1329 Fillmore St. | map |
Opened: The 1,000 seat version of the New Fillmore opened March 18, 1915. The location was on the west side of the street between Ellis and Eddy. The auditorium was parallel to the street, accessed via a long lobby.
A bit in Moving Picture World about the 1915 opening. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for finding the article. He reports that the first city directory listing he's found for the New Fillmore was June 1915 with the first telephone directory listing in the June 1, 1915 edition. The theatre didn't start advertising in the Chronicle until February 1916.
Kahn and Greenfield also had the New Mission, 2550 Mission St., and the Progress Theatre, 1525 Fillmore. Earlier they also had operated the Premium/Quality Theatre at 1305 Fillmore and the All Star/Victory at 2030 Sutter, a theatre that ended up as the Sutter.
Architects: The firm for the 1915 building is unknown.
Seating: 800 is one number that has popped up for the 1915 auditorium. How about 1,000? That was the perhaps inflated number used in a 1916 Moving Picture World article.
This article in the July 15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World noted: "Kahn & Greenfield have a splendid foothold in the Fillmore district with the New Fillmore and Progress theaters located within a block of each other. The former is one of the finest houses in the city and was opened a little more than a year ago. It has a seating capacity of 1,000 and features the Paramount program at ten cents. Joseph E. Levin is manager. The Progress theater nearby was recently remodeled and the price of admission raised to ten cents, Triangle and Metro services being used. It seats 800. For a time Kahn & Greenfield also had two other houses in this district, but disposed of these in order to give more attention to the two largest ones."
This photo spread appeared as part of an ad in the September 2, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World. The New Fillmore is on top with mini-circuit's other two houses on the bottom. Note that here in this 1916 ad we have an early version of the facade. That furniture store to the right of the theatre's entrance was once the home of the 1909 Camera Phone Theatre.
Thanks to Charmaine Zoe for finding the collage and adding it to her delightful Vintage Cinemas: California album on Flickr, a compendium of many interesting trade magazine items. The full page can be seen on Internet Archive, along with the rest of the issue.
Use post-1917: After a new auditorium was built along the side of the 1915 theatre, the old theatre was used as an auxiliary lobby space which could also be used for separate events. A dance floor was installed. They thought perhaps their patrons might want to dance a bit before seeing the film. Projection capability was retained. An open court between the two buildings was also available to patrons. It's unknown how long it was kept in use as an event space. It survived until both buildings were demolished c.1970.
The only interior view of the 1915 theatre is this one taken by Steve Levin as both it and the 1917 auditorium were being demolished. Here we're looking toward the proscenium. Note the hood onstage for popping popcorn. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for his copy of the photo. The Levin collection is now with the Theatre Historical Society.
A larger auditorium added: In 1917 another auditorium was added beside the 1915 building. The original entrance, via a remodeled lobby, now served the new auditorium -- you just walked a bit farther before taking a left to get into the house. The new auditorium opened October 4, 1917 with "On the Level" with Fannie Ward as the initial film.
There was no stage to speak of. It was designed just for movies. It was noted that there was room for an expansion should it be desired to add vaudeville. The screen end of both old and new buildings faced Eddy St. There was, of course, a full orchestra. And an "immense orchestral pipe organ" provided by American Photoplayer. The facade got "an ornamental addition and an immense electric sign." In a Moving Picture World item located by Jack Tillmany it was noted that "An automobile entrance on Eddy St. is an innovation, and there is a turntable to expedite the return of the machine st the street."
Architects: Reid Brothers did the 1917 auditorium at a reported cost of $200,000. Timothy Pflueger did a 1935 remodel.
Seating: The new auditorium had 2,300 seats.
A 1917 opening night ad for the (new) New Fillmore. Thanks to Kevin Walsh for the share on the
BAHT page of Stephanie Hall's post on San Francisco Remembered. Jack Tillmany calls our attention to that line saying it was "The Uptown Theater." John Freeman did some investigation about the practice of referring to the Fillmore as "Uptown":
"San Francisco identified parts of the city in interesting ways. The retail and entertainment core was called 'Downtown' - from before 1900. Then you had neighborhoods that were popular venues for entertainment and restaurants, like 'North Beach.' But as the Western Addition expanded, there developed a core along Fillmore Street that competed for retail and entertainment too, but calling it 'Western Addition' or 'Fillmore' didn’t have the image the merchants wanted. They wanted a strong image to Downtown so started using the term 'Up-Town' or 'Uptown' to establish the contract, a trend-setting area of retail and entertainment.
"I did a spot search using 'uptown' in the digital SF Chronicle in 1905 and in the post-quake years - plenty of examples in articles, entertainment promotional (promotions of each weeks shows), and advertisements where 'Uptown' gets used. After the 1906 earthquake & fire, Fillmore Street was already a commercial, retail and entertainment destination, BUT the ONLY VIABLE choice that was not burned out in the fire. Mission Street around 22nd St. did an anemic attempt to draw some of the spending survivors or new arrivals, but Fillmore Street was HOT.
"The Fillmore Merchants’ Association was VERY aggressive promoting their merchants. Downtown was rubble or under reconstitution, so on New Years Eve 1906/1907, Fillmore Street was where people were to meet to celebrate. Jack and I have played around with the list of 90-day wonder fire-trap nickelodeons in the Fillmore St. area in 1906 - 1909. But the area was more than just the street, Uptown could define that larger area for years to come. Here’s an example from SF Chronicle August 26, 1906 '…work on the new uptown Orpheum at the corner of Steiner and O’Farrell streets is progressing rapidly.' I choose this quote because it’s entertainment, in an article identifying it as 'uptown' even though the Orpheum never had any association with the Alcazar.
"That’s what my research shows to explain the use of Uptown for that section of San Francisco. It wouldn’t be sustained, especially when the real estate and business interest branded new appellations calling them Lower Pacific Heights, Alamo Square, Hayes Valley and Western Addition that cover the traditional historic Western Addition, that area between Van Ness to Divisadero, California to about McAllister."
Louis Greenfield, the surviving partner of Kahn & Greenfield, discussed the history of the circuit in "Public Is Boss Slogan, Key To Success,"
an article in the December 9, 1922 issue of the San Francisco Call.
Thanks to Art Siegel for locating it via the California Digital
Newspaper Collection. The circuit was also discussed in "Good Luck Fairy's Magic Wand Nothing But Hard Work...," a
story that appeared in the December 10, 1922 issue of
the Chronicle.
The theatre was remodeled in 1935 by Timothy Pflueger in a deco style for the Nasser Brothers, then the operators. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for finding this ad in the December 21 Chronicle on Newsbank.
Status: It closed as a film house in May 1957, stood vacant for years, and both the 1915 and 1917
New Fillmore buildings were demolished as part of an urban
renewal project around 1970.
Interior views:
Another article noted "Broad inclines in the new house provide easy access to the loge section and balcony, from any part of which a view of the screen is obtained. Indirect lighting systems in the new playhouse cleverly reveals the delicate tinting of walls and ceiling without garish display or interference with the screen play. The French gray finish of orchestra chairs and interior woodwork harmonizes with the restful decorative scheme."
The new theatre was discussed in the December 22, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World. It's on Internet Archive. Thanks to Bob Ristelhueber for finding the article and posting it on the BAHT Facebook page.
A 1920 view looking north on Fillmore from Eddy St. Note the remodeled facade compared with the first version. If we were to take a left on Eddy, we'd see the stagehouses of both the 1915 and 1917 theatres. It's a photo from the scrapbooks of Jesse Brown Cook in the Bancroft Library's collection appearing on Calisphere.
A detail from the 1920 photo above. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for grabbing it and noting that beyond the Fillmore we see a bit of the facade of the former Cameraphone at 1331 Fillmore St.
A 1939 photo from the Jack Tillmany collection of a billboard advertising "Winter Carnival" and "Island of Lost Men."
He comments: "It's promoting a double feature program playing at both New Mission and New Fillmore in November 1939. This was the initial 2nd run neighborhood release for these 2 films, after having already been shown first run, downtown, a month or so earlier. That's the NW corner of Alemany & Onondaga. Line #12 ran from 5th & Market, out Mission, Ocean Avenue, and Sloat Blvd. to the Zoo, until 1948.
"Once upon a time all the major first run venues and even some of the nabes, such as New Mission and New Fillmore, promoted their films with colorful 24-sheet billboards, maintained by Foster & Kleiser, at high visibility locations all over the City, in the days when there was an abundance of such vacant lots, which, before they were 'developed,' provided no other source of revenue for their owners."
A 1943 view from the Jack Tillmany collection. He says: "Note the different New Fillmore vertical in this 15 October 1943 photo. (Yes, I know, those are 1941 films, but these are re-runs.) It's the original New Mission vertical which was moved over to the New Fillmore when the New Mission got their new one in 1936."
A July 1948 view north from Turk St. taken by Waldemar Sievers. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for spotting it on the Open SF History Project website.
Neither the old house or its replacement went straight back -- both auditoria were parallel to Fillmore St. with the backstage wall facing Eddy St. Here, in a c.1970 pre-demo photo taken by Steve Levin, we're looking north from Eddy St. toward Ellis. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for his copy of the photo.
On the left is the back wall of the Princess Theatre on Ellis St. At the center is the backstage wall of the (new) New Fillmore. Note the bump out for the speaker system. To the right is the back wall of the (old) New Fillmore.
Thanks to Jack Tillmany for the research. He muses: "But waidda minnutt! Doesn't the facade of New Fillmore #2 sorta match up with the rear end of what's supposed to be #1 in the 1970 Eddy Street photo? Could they have done an Idle Hour/New Mission treatment on that one also, starting out with the smaller one, whose [new] front end and [old] rear end seemed to match, then knocking thru the wall and building the larger auditorium later?"
It's possible. Build the fancy new entrance for the old theatre. Then add the auditorium. But we know it was all done (in whatever stages) by October 1917.
The 1917 blueprints: Thanks to Gary Parks for the shots from the drawings in his collection. They were a post on the BAHT Facebook page where he comments:
"Reid Bros. Blueprints of the theatre, as originally designed (before its expansion). These photos represent the 'money shots' of the blueprint set--that is, most of the sheets which show decorative surfaces. The drawings are titled 'Theatre and Store Bldg. for J.R. Hanify.' Seating total on the floorplan is listed as 701.
"The facade profile confirms that it was the lower part of what became the taller 'New' New Fillmore facade. Much ornament was stripped off the lower portion (depicted here) when the taller addition was made. The Fillmore and Eddy St. exteriors--cornices, quoins, swags--were apparently fabricated as drawn. The interior clearly shows it was intended to simply be a picture house. There was a tiny orchestra pit, and the screen was mounted against the back wall, with what is labeled a 'platform' (as opposed to 'stage') in front of the screen.
"The proscenium was framed by fluted columns and pilasters, as the Reids would design again for the new auditorium of the Fillmore's expansion, and would do again for the design of San Francisco's New Mission, and the Orpheus, in San Rafael. Blueprints: Gary Lee Parks Collection, formerly Gary Goss collection."
Thanks, Gary!
More information: Jack Tillmany's Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres of San Francisco" can be previewed on Google Books. It's available from Amazon or your local bookseller.
The New Fillmore has a page on Cinema Treasures.
A map of Jazz Clubs, and a few theatres, from the book "Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era." It's reproduced on a page of the site The New Fillmore. Thanks to Todd Jay for locating this.
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