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Lowe's
Palace Theater
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81 Union
Avenue
1920-1977, demolished 1985
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The Lowe's Palace Theater was downtown on
Union Avenue next door to
Britling's Cafeteria. With 2200 seats,
it was one of the premier movie theaters
from 1920 when it was built until 1977.
It was demolished in 1985. This
theater was adapted to show movies in
"Cinerama" from 1961 to 1963.
The Cinerama movies were projected onto 3
screens which curved around the audience.
It was an incredible effect putting the
viewer right in the middle of the action.
The first movie shown in Cinerama was
"How The West Was Won". This
location is now a parking garage.
The Cinema Treasures website has a wonderful
history of the theater.
http://cinematreasures.org/theater/4184/
We're grateful to Allen Creswell for giving
us his permission to use
these terrific photos.
http://www.allencreswell.com/ |
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Demolition
(1985) |
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(click
to enlarge) |
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Movies
shown at the Lowe's Palace Theater:
How the West Was Won
(1961) |
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| Memories: |
| "In the late 40's and throughout the 50's the studios sent their major stars on "road tours" to publicise the new pictures. They often would appear at a theater where their film was playing. Van Johnson and Janet Leigh appeared at the Palace in 1947 to promote their new film "Romance of Rosy Ridge". Between each showing, the two stars would appear on stage, engage in a short skit, and answer questions from the audience.." - Gene Gill, Tech High 1951 |
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Send us
your memories of the Lowe's Palace Theater
and the movies you saw
there. |
Submitted by: Glenda Coy : 05 Jan 2008, 19:45
When my husband & I were dating, he took me to the big city of Memphis. We
crossed over the bridge from Arkansas to go to Lowe's Palace. We saw '2001
Space Odyssey'--the movie was awesome, the screen was so big, Lowe's was
such a beautiful building,I was so impressed!(about 1970)Thanks for these
memories & great web site.
Submitted by: F.E. "Gene" Pratt : 06 Feb 2008, 22:30
I was born in the early 1930's.
In the years preceding and during grammar school, I and others of my
family would attend the "uptown" (contrasted with "neighborhood") "picture
show" of our choice -- "movie" was not in our vocabulary -- after eating at
Britling's Cafeteria. That weekly event was usually on a Friday. Being a
Catholic family, that meant FISH. My memory believes that Britling's
served only 1 type of fish, haddock.
If Loew's had our chosen picture of the night, we got a bargain.
The Movie prices changed at about 5:30-6:00 P.M. Wanting to eat as late as
possible before the movie, we bought tickets before the price change, and
before the line of other bargain hunters formed at the "ticket office".
After eating at Britling's, we rapidly stepped next door for the movie.
BUT, timing was everything: Don't dawdle over the food. The Ticket Taker
might refuse admission if we were too late to use them (by His criterion,
which I have forgotten -- as well as many other things).
The other "uptown picture shows" were too far from the cafeteria for us to
even attempt that maneuver.
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