Opened: March 11, 1907 as the Orpheum Theatre. This was one of many hastily built playhouses constructed in the aftermath of the April 1906 earthquake and fire that resulted in both the Fillmore and the Mission district becoming thriving entertainment centers.
The Orpheum circuit had lost their original Orpheum Theatre on O'Farrell St. in April 1906. Very soon the organization took over the 3,000 seat wooden Chutes Theatre in the second Chutes Park location at Fulton and 10th. It was called the Orpheum while the circuit was there. That house went back to the Chutes name when the circuit got this Fillmore district house open in 1907.
The theatre was on the south side of Ellis between Fillmore and Steiner. It was just east of the Princess Theatre, a house that also opened in 1907. The c.1907 postcard of the two theatres is on Calisphere from the Museum of Performance and Design Performing Arts Library.
Architects: O'Brien and Werner, who also designed the Princess Theatre next door.
Seating: 1,750 according of the 1907-1908 edition of Henry's Official Western Theatrical Guide. It's on Google Books. They note that it was managed at the time by Jno. Morrissey. 1,600 is a later number that was used.
Thanks to Kevin Walsh for this main floor seating chart from a 1908 guidebook in his collection. It was part of a post on the BAHT Facebook page.
Stage specifications: Proscenium: 34' wide x 36' high | Stage depth: 24' 6" | Wall to wall: 78' | Grid height: 69'. The stage data comes from the 1907-1908 edition of Henry's Official Western Theatrical Guide.
A March 27, 1909 ad for the Orpheum. Thanks to Bob Ristelhueber for finding it for a post on the BAHT Facebook page.
This house was used as the Orpheum until the circuit got the new Orpheum Theatre on O'Farrell St. open in April 1909. Following the move, this venue on Ellis became a film and vaudeville house called the Garrick Theatre.
The theatre was mentioned in "Harris Cites Old Film Days," an article about Sam Harris by George Fischer that appeared in the December 23, 1928 issue of the Examiner:
"At that time in the theater, talent was scarce. The Chutes, then located in Fillmore street and owned by Irving Ackerman, operated a show, and for the benefit of both parties, Harris conceived the idea of interchanging talent. Thus the partnership which has existed ever since was begun. 'Motion pictures were coming in at that time,' continued Mr. Harris, 'and all along Fillmore street stores were showing films to the public. They could hold only one or two hundred people. We wondered if persons who would visit those "flea-houses" would go to a real big, beautiful theater? That is why we bought the old Orpheum theater near Fillmore street. The present O'Farrell street Orpheum had just been completed. We charged 10 cents admission and played to more than 40,000 people a week. We made big money...'"
A wider view of the neighborhood from the 1913 Sanborn Map, this time rotated so north is at the top. That's the Orpheum and Princess in the upper left with Ellis St. across the top. Fillmore St. runs down the middle with the Chutes Theatre and the post-fire layout of Chutes Park in the lower right.
By 1916 the Garrick was operating as a 5 cent film house.
A January 1, 1931 ad for the Bagdad that was located by Jack Tillmany. There had been a previous use of the Bagdad name for a ballroom in the early 1920s for the building at Ocean Beach that ended up as the Friends and Relations Theatre.
The Garrick is seen on the left in pink as a bowling alley and dance hall in this detail from plate 346 of the 1950 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map. Thanks to Aaron Goldstein for finding it on the Library of Congress website. Its neighbor the Princess/Ellis Theatre is shown in blue.
The only interior photo of the theatre to surface is this 1949 view when it was the Bagdad Bowl. Note what looks like seats still in the balcony at the left. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for sharing the photo from his collection.
Status: The Garrick was demolished in the 1970s.
A 1907 photo with the Princess still getting finished. It's from a scrapbook of Hamilton Henry Dobbin that's in the California State Library collection.
A summer 1907 look at the two theatres from a Wild About Harry blog page about Houdini and a rival booked side by side at the two vaudeville houses. They comment:
"In 1907, Houdini was appearing in San Francisco at the Orpheum Theatre on Ellis Street near what's known as the Fillmore District. The Orpheum had relocated to the area while downtown was being rebuilt after the devastating earthquake and fire of 1906. Right next door to the Orpheum was another vaudeville house, The Princess. During the final week of Houdini's engagement, a rival escape artist, Brindamour, was booked into the Princess Theater.
"[The photo is]... from Brindamour's own scrapbook showing the side by side theaters at this time. In fact, you can see a Brindamour poster in front of the Princess. ...Today the Orpheum and Princess are long gone, and Ellis Street has been subdivided with a shopping center and condos.... But it's fun to know that, for one week in 1907, Houdini and Brindamour shared the street as co-handcuff kings." Thanks to Robert Muller for finding the photo.
A May 23, 1908 photo from the San Francisco Public Library collection. We're looking west across Fillmore St. to the Orpheum with the Princess Theatre beyond.
A c.1908 look at the SW corner of Fillmore (on the left) and Ellis (looking west on the right). Note the Orpheum signage on the side of the building and on the stagehouse. The photo, from a private collector, is on the Open San Francisco History Project. It also appeared with a March 2016 article by Bob Bragman on SF Gate "A 100 year look at San Francisco marquees and theaters."
Also see another take done at the same time as the previous photo. It's on the Open SF History Project website.
Thanks to Glenn Koch for this great photo of the oval Orpheum sign coming down in 1909. The sign later appeared on the new Orpheum on O'Farrell St.
A facade view taken after the theatre was renamed the Garrick. It's from the Jack Tillmany collection. There's a cropped version on Calisphere from the Museum of Performance and Design Performing Arts Library that chops off almost all of the Princess.
A lovely 1910 view of the Garrick and Princess. We're looking west from Fillmore St. along Ellis in the heart of the then-thriving theatre district. Note the side wall sign still in that stylized Orpheum script -- but with Garrick replacing Orpheum. Beyond is another legit venue, the Princess. It's a photo on Calisphere from the Jesse Brown Cook scrapbooks in the UCB Bancroft Library collection.
A look northwest across Chutes Park after its May 1911 fire toward the back of the Garrick and Princess theatres. That chunk of building on the far right is the stagehouse of the Chutes Theatre, later rebuilt as the Lyric with an entrance on Fillmore. It finished up as the American. It's a San Francisco Public Library photo.
A 1947 view of the Princess running as a film house called the Ellis. Beyond, the
Garrick is in its Bagdad Bowl days. It's a photo from the Jack
Tillmany collection.
Near the end for the Princess and the Garrick. It's a Tom Gray photo from the Jack Tillmany collection. Demolition was in the 1970s with the Garrick going first.
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.
Cinema Treasures has a page on the Garrick.
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