 block where the Pearl once was is gone. Here it's seen as being used for the big dig for the Metro Connector. Photo: Bill Counter - 2019
More information: The Toyo-za is noted in the 1990 article "The Exhibition of Films for Japanese Americans in Los Angeles in the Silent Film Era" by Junko Ogihara that appeared on pages 81-87 of Film History, volume 4 number 2. It's a publication of Indiana University Press. The article lists the location as at the corner of 1st and Alameda.
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