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.
"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.
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:
"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.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.
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.
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 the 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.
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.
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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Featured in 1955 film "Illegal" with Edward G. Robinson.
ReplyDeleteA nice little film! We do get a fine shot of Main St. in "Illegal," but it doesn't show the Rosslyn Theatre. It's the east side of the 500 block -- with the Galway and Burbank theatres. https://theatresinmovies.blogspot.com/2020/05/illegal.html
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