Rosslyn Theatre

431 S. Main St. Los Angeles, CA 90013 | map |

Opened: Perhaps 1925 in what had been retail space in the original four story Rosslyn Hotel Building. It's in the 1925 city directory. We're looking south toward 5th St. in this slightly cropped version of a February 1954 photo by Palmer Connor that's in the Huntington Library collection. 

The building was originally the Lindsey Hotel and became the Rosslyn around 1893 when acquired by the Hart Bros. The Rosslyn Hotel name later encompassed the building south of the original building (the Hotel Lexington) as well as 2 larger buildings constructed on both the northwest (1914) and southwest (1923) corners of 5th and Main.

Architect: Robert Brown Young designed the 1890 vintage building. It's unknown who designed the buildout of the space as a theatre.

Seating: Ken Roe reports that the 1941 and 1943 Film Daily Yearbooks give it a capacity of 350. In 1950 and 1952 they say it was 270. 

A September 5, 1926 L.A. Times listing for the Rosslyn located by Cinema Treasures contributor Jeff Bridges noted that on the 6th and 7th they would be running "Miss Bluebeard," September 8-10 would be "Tiger Love" and on September 11 the feature would be "Say It Again."

 

Looking for a projectionist in 1929. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for spotting the ad to post as a comment on the private Facebook group Photos of Los Angeles. 

 

 

 

A detail from a 1931 Sanborn insurance map from the Los Angeles Public Library's collection showing the Rosslyn Theatre at the center at 431. Over on the right it's the Muse Theatre at 417. Thanks to Michelle Gerdes for taking the photo.

 

A July 1932 ad for "Platinum Blonde." Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating it for another thread about the theatre for the Photos of Los Angeles group.

 

"Open Day & Night." The Rosslyn was pushing the limits of what could be shown with their 1935 engagement of "Elysia, Valley of the Nude." Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating the ad for a post for the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook group. This ran several inches below an ad for the "Pilgrimage Play," a slightly more Biblical entertainment. 

The Rosslyn had a stage show called "Girlesque" running sometime around 1936. See a photo and some comments lower on the page. 

Rosslyn operator Harold Richards was in trouble in 1937. Thanks to Jeff Bridges for finding this May 9 L.A. Times article headlined "Lobby Pictures Land Three Theater Owners In Jail." The other theatres mentioned were the Gayety Theatre at 523 S. Main and the Lark Theatre at 613 S. Main. The news:

"Last night a collection of lithographs showing rotund young women in Gypsy Rose Lee postures but with less habiliments than La Lee customarily wears, lay scattered in a squad room of Central Police Station. The officers there were yawning or reading detective stories. And in the City Jail were three proprietors of Main street burlesque and honky-tonk shows, charged with suspicion of violation of the law governing lewd and indecent display of pictures in theater lobbies.

"The three are Harold Richards, 35 years of age, proprietor of a theater at 431 South Main street; Robert Levy, 21, showman of 523 South Main street, and John Revis, 23, 613 South Main street. The showmen, according to Detective Lieutenant C.M. Buxton, in charge of the vice squad detail raiding the theaters, refused to heed a police warning against displaying the posters. The lithographs over which the officers at Central Station yawned were confiscated in the raid."

Status: Running into 1954 at least. The building was eventually demolished for a parking garage.

 

c.1905 - A C.C. Pierce photo of the original Rosslyn Hotel building, long before one of the storefronts on the right was converted into the Rosslyn Theatre. The Lexington Hotel at the left later became part of the Rosslyn operation. It's a Los Angeles Public Library photo. Also see a c.1900 photo in the collection. 

 

c.1910 - The building that would later house the theatre is the second one in on the left, right above the "Arcade Depot" streetcar. The Muse Theatre would later be up the block at 417, in that building with "Bros." on the side. The arched south side of the Van Nuys/Barclay Hotel can be seen up at 4th St. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating the card for a post for the private Facebook group Photos of Los Angeles.

 

c.1920 - Looking north from 5th at three of the Rosslyn buildings. The theatre would later be a conversion of retail space in the beige one. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for finding the card.

 

c.1936 - A view taken for Life magazine by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor BifRayRock for including this one along with many other Life shots on his Noirish post # 40990.

Scott Collette included a slightly different take of this shot (with a man in the doorway on the right) in a survey of Main St. burlesque theatres for his Forgotten Los Angeles Facebook page. He also has the album on Instagram. He notes that "thrift_store_rescues," an Instagram follower of his, identified this location as the Rosslyn.

 

Scott added this "between-the-legs" detail to his post and calls our attention to the 431 address numbers that are revealed. He comments:

"Tried finding more info on the 'Girlesque' show and learned there was actually once an unrelated Girlesque Theatre one block away which was shut down in a vice raid in 1930. This appears to be a temporary stop for a touring 'Girlesque Revue,' which debuted at a carnival on the LA County fairgrounds in 1936 and then went on tour around town, also hitting San Pedro and Wilmington."  

 

The 1929-30 difficulties were at the Girlesque Theatre in the Adams Hall Building, 537-547 S. Main St. A couple of years later another Girlesque Theatre surfaced. This one was at 510 S. Main St., a storefront that had been the Rounder Theatre years before. 

1939 - A Dick Whittington Studio photo in the collection of the USC Digital Library. The entrance of the Muse Theatre is down there in the closest of the Hellman Buildings.

 

c.1943 - Thanks to Bill Gabel for the post of this shot on Cinema Treasures. Note in the arch it says "All Western Pictures." Carmen Forquer Nyssen suggested a 1943 date. Her tattoo history website Buzzworthy Tattoo has a story about the photo and the tattoo artists whose signs are visible. Harry Lawson's tattoo shop is depicted in the photo -- he had just moved up from San Diego in 1943 and he was only at this location a short time. 

 

 

c.1943 - A detail from the shot above.

1940s - A California Historical Society photo appearing on the USC Digital Library website. 

c.1948 - The arched entrance of the theatre can be seen in the closest building in this photo spotted by Noirish Los Angeles contributor Ethereal Reality. Thanks to J Scott for the color correction. It's on Noirish post #24779.  

1954 - Another February look south by Palmer Connor. That's the theatre on the right, in the original hotel building. The photo is in the Huntington Library collection.

2019 - Looking south from 4th toward the site of the Rosslyn Theatre in one of the now-vanished hotel buildings. It was where that second slab-like thing now is. Here on the corner it's the Farmers and Merchants Bank, a Morgan and Walls design from 1905. It's now used as an events space. The second structure is the I.W. Hellman Building, now loft apartments. The Muse Theatre at 417 was where the first slab now is. Photo: Bill Counter

2019 - The slab has taken over the site of the early Rosslyn building that housed the theatre. The parking lot to the left once was the site of yet another early Rosslyn Hotel building. Photo: Bill Counter

More information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Rosslyn.

The "Main Street Then and Now" posts on the now-defunct Los Angeles Conservancy Historic Theatre Committee blog have views of the Rosslyn and other theatres on the block. There are lots photos and postcards of the surviving Rosslyn buildings on Flickr.

See a lovely 1950s downtown map that shows many theatre locations including the Rosslyn. It's from a now-vanished website by Tom Wetzel about the history of L.A. transit.  

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