'Dream' Theater Is Built on Great West Side
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Source: Chicago Evening American, 15 September 1928, pgs. 21-22.
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Balaban & Katz returned to the West
Side last night-- the West Side where the firm began years ago to achive
international fame. The occasion? The formal opening of the gorgeous
Paradise Theater at Crawford av. and Washington blvd.
The thousands that clamored for admittance to the newest classical
palace in Chicago thrilled to its beauty and the radical departure in
theater construction. Messrs. Balaban and Katz are happy!
The opening of the new Paradise brinks B. & K. entertainment to
all sections of the city, in the loop, on the North Side, on the South
Side—and now on the great West Side.
Eleven years ago Balaban & Katz as a firm was founded, Moris
and Sam Katz joining forces with the Balaban brothers, Barney, A.J.,
Max, and John. All had been interested in the tiny "nickel"
shows that had suddenly become so great a "craze." They were
all hard-working citizens of the teeming West Side, thrifty, self
reliant—and their imaginations were busy. They imagined a great and
stately theater, tremendous in size, artistic and beautiful, in which
they could comfort, ventilation, spaciousness, restfulness—things that
moving picture theaters, up to that time, had not been able to offer.
STARTED WITH CENTRAL PARK THEATER.
So they built the Central Park Thater at Roosevelt road and Central
Park av., a "dream theater" it was called then, seating the
unheard number of 2,200 people. In it they began "presentations,"
little dance and music divertissements that were the forerunner of the
tremendous stage productions that now fill the cinema palaces of the
nation.
In it, too, they began working out the "service" system
which has spread to all quarters of the theater world. They uniformed
their ushers and trained them to give quick, intelligent service without
"tips."
The Central Park Theater, which had been expected by theater men
everywhere to prove too expensive, too colossal, for profits, was an
overnight success.
BUILD BETTER THEATERS.
Balaban & Katz, seeing the trend of the time, went north for
their next theater, the Riviera, the "Drawing Room" of
theaters, which carried to great lengths the use of elegance and art in
creating the proper surroundings for entertainment. There music was
brought to its finest cinema use, great orchestras being employed,
symphonic results obtained.
Success again, and Balaban & Katz went southward, rearing the
Tivoli, a stately white and gold French creation, with what has been,
upt to the opening of the Paradise, the most beautiful theater lobby in
existence. The Tivoli, at Sixty-third and Cottage Grove av., was larger
and finer and introduced something new—"the cooling system."
It was the first large theater to have ventilation that killed heat; it
controlled temperature and turned Summer from a time of emptty seats in
the theater into a time of biggest attendance.
Soon Balaban & Katz extended their activities to the downtown
section of Chicago, erecting the Chicago Theater, flagship of the fleet,
leader of the flock, then the largest and most lavish of all. The Uptown
Theater was next—a stupendous and enchanting structure, fully as large
as the Chicago, rearing itself beside the Riviera at Broadway and
Lawrence av. of the North Side.
A HOLD IN THE LOOP.
Soon two other downtown theaters were converted into Balaban &
Katz theaters, the McVickers and the Roosevelt. Here a policy radically
different was introduced—long-run special productions with no stage
show. To complete this downtown list, the Oriental Theater was added,
the exotic and colorful "jazz" house in the Masonic Building
on Randolph near State.
On the edge of Chicago's northern reaches, close to the
aristocratic North Shore, rose the next Balaban & Katz theater, the "Norshore,"
of the type of the Tivoli, Chicago, and Uptown. Here stage shows of the
Paul Ash type were presented and elaborated upon since their popularity
was apparent.
More recently the Maryland Theater, on Sixty-third and Drexel av.,
has been built and is the first outlying theater of the
McVickers-Roosevelt type, offering special productions without stage
attractions.
"PARADISE" DREAM THEATER.
But Balaban & Katz did not stop at this. All through their
career they had been haunted by sentimental memories of the West Side,
where they had been born, where their poverty had first been conquered,
where they had been reared. They wanted to give their home section the
finest theater of all, the theater that would express their natural
fondness for their early neighborhood.
So the Paradise was built in the center of the city's population,
at Crawford av. and Washington blvd.
NEW ARCHITECTURAL IDEAS.
Larger than any other teater outside of New York City, more daring
and original in its architecture than any theater int eh world, the
Paradise has carried all of Balban & Katz' imagination to the
furthest reach yet to be achieved. In architectural magnitude it
eclipses everything yet done, being like a garden of Versailles seen
under the moon. Stars twinkle overhead. The walls are the exteriors of
other worldly buildings, art-buildings whose spires run to the sky. Art
treasures dot these walls, poise in niches in cloisters under indirect
lighting. Over the immense proscenium arch rise the horses of Apollo,
god of light. Behind them run murals from Munich galleries; overhead
stretch frescoes, goddesses, figures from mythology, dreams of beauty.
No eye can tell from where the twilight seems to come at its fills
the tremendous auditorium and the sweep of the balcony. No hand can tell
either from where comes the fresh, dry air that floods the interior in
tempering coolness, so skillfully is the ventilating accomplished.
The first program in the Paradise Theater serves to introduce
Balaban & Katz entertainment as such to the great West Side and
indicates how lavishly incomparable the future will be for that section
of the city. Each week henceforth a new program of Broadway stage
entertainment, screen attractions and orchestral features will be heard
and seen at the Paradise, placing the thetaer on a par with the Chicago,
Uptown and Tivoli in the field of entertainment.
[End of news article]
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Page compiled: 8 August 1998
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