By: Janelle Cabuco
Walk down Broadway, and you'll be greeted with dirty sidewalks lined with a number of rundown buildings. You'd have never guessed that this street in Downtown Los Angeles, from 3rd St. to 9th St., was once filled with elaborate and beautiful theaters.
Click HERE to see before and after photos of Los Angeles' Theater District
In fact, this historic street houses the largest concentration of pre-World War II movie palaces in the nation. By 1931, the district had the highest concentration of movie palaces in the world with a seating capacity for more than 15,000 patrons.
"Broadway was the center of Los Angeles, as well as the center of Hollywood ... This is where it started. If you wanted to see a movie, this is where you came. If you wanted to go shopping, this is where you came," said Escott Norton, the executive director of Los Angeles Historic Theater Foundation. "Chaplin lived a block away in the El Dorado. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin built the United Artists Theatre. This is a super important place for the city as well for the film industry ... Our society was completely different. This was a very high class elegant place to go, and that's what it was in the '10s, '20s and up to the '30s."
During World War II, Los Angeles' Broadway theater district was a beacon of hope to those suffering during The Great Depression.
"If you've grown up in a suburban area, and you've gone to the nicest AMC theater, it's essentially a box with curtains ... The show is really not the theater; the show is whatever's on the screen. But these places were built in a time when part of the show was the theater," said Norton. "If you think about people during The Depression, they could barely afford to feed their families, but they [would] spend 25 cents to walk into a palace where they [were] equal to the richest people in the city. So it levels all people, and gives everyone a feeling of this really special event, and that's before the movie even started ... It was a necessity in The Depression because people's lives were so miserable."
During The Depression, the theaters were sights to be seen.
"Many people say [the Los Angeles Theater has] the most beautiful lobby they've ever seen. Certainly it's one of the most opulent, grand lobbies in all of Los Angeles," said Norton. "It's a very deep, very tall lobby, with [a] very opulent, very elegant, very grand staircase that goes up the middle to a dry water fountain that has jewels where the water should be. Chandeliers, giant chandeliers, mirrors on the side so that there's a feeling of a much wider space. Lots of gold. Not a lot of real gold, but lots of gold looking. Again, put it in the mind of the people who would walk into this theater in the Depression Era. This was a palace. It still is."
Though the paint may be peeling, and though the true color of the theaters may be hidden under years of grime, people are still amazed at what they see during theater tours. Even the basement has hidden little secrets.
"What you didn't see in the lobby [is] a ballroom [downstairs]. There's the most opulent ladies restroom I've ever seen, where every stall is a different color marble, where there's a dressing room with individual stalls for the ladies, which was supplied with makeup," said Norton. "I mean there was a periscope system so people could see the ballroom down in the basement and watch whatever was on the movie screen. Technologically, we still don't do this kind of stuff."
However, after WWII, the district began to decline. After the war, Los Angeles went through a big housing boom. Houses were built in the suburbs, creating the urban sprawl we have today. Additionally, with the manufacturing of cars, the city changed from a very centralized city to a suburban model. People lived out in the suburbs and didn't come back to the center of town anymore, as they had their own little movie palaces and shopping districts.
So, during the '80s, many of these beautiful theaters, despite preservation efforts, were converted to flea markets, churches, stores and swap meets.
"In the '80s, when we started, preservation was a dirty word. We were considered the outsiders," said Norton. "If we wanted to save some old building, we were the crackpots. We were the crazies. And now you have a vintage movement where you have people in their 20s dressing up in '30s and '40s outfits going to clubs. So we're no longer the outcasts. There's a more mainstream appreciation for history."
In regards to preservation efforts, Bringing Back Broadway has been instrumental to bringing attention to the street. Led by Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar, Bringing Back Broadway, a $40 million campaign that was launched in 2008, aims to revitalize Broadway's historic theaters and provide assistance to local communities.
Huizar, his mother and his siblings grew up as an immigrant family. When he was younger, he would go to the Million Dollar Theater, and pay 99 cents to watch three kung fu movies throughout the day. He looks back on these memories fondly, and has a strong connection to the district because of them.
"Another important part of our history, as we look to preserve the '20s and '30s, when Broadway really came alive, is to preserve the history that Broadway had with the Latino immigrants and their families that used to come to Broadway in large numbers particularly during the '70s and '80s," said Huizar. "They kept the street alive when everyone had abandoned it."
READ MORE: JJ's article HERE
While some Latino merchants have expressed concerns about the campaign, believing it to be a way for the city to gentrify the district, others have embraced the campaign as a way to revitalize the art and culture that comes along with the theaters.
"[It's] so sad to walk in [these theaters] and see the paint peeling, plaster falling down, but still, you can see the history and you know how important they are," said Michael Hudson-Medina, a community arts activist and former tour guide for the Los Angeles Conservancy. "We can't restore them all to working theaters because it would not be cost effective. We don't have an audience to fill the theaters yet, but at least the architecture is being preserved one by one. So I'm very excited."
In addition to Huizar's Bringing Back Broadway, in 1987, the Los Angeles Conservancy began a program called the Last Remaining Seats, in which old movie palaces would reopen every summer to show classic Hollywood films.
In another effort to bring attention to the theaters, both the Los Angeles Historic Theater Foundation and the Los Angeles Conservancy hold events where people can come and get tours of the theaters.
"I see this every single time they have an event. [People] may have been living in Los Angeles their whole lives, and they've never seen the inside of a movie palace, and they're like 'Oh my God! I had no idea this was here!' It's that surprise that it even exists. It's not an experience people have everyday, to walk into a palace," said Norton. "Now, it's not a necessity anymore, well maybe for some people, but it just makes life a little more exciting, a little more interesting."