Content area
Full Text
I went back in time the other day to see inside the Los Angeles Theater, at 625 S. Broadway.
The Los Angeles was the last of the great motion picture palaces built on Broadway. It was completed in 1931. Today it is queen of the 13 houses that remain in operation on Broadway between 3rd and 9th streets.
I was invited on my nostalgic tour by Archie Herzoff, director of public relations for Metropolitan Theatres Corp., which owns and operates them all.
It is the only large concentration of vintage movie theaters left in America.
As a high school boy, when I lived only a mile from Broadway, I used to spend Saturdays in those theaters. For 15 cents you could see three features. I have no doubt that I have been in every one of them-Palace, Arcade, Broadway, Orpheum, Cameo, State, Rialto, Tower, Roxie, Olympic, United Artists, Million Dollar and Los Angeles.
I remember walking into those opulent interiors, surrounded by the glory of the Renaissance, or the age of Baroque, and spending two or three hours in the dream world of the movies. When I came out again the sky blazed; the heat bounced off the sidewalk; traffic sounds filled the street; I was back in the hard reality of the Depression.
I walked south on Broadway past the Million Dollar Theater, at 3rd Street. It was...