The Broadway / The Committee / Montgomery Playhouse

618 Broadway | map |

Opened: 1909 as the Broadway Theatre. It's listed as such in the 1910 city directory. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for finding the 1910 photo of the Broadway and a penny arcade to the right. The location was on the north side of the street just west of Columbus Ave. In the 1912 city directory they give it an address of 634 Broadway.

Jack notes that in the photo you can barely see the swing-out sign saying Broadway Theatre. Note the Automatic Vaudeville sign above the arcade entrance. That name gets a city directory listing from 1910 to 1912.  The photo is featured in the article "Interview with a Nickelodeon Fiend" that appeared in the August 21, 1910 issue of the San Francisco Call. The page appears on the website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection.

 

An interior view with the Call's article that may have been taken at the Broadway. The article also includes an interior view of the Oriental.

The Broadway and its arcade has also been known as the Broadway Theater & Pennyodion (1913-1916). In the 1913 and 1919 city directories it's listed as the Broadway Theatre at 618 Broadway. It then kept the Broadway Theatre name at least until 1932. In that directory they give it a 620 Broadway address. In the 40s it was an indoor Bocce Ball court.  

It reopened April 10, 1963 as the venue for the satirical revue troupe The Committee ("Stop All Wars!") and ran until December 31, 1972. It then became the Montgomery Playhouse, until around 1979.  

Seating: 500 as a film house

Status: It's now retail -- a hardware store.

 

A 1912 photo from the Richard Schlaich collection showing the Automatic Vaudeville sign above the penny arcade entrance. Note the theatre's swing-out sign above that. 

A detail from the 1912 photo.

A detail from a 1943 photo in the Jack Tillmany collection with the former Broadway Theatre this side of the Verdi sporting Bocce Ball Court signage. 

 A 1946 view west on Broadway. It's a photo from the Jack Tillmany collection. He comments: "An aged Market Street Railway veteran is making one of its last trips to the Union Iron Works on Third Street on Muni's wartime #16 line. If you look very closely, on the same side of the street as the Verdi, you will again see the Broadway Theatre as Bocce Ball Court.."

A 1964 photo by Alan J. Canterbury of the theatre in its days as the home of The Committee. It's in the San Francisco Public Library collection. 

 

 

 

A 1966 photo by Clay Geerdes. Thanks to David Miller for sharing it on the San Francisco Remembered Facebook page. 

Thanks to Jack Tillmany for this photo from his collection.

Thanks to Pam Wigney Fillion for her photo on the Facebook page San Francisco Remembered.

The theatre in its days as the Montgomery Playhouse. It's a photo from the collection of Jack Tillmany that was taken by Tom Gray in April 1978. 

A 2016 look at what had been the Broadway Theatre. The restaurant on the far right is at 620 Broadway, Broadway Hardware is at 622, My Canh restaurant with the blue awning is at 636. The four story building up the block is the 80s building that once had the World Theatre in its basement. It was a replacement for an earlier theatre on the site that dated from 1914. Photo: Google Maps

More information: Jack Tilllmany notes that there's an early photo with the article "An Interview with a Nickelodeon Fiend! What the Pictures Mean to a Lonely Woman!" in the August 21, 1910 issue of the San Francisco Call.

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