Staging a revival

Over the past 100-plus years, the North Loop theater district’s ornate houses went from glamorous drama and film palaces to run-down cinemas destined for destruction. But survivors like the Oriental Theatre now bring in box-office hits—and tourist dollars. While some glitz has returned, there may be no way to truly recapture the spectacular glamour that’s been lost.

The Oriental Theatre—built in 1926 and now called the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre—featured turbaned ushers and brought in acts such as Cab Calloway and Judy Garland. The Cadillac Palace Theatre, a Rapp and Rapp design, was opened as the New Palace Theatre in 1926. In the ’50s, the marble-and-mirror–bejewelled showroom was known for its cutting-edge “Cinerama” system, which screened movies using three projectors at once. The venerated Chicago Theatre, built in 1921 and also a Rapp brothers project, had 3,600 seats and a five-story-high lobby modeled after the Royal Chapel at Versailles.

But the good times couldn’t go on forever. Several factors combined to undermine Chicago’s entertainment district: In the ’50s, people moved to the ’burbs, downtown theaters lost exclusive rights to first-run movies and television’s popularity skyrocketed. By the ’70s, many theaters had adapted by showing grindhouse and kung-fu films such as The Master Killer and Fists of Fury. The Selwyn, on Dearborn between Randolph and Lake Streets, whose facade makes up part of the Goodman today, screened adult movies with titles like Dominatrix Without Mercy; the Harris next door showed Scent of Mystery, the first and only Smell-O-Vision movie —in which odors (cinnamon, pipe smoke) were released into the theater at key moments in the film.

The McVicker’s Theater, 25 W Madison St, 1903

Photo: Chicago Daily News/Chicago History Museum

Richard Christiansen, a now-retired Chicago Tribune theater critic and the author of A Theater of Our Own: A History and Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago, described the great theaters’ less dazzling days in a phone interview: “The Oriental, along with the rest of the Loop, had fallen into a bad time. It was used primarily as a kind of blaxploitation house. In their ads for the movies, they’d call it the ‘Yo-riental,’ as in ‘yo momma.’ They showed films in kind of the minor Shaft genre.”

Ron Falzone, a screenwriter and film professor at Columbia College, remembers seeing the cheesiest films there: “I was assigned to go see The Wanderers at the Chicago Theatre, and there were previews for chop-socky movies. One of them was The Seven Brothers and Their One Sister vs. Dracula. There were shots of the brothers and sister flying through the air, karate-chopping these pâpier-maché bats, and the audience was cheering.”

While some buildings survived the years of neglect, many equally grand ones were destroyed. The Roosevelt and United Artists were razed in 1980 and 1989 respectively to make way for a Block 37 project (a Helmut Jahn–designed business complex that never materialized). The McVickers and Woods theaters were torn down in 1985 and 1989, respectively. But the most-mourned theater was the Garrick. Built in 1892 at 64 West Randolph Street, this Adler and Sullivan masterpiece featured faces of famous Germans carved into the elegant stone facade (they now grace the exterior of The Second City). It was torn down in 1961 to make way for a parking garage. Many people tried to stop the Garrick’s destruction, and those efforts launched the modern preservation movement. “It raised the consciousness of people who wanted to preserve these theaters, and helped save the Chicago and the Auditorium theaters, which were both threatened,” Christiansen says.

The Roosevelt Theater, 110 N State St, 1972

Photo: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency

For the theaters that made it through the lean times, there was light at the end of the tunnel. In 1986, the Chicago Theatre Restoration Associates purchased that building and poured millions into its restoration. Lewis Manilow, a Chicago lawyer and philanthropist, pushed for a North Loop theater district. Eventually, Mayor Richard M. Daley jumped on board, and the city began putting money into infrastructure and real-estate deals. Daley facilitated the then-shuttered Oriental’s purchase and reconstruction in 1996 (with help from the Ford company, hence the name change to the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre), predicting the city would reap $3.5 million a year in taxes. The Cadillac was restored and renamed in 1999, and the Goodman opened at its current location in 2000.

The ongoing financial and cultural boost is undeniable, with tourist buses unloading Wicked watchers and a new hotel going up next to the LaSalle Bank Theatre (formerly called the Majestic, then the Schubert). But while business is booming, much of what was lost can’t be replaced—the elegant after-show restaurants, opulent entertainment palaces and blocks of glowing marquees side by side. For those who remember, the North Loop is just a shadow of days gone by,  Christiansen says. “This fall, you’ll have Wicked, The Color Purple,  Jersey Boys-—all definitely shows that plan long runs in Chicago. It brings nightlife back to the Loop. After five, people can still come back in, the Loop doesn’t empty out…[but] it’s nothing, of course, like what it was.”

Plus:

Show and tell: Which downtown theater showed films in "Smell-O-Vision?" Where was the McVicker's Theater located? Find out in our Loop theater district timeline.

It happened here: A CTA Loop train falls to the street, the Chicago River springs a leak and a classic theater burns down.