The Palace Theatre

1708 Union St. | map |

Opening: This Cow Hollow theatre opened in 1908 in a building that dated from 1906. We're looking at the northwest corner of Union St. and Gough St. The theatre is the second building in. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for finding the September 25, 1908 photo in the SFMTA Photo Archive, their #U01819. A small version appears on the San Francisco Public Library website.

 

A detail from the SFMTA photo. Thanks to Caoimhín Kevin Bunker for sharing the image in a post for the private Facebook group San Francisco History to the 1920s. He notes that one of the titles on the wall includes the words "True Hearts." 

Architects: The building was designed as a store by Norman W. Mohr & Co. with plans dated August 8, 1906. On the plans his office was listed as being located at 1707 Geary. In the 1908 city directory he's listed as being in the Pacific Building. It's not known who designed the renovations to turn it into a theatre in 1908.

John C. Hladik designed a proposed facade remodel in 1925. He had been practicing in town at least since 1909. In the city directory that year his firm is listed as Hladik & Thayer, with partner O.R. Thayer. Gary Parks has plans from both the 1906 and 1925 versions in his collection. See five images from the plans below.

The Palace was running Italian films in 1912. Or at least trying to attract an Italian clientele. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for locating this ad in the September 19 issue of the newspaper L'Italia.

 

Union St. is along the bottom with the Palace indicated as "Moving Pictures" in the lower right of this detail from a 1913 Sanborn Real Estate Survey Map located by Art Siegel in the Library of Congress collection. That's Filbert St. running along the top of the image. Art calls our attention to the Presidio & Ferries car barn there. Gough St. is on the right.

 

Emiliano Echeverria comments: "This is a URR / Muni archives glass plate. Presidio & Ferries Railway, still independent before Muni. URR rebuilt the P & F Ry under contract. This was one of the 'completion' images as URR documented the P & F Rebuild that they did for P & F. That car house became the Car Barn restaurant. Demolished 1980."

Owner W.E. Senn was having union troubles in 1924. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for locating this March 22 story in the Examiner. 

Closing: Around 1926. That was its last city directory listing. Jack Tillmany comments:

"With the bigger and better Metropolitan (later called the Metro) opening just 3 blocks to the west in April 1924, and the still bigger and better Alhambra opening only 3 blocks to the east in November 1926, I wouldn't be surprised that this remodeling never saw light of day. 

 

"We know about the inaccuracy of the city directories, and just exactly WHEN the 1926 directory was compiled is undocumented, so this final entry could easily have been made in late 1925, by which time the impact of the new Metropolitan was already painfully being felt, and no doubt there were rumors in the air about the forthcoming Alhambra."

Status: The building the theatre was in has been demolished and replaced with a 3 story retail/condo building. That great building on the corner is still there.


Plans for the building from the Gary Parks collection:

Gary comments: "The first two drawings show this building constructed as a store, yet the facade looks just like it does in the 1908 photo. Evidently it was a store from 1906-08, and then became a theatre, with minimal exterior changes."

Mohr's design for the facade in 1906. 

A detail of the facade design for the store building. 

Gary comments: "THEN, plans are drawn for a facade remodel (stamped Approved 1925)—a third time that the Gothic facade concept of the Ferry Theatre appears on paper—this time in a necessarily wider interpretation. I wonder if it ever got executed that way?"

Here's the architect's information on the 1925 plans for renovations of the theatre. It's easy to read J.C. Hladik's name, isn't it? The owner was W.E. Senn.

Hladik's proposed facade renovations. 

A detail of the entrance. Gary comments: "Notice a little inconsistency in the repeated ornament along the top of the sloping facade. On the left, there are little Gothic circles, on the right, they are square."

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. 

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