You could describe it as “haunting, mysterious, over the top, rococo, distressed, gothic, renaissance deco, cool, other worldly, kitsch, beguiling….” and you still would not quite capture the essence of downtown LA’s own unique and enigmatic Tower Theatre, situated at 800 South Broadway (at 8th Street) in historic downtown Los Angeles. Once dubbed, “The World’s Most Beautiful Theatre,” the Tower was designed by prodigious 28-year-old architect Simeon “S.” Charles Lee, and built by H.L. It opened to much fanfare on October 12th, 1927 as the first movie theatre in Los Angeles built specifically for ‘talkies” with the premier of “The Gingham Girl,” featuring George Arthur and Lois Wilson, and was fully equipped with both a mighty Style 216 Wurlitzer 2/10 theatre organ, a musical contraption with ten ranks of pipes in two chambers, and a Vitaphone™ (a name derived from both Latin and Greek, respectively, for 'living' and 'sound') the then state of the art, analog sound on disc system that synced the sound of a spinning phonograph recording with a separate projected moving picture. The Tower was also the first theatre in Los Angeles to have refrigerated air conditioning, and patrons were invited to gleefully look through a window built into the balcony stairs to marvel at the mechanics of its inner workings. In modern times, the Tower has hosted artists such as Glass Candy, Doe Eye, Chromatics, Chvrches, Jessie Ware (upcoming) and events by Filter, The Edwardian Ball, Vox Media, and Live Nation. The Tower Theatre is a designated a Historic-Cultural Landmark, and is included in the National Register of Historic Places. For Tower Theatre event inquiries, please contact:
Paul Assimacopoulos
Programming/Events Director
Broadway Theatre Group:
Palace, Los Angeles, Tower Theatres
ph: 213-488-2009
email: [email protected]
Theatre Manager and Location Filming:
Edward Baney
office: 213-629-2939
Architectural Highlights:
Full specs, seating chart, pricing available upon request. Capacity: 800
Stage:
23’5” from center of front edge to back wall.
18’ wide at back wall, widening to 30’ at front stage edge.
20’ height of concrete ceiling over stage. Power:
300amps/3 phase
200 amps for lights
100 amps for sound
Interior Highlights:
Edwards Spout’s interior auditorium design evokes the French Renaissance, while the almost religiously gorgeous lobby evokes both a Gothic cathedral and The Paris Opera House, with it’s hung, pearl strewn chandelier and arching stained glass window, which depicts a fleur-de-lis pattern draped with a coil of film strip, with the identical purple stripe found on early sound film stock. A spacious waiting room, which doubled as a ballroom, lay beneath the main floor. Exterior Highlights:
Above the Tower’s shop windows on 8th street, on each of the window ledges, sits an Indian head-dress sculpture, and, atop each window, recline two n**e figures—a discreetly draped masculine director wielding a camera and speaking into a megaphone; and a sc****ly clad starlet wearing beads and gazing into a mirror. False, decorative windows and Classical period detailing punctuate the highly decorated exterior sidewalls. To view a more extensive history of the Tower Theatre, please see the excellent web archives by Bill Counter:
https://sites.google.com/site/downtownlosangelestheatres/tower
also on FB:
https://www.facebook.com/losangelestheatres
And these other great historical resources:
Los Angeles Historical Theatre Foundation
http://www.lahtf.org
LA Conservancy
https://www.laconservancy.org
Cinema Treasures
http://cinematreasures.org
