![]() Ironically, over 50 years later, on September 5, 2002, the Arcade Theatre would collapse, making the Florida Theatre the last historic theatre standing of the eight other downtown Jacksonville theatres, which in addition to the theatres on Forsyth Street, included the Temple Theatre on North Main Street, the Casino Theatre on West Bay Street, and the Strand Theatre on West Ashley Street. The Center Theatre was also known as the Arcade Theatre because its entrance opened arcade-style to both Adams Street and Forsyth Street, which run parallel. Kenimer would rise to Division Manager, responsible for 36 theatres, and retire almost 30 years later, in 1955. Kenimer, promoted from the Center Theatre down the street, also owned by Publix Theatres. reported in the next day’s Times-Union, “Long before the town clock tolled the hour of opening, the sidewalks and streets were fairly littered with people.” “A stream of men and women…poured through the portals until the auditorium was filled to the last square foot of carefully arranged space.” “Tonight’s the Night!” proclaimed the Florida Theatre’s advertisement in the Friday, April 8, 1927, Florida Times-Union, and Loy Warwick Jr. Nine and a half months after breaking ground, the theatre opened. Such a theatre contributes to the community’s welfare because wholesome recreation is essential to its well-being.” When the theatre finally opened, Sam Katz, President of Publix Theaters, the arm of Paramount Pictures that constructed and operated theatres, told the Times-Union newspaper: “A properly conducted theatre is of the same importance to a community as a school or a church. The plaster work was conducted using a scaffold suspended from the roof trusses instead of the modern method of using the ground-supported stand. The balcony was formed in ten days, and the concrete was poured in three. One balcony girder alone weighed 65 tons. The structural framing of the balcony was unique in that two-thirds of the massive balcony was supported by just two steel trusses, each spanning 90 feet with a depth of approximately 8-1/2 feet. As a result, it only took 21 days to lay one million bricks. One aspect of the Florida Theatre’s construction was historically significant it was the first job anywhere in the South to use ready-mixed mortar to lay the bricks. Four thousand five hundred cubic yards of concrete were poured for the slab. A derrick with a 115-foot mast and a 105-foot boom was used to erect the 1,200 tons of steel shipped by rail in over 40 rail cars. Johns Theatres were all in a row in a four-block stretch.Īccording to the Jacksonville Journal, foundation work began around June 20, 1926, and the first steel was erected around August 10. The new Florida Theatre would be the sixth theatre on Forsyth Street alone, where the Savoy, Empress, Imperial, Palace, and St. Fuller Company of New York was the general contractor, and the building’s value was estimated at $1.5 million. Benjamin of Jacksonville as Associate Architect. of New York were the architects, with Roy A. permission to construct a seven-story concrete, fireproof theatre and commercial building with a roof garden on the corner of Forsyth on Newnan Streets in downtown Jacksonville. This masterpiece of art is the Florida Theatre, which today became an integral part of advancing Jacksonville, following its dedication last night before an audience packed the playhouse to capacity….”Ĭonstruction on the Florida Theatre began in the summer of 1926 when building permit #1345 granted Southern Enterprises, Inc. ![]() The next day, the Jacksonville Journal reported, “On the spot where once stood an unkempt police station that had housed in its sordid career many of the riff-raff of the world there has come into being a thing of beauty, a palace of dreams. Television was pulled out of the dictionary and into the world of fact.” Thus, on the same day, the largest theatre in the State of Florida had its Grand Opening, and the seeds of its eventual demise as a movie house and resurrection as a nonprofit arts center made news too.īut on the night of April 8, 1927, however, all was splendid in Downtown Jacksonville. ![]() In 1927, on the same day that the Florida Theatre first opened its doors to the public, the World News Service in New York City carried this report: “For the first time, men sat in New York and looked 200 miles over a telephone wire at other men in Washington, D.C. ![]()
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