Lobby, Riviera Theatre, Racine Avenue and Broadway, Uptown, Chicago, IL : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Lobby, Riviera Theatre, Racine Avenue and Broadway, Uptown, Chicago, IL / w_lemay
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-継承 2.1 |
|---|---|
| 説明 | Built in 1917-18, this Renaissance Revival-style former movie theater was designed by Rapp and Rapp, and was the second theater opened by the Balaban & Katz Company. The theater originally had a capacity of 2,600 people, and originally showed silent movies with orchestral accompaniment, eventually being converted into a “talkie” movie picture house, remaining in use as a movie theater until 1977. Originally the largest and grandest theater in Uptown, its status was supplanted by the larger and grander Uptown Theatre upon its opening in 1925 just one block to the north.The building features an L-shaped layout with a large auditorium tucked away to the rear of a lobby and commercial building in front of the building along Broadway and Racine Avenue, with the stage house of the theater bordering Lawrence Avenue, and featuring a brick facade with rusticated brick pilasters, brick panels, a coiling overhead door at one end of the facade to provide access to the backstage area of the theater, and a metal door at the other end of the facade, with the impression of a since-removed cornice being visible near the base of the parapet on the stage house. The rest of the auditorium features a sloped gabled roof with stepped parapets, multiple exterior exits and fire escapes to the adjacent alley, and a chimney at the southwest corner of the building, which is all clad in Chicago common brick. The portion of the theater property along Racine Avenue and Broadway features a commercial block and a theater lobby, both clad in red brick with terra cotta trim, with the commercial building being mostly separate from the theater but featuring Chicago-style windows, terra cotta spandrel panels, brick pilasters, terra cotta trim, including a bracketed cornice, and first floor storefronts, with a Bank of America branch presently occupying the first floor, with apartments above.The theater lobby facade features a curved parapet with several bands of terra cotta trim, an arched front window with gridded mullions, a marquee with lightbulbs and neon letters, and many entrance doors at a recessed entryway beneath the marquee. Inside, the vestibule features decorative plasterwork, including a coffered ceiling, ionic pilasters, urns, ionic columns, a ticket booth with a bronze upper partially enclosed portion featuring an egg and dart motif, protective cages, and rounded corners, which rises from a marble-clad base, clerestory windows between the vestibule and the lobby. The lobby features a coffered ceiling, decorative ionic pilasters, plaster wall panels, clerestory windows between it and the lobby, a large chandelier in the main foyer, staircases with decorative bronze railings, and a long hallway to the rear that allows access to the orchestra seating in the auditorium via a set of double doors, with the hallway being decorated with mirrored panels, pilasters, an ornate plaster ceiling, and pilasters. Downstairs, beneath the vestibule, the building features a series of restrooms that have many stalls and have changed little since a renovation sometime in the mid-20th Century, with this area presently being renovated. Upstairs, there is another hallway that allows access to the theater’s balcony ceiling, and another staircase that connects to the third floor balcony seating, with the second floor hallway having archways and oxeye openings that look down into the bar at the rear of the orchestral section of the theater, which features an elliptically domed ceiling, with faded and yellowed murals on the three blind arches closest to the stage, painted faux Serpentinite panels, and decorative trim panels, ceiling medallions, and very little alteration from its original appearance. The interior of the theater features a balcony at the rear that slopes upwards towards the third-story entrances, box seating on the sides near the stage, with the faces of the boxes and balcony featuring curved plaster low walls covered in heavy ornament including cartouches and designed in a way to resemble balustrades, decorative cornices, pilasters, intricate and delicate cast plaster elements on the ceiling and walls around the stage, portions of which have broken off over time, giving the theater the patina of age, plaster reliefs on the walls, a ceiling with a coved elliptical dome in the center surrounded by four medallions made of delicate cast plaster, a coffered ceiling and elliptical dome on the bottom of the balcony, arches on the side walls of the theater with the arches closest to the stage featuring intricate cast plaster and housing the box seating, with the arches above the balconies each featuring a chandelier, arched mirrored glass “window” with a juliet balcony, a Wurlitzer organ within the theater, and either a door or a decorative wall panel, and murals in panels on the ceiling above, which have faded and yellowed with age, and an ornate proscenium arch made of delicate cast plaster elements and trim, with a large cartouche above the center of the stage.The theatre presently is utilized as a live performance venue, housing various musical acts and events, and is a well-preserved example of a historic “movie palace”, having remained viable despite the decline in popularity of similar venues in the neighborhood over the 20th Century, with the exception of a brief period when the theater served as a private nightclub in the 1980s. The building is one of the structures that comprises the Uptown Square Historic District, a Chicago Landmark District designated in 2016. |
| 撮影日 | 2022-11-05 18:56:01 |
| 撮影者 | w_lemay , Chicago, IL, United States |
| タグ | |
| 撮影地 | Chicago, Illinois, United States 地図 |