Opened: 1910. It was a conversion of space in an existing building for the Turner & Dahnken circuit.
Architect: William Curlett and Son
Seating: 403
A December 15, 1910 item in the San Francisco Call about the new theatre. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for locating it.
Closed: 1911. It was demolished for construction of the Pantages Theatre. The 1911 city directory has listings for both the Photo and the Pantages at 941 Market.
Another nickelodeon operated by T&D, the Elite Theatre at 935 Market, also met its end due to the Pantages project. The story was that Pantages paid $28,000 for the two leases. The Pantages opened in November 1911 on the Market St. lots numbered 935 through 941.
The listings for the Photo at 941 Market in the 1912 and 1913 city directories are bunk. They also have the Pantages listed at 941 those two years. They give the Pantages a 935 address in the 1914 directory.
Images from the plans for the theatre from the Gary Parks collection:
The title block from sheet #2. There's no date written on the plans themselves. Gary Goss, the owner of the prints before Gary Parks got them, had written 1910 on the outside of the roll.
A glorious panorama of the project. Across the top it's a facade elevation, boxoffice details, a ticket lobby wall elevation, a detail of the ticket lobby ceiling and a section through the screen end of the auditorium. Along the bottom it's a section through the building looking east, with a view of the house left auditorium wall. Gary notes: "This is a conversion of a storefront in a multistory commercial building, into a nickelodeon."
The Market St. elevation. Hey, where's the boxoffice? Note the arch over the entrance. We get a section view later. Gary comments: "Note '5 cents' sculpted into the arch."
Boxoffice details. And here's the answer. Gary comments: "Note that it says the box office is portable! I know that this was a fairly common feature of box offices in the nickelodeon days, but this is the first time I’ve seen such a thing noted on a set of blueprints.".
A section through the ticket lobby, looking west. Market St. is on the right. Note that last vertical line marked "St. Line." Check out that nice cornice, hanging out a bit over Market.
The ticket lobby ceiling.
Another ticket lobby section. This time we're looking east with Market on the left and the inner lobby off to the right. At the entrance note the underside of the decorative arch with its stud lighting.
An elevation of the screen area, specifying a 15' x 20' screen. At the left we're out in an exit passage to the back of the building. At the bottom of the drawing note the details of new beams to be installed.
A section of the screen end of the space with the screen in the middle. Note a bit of the ornament around the screen shown near the notch in the ceiling at the top. Off to the right it's only an exit passage. There's lots of room between their screen wall and the back of the building but they're not using it.
An elevation detail in the middle of the auditorium looking at the house left wall. Note the floor with some existing beams at the left to be retained, new ones on the right where the new floor level is to be below the original floor of the store space they were going into.
A plan with the inner lobby at the left, the screen most of the way to the right and the actual back of the building at the far right. An existing freight elevator is in the lower right corner. Gary comments: "I counted all the seats. There are 403. They didn’t take the opportunity to utilize any of the space in back for a little stage. There's a solid wall right behind the picture screen."
A portion of the floorplan showing the boxoffice, entrance doors and inner lobby. Behind that house right section of seats at the bottom of the image is a note saying "Operator's Room Above." It wasn't centered.
At the top, a detail of the area below the booth. The booth floorplan is at the bottom of the image.
A detail of the inner lobby near the exit doors. Evidently they planned to have some entertainment for people on the street or in the inner lobby. Or both. That detail at the top of the image is labeled "Plan of Mezz. Piano Room."
A detail of the middle of the auditorium floorplan. Along the top edge of the aisle note the crosses to indicate the location of the ceiling lighting fixture boxes left over from the store previously in the space.
Thanks, Gary!
More information: There isn't any yet about the Photo.
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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