Desertion of Chicago's "Loop" Traced to Dance Places
15,000 Nightly Dancing on North and South Sides—50,000 a Night on Week-ends—Loop Managers Fail to Analyze Absence of Box Office Sale
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Source: Variety, 9 June 1922, pgs. 12, 21.
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On the extended querying now going on among
the loop theatre managers as to what has completely somersaulted the
type of individuals who proceed to the box office windows of loop
theatres within half an hour of curtain time and make case purchases,
and what has totally made absent the giggling young couples, who in the
recent yesteryear have made merry the atmosphere of the loop before and
after theatre performances, Variety has gone out and found facts in a
very perilous situation for future welfare of loop legit managers.
At this time the loop managers, at least some of them, may be
passing off the concerned querying with altogether too light a vein of
thought and consideration but, just as sure as this is the seventh day
of June, a new situation has arisen in Chicago that is bound to extend
detrimental, if not wholly disastrous, effects to the Saturday and
Sunday night receipts at loop theatres. With the week-end capacity trade
slipping—and it has been slipping for more than five months—the
legit theatre managers in the loop will have to look around for the
reason for it. Variety has found that Chicago's entertainment is
forsaking the loop by leaps and bounds, establishing itself, instead, in
the areas known as the North and South sides.
To some who are commenting upon the utter "deadness" of
the loop streets the moment curtain time is reached, and particularly
after the theatre, when the usual merry throngs are missing at downtown
cafes, with those who do go to the theatres making a bee line for either
the North or South sides, the solution of the new change of night life
for Chicago merrymakers is now visible, and the wisest showmen claim it
behooves theatre owners to unite and consider the rapidly changing
conditions with more seriousness.
There are those who have financial interests in loop theatres, who
are not residents of Chicago, who come here and realize Chicago is in
the loop. That's a badly mistaken idea. At one time it was the truth.
But times have changed and Chicago centres of amusement have changed
with them.
Two mammoth dance halls, with their elaborate double offerings of
extra inducements for the visitors, are the whole cause of the merry
throngs forsaking the loop. In the whirl of modern day improvements and
the double dish of entertainment the visitors find in these unbelievably
arrayed dance halls the youthful Chicago public, not to mention the
older class, drawn more closely together with the younger set these days
because of various crazes springing up in the younger class which,
naturally, the older folks want to observe and do attend to get an
eyeful, has switched to a new road for the expenditure of entertainment
money. The road to the loop isn't as crowded as it was, and unless
something is done to give opposition to the new direction of
entertainment for the loop theatres, Chicago isn't going to have the
usual number of long-run plays.
If the statistician will produce the rapidity with which plays in
Chicago have had their runs cut short for the past year and one-half,
perhaps the findings of Variety will be studied. It is a struggle to get
a ten weeks' run in Chicago now and, while it is true certain shows do
hold the oldtime runs, the number that flop before the eighth or ninth
week is reached conclusively prove that there is a new era of theatrical
atmosphere hereabouts.
So important have these dance halls become that the wisest of loop
theatre owners have started an investigation, calling in the License
Board officers at City Hall to ascertain the fairness of the license tax
that are made for various sorts of entertainment privileges in Chicago.
It is said the owners of entertainment spots in the north and south
sides are getting away with "murder" in the matter of
assessments, and the wrath of the loop theatre managers, who are taxed
beyond what conditions now prove they can cover financially successful,
is gradually rising so speedily that a good class is expected this
summer in the endeavors of the respective parties to battle for their
rights. City Hall authorities expect it and are prepared for it.
The outcoming is apt to completely revise the center of Chicago's
amusements and thoroughly encouraged the Shuberts to go in stronger for
the idea of erecting a new legitimate theatre on the North Side, with
its population of 800,000.
A taxi ride, such as the Variety man made last night to such places
as Dreamland, 1761 Van Buren street; Arcadia, 4450 Broadway; Guyon's Paradise, 124 N. Crawford street; Hunting House, 4616 N. Clark and 4823
N. Kenzie [sic] streets; Vista Gardens, 824 E. 47th street; Palisades,
120 N. Crawford; Merry Garden, 644 Cottage Grove, and Driscoll's
Dreamland, 3829 W. Madison street, quickly tells what ails the new
conditions of night merriment in the loop district. The crowds at all
these places indicated a night before a holiday trade, but it
[pg. 21] wasn't. It was the usual early part of the week patronage,
for the weekends draw such enormous crowds that they are unbelievable
unless seen with the naked eye.
These dance palaces are rightly named palaces, and it is doubtful
if one theatre manager out of ten has ever taken the time to look them
over. One dance hall in particular is probably the most beautiful and
artistic place in America. It is located at 62d and Cottage Grove, and
was formerly the Edelweiss Gardens. It has both an outdoor and indoor
dance floor. The building faces Jackson Park and is fashioned along
Japanese architectural lines with pergola high points and what not; it
is beautifully illuminated both inside and out. The inside is cozy and
comfortable, with little nooks and corners fitted up for rendezvous. It
has two balconies running around the entire floor, with a gable and
rough brick effect that is very artistic. It was known as Chicago's most
beautiful cafe, but succumbed to the dancing craze. The outside dance
section has three raised cement dance floors, each floor separated by a
row of tables and chairs. There are plants, flowers and trees that show
the work of an outside landscape artist. The orchestra is half covered
by a shell-like box, which throws the sound outward; there are two
orchestras at all times, with light refreshments served. The outdoor
portion will accommodate 5,000 dancers, while the inside takes care of
easily 2,500.
Guyon's Paradise is another mammoth dance palaces, the wise ones
saying that Guyon has profited to the extent of over $100,000 a year. It
was nothing for Guyon to run full page ads in all of the dailies, with
the dancing restricted to two steps and waltzes.
Probably the quickest ones to realize the amount of people that
frequent these places were the music publishers. It is nothing to have
from three to five publishers make on of these halls to get in a "plug."
It is easy to estimate among the ten biggest and best patronized dance
halls that they plat to 15,000 people a night, with this amount more
than tripled on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Saturday and Sunday the big
places are open from 2:30 until 5, and from 7:30 until 12. The charges
range from 25 cents a couple to as high as $2 a couple.
It is pathetic to observe the refusal of some of the loop managers
to credit the reason for the disappearance of the box office window sale
approaching curtain time to the enormous opportunities the merrymakers
find in dance halls outside the loop.
In the management of the dance halls the owners are more liberal to
the public than the loop theatre managers are at the present time, and
the whole solution is that the public is going where it is receiving the
most for its money, particularly the young fellow who is striving to
keep up with the pace of going steady with his girl.
A visit to the offices of the elevated lines also proves the
finding that North and South side patrons are not flocking downtown at
night as in former days. "Too much entertainment in North and South
side dance halls and neighborhood theatres," is the quick claim of
the elevated line officers.
A roll-call of the audiences at loop theatres Saturday and Sunday
would undeniably prove that Chicago isn't supporting the loop theatres.
Instead, out-of-town people are, and since, with but one or two
exceptions, there isn't a Chicago theatre manager who consistently makes
a campaign for out-of-town trade via billboards or newspapers, the whole
situation sums up as one of luck for loop managers to be drawing this
week-end business when the local clientele which those managers who
don't know the situation honestly believe is supporting the loop
theatres for the average good houses on Saturday and Sunday. Chicago's
clientele is out at the dance halls and neighborhood theatres on those
two nights, and if anybody disputes the claim of Variety, the best way
to be accurate about it is to make the trip that the Variety man made,
and then, perhaps, one of the most interesting situations now prevalent
in any city in America will be quickly depicted.
Short runs have become the habit in Chicago, and to ascertain why,
the New York theatrical magnates should spend one night out here, and
the strength of plays won't be blamed so much as the rapidly changing
state of neighborhoods which are cropping up without the managers moving
into them and creating the cordial spirit that the owners of dance halls
and neighborhood theatres are doing and have been doing while the legit
managers have been asleep.
The loop these nights is "dead" as far as drawing the
crowds that will make a late box office window purchase. The loop hotel
cafe magnet is gone.
Blame the whole change of affairs on the enterprise of the dance
hall owners on the North and South sides, and you have the solution to
the situation.
[End of news article]
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Page compiled: 9 April 2000
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