The Cineograph

747 Market St.  | map |

Opened: Sometime around 1898. It was on the south side of the street between 3rd and 4th. It's the three story light-colored building just this side of Sanborn, Vail & Co. The photo, from a scrapbook of Hamilton Henry Dobbin, is dated 1898 by the California State Library. 

The Midway Theatre at 771 Market (here called the Midway Plaisance) is the building on the extreme right. Dobbin drew an arrow toward the Midway and noted "Midway Plaisance, formerly The Cremorne Variety Theatre." We're looking east. Down the street the Call Building is still under construction.

"Life Size Moving Pictures Reproduced on a Screen 16 feet square." This flyer for the Cineograph comes from the Jack Tillmany collection. 

An ad from the April 2, 1898 edition of the San Francisco Weekly Amusement Bulletin. Thanks to Jodie Davis for including the page this was on (as well as other items) in a post on the San Francisco Remembered Facebook page. And thanks also to Omar Rodriguez for sharing it on the BAHT page. The items pictured in Jodie's post were found inside a wall of a house during some demo work her son was doing.

Closing: The 1906 earthquake and fire finished it. It was still listed in the 1905 city directory. After the block was rebuilt, the Odeon Theatre would be on the Cineograph's lot.

We're looking east on Market between 3rd & 4th in a c.1897 image from a stereo slide in the Scott MacLeod collection. It was a post on the San Francisco Remembered Facebook page. The Cineograph building, with an added fancy dome, is just this side of the Sanborn Vail & Co. building.

The Midway Theatre is the light colored building in third from the right. In this photo it's still called the Midway Plaisance, a name according to Scott it used from 1893 until at least 1897. Signage on the front also says "Home of Burlesque." On the side we get "Oriental...", "Big Show Ev..." and "Admiss..." Scott adds: "I did a search and found that the 'Midway Plaisance' had its origins at the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago. The S.F. version is mentioned in The Call as late as 1897 and was a bawdy striptease house featuring Asian women. My guess is that it probably changed to the Midway Theater around the turn of the century."

 

The full slide the image above came from. It was a post by Scott MacLeod on the San Francisco Remembered Facebook page that also included a dozen other early slides of San Francisco. Also see his post of enlargements from those slides. 

 

 

A c.1900 image from a stereo card by International View Co. appearing on the Open SF History Project site.  The Cineograph is a bit lost down the block. The Midway Theatre is the second building in from the right.

 

A 1904 image by an unknown photographer appearing on the Open SF History Project website. They note that we have view of the Examiner Building and the Palace Hotel in the distance and that the cable car has a sign saying "Chutes." Thanks to Jack Tillmany for locating the photo in the collection and doing some work on it.

A March 23, 1905 image by T.E. Heght from the San Francisco Public Library collection. We're looking west with the domed building of the Cineograph halfway down the block, after the Sanborn, Vail & Co. building). The Midway is the lighter building way down the block.

Thanks to Jack Tillmany for this detail from the 1905 photo. That second building in from the left with the fanciful dome is the Cineograph. The Midway Theatre, "Home of Burlesque" is the lighter building farther down the block. The image appears on the Cinema Tour page for the Cineograph.

 

Another 1905 view by T.E. Hecht, this one giving us a view a bit farther to the east. It's been hand tinted by Bennett Hall, who has kindly shared it on Flickr.  

 

 

 

The Cineograph is seen in this fine April 1906 view taken by noted San Francisco photographer James D. Givens as the fire was approaching the block. Thanks to Russell Merritt for locating it. 

A view east toward the Call Building taken by Stewart and Rogers on April 18, 1906. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for locating the image in the Open SF History Project collection.

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 Midway Plaisance was to be demolished in 1897 but the building owner, John W. Makay, granted the operator, Ned Homan, a new three year lease. Thanks to Scott MacLeod for finding the April 15, 1897 article in the San Francisco Call. It's on the website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection. The article called the venue a "Noted Palace of Sin" and noted that "the living pictures and Oriental dancers will continue to lure the rural visitor."

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