Broadway Theater District

Between 3rd and 9th Streets in Los Angeles lies the heaviest concentration of historic movie palaces still in existence.  The six-block strip in downtown has a dozen former theaters that once held over 15,000 seats for moviegoers in the early twentieth century. 

Los Angeles cemeneted itself as the capital of the film world early in the medium’s history. Thomas Edison was known for strictly enforcing his movie production patents. Rather than pay fees to the inventor, early film producers decided it was easier to run away, and Los Angeles was about as far from Edison’s headquarters in New Jersey as you could get in the United States. Movies took off on the west coast largely unencumbered by law enforcement. 

The earliest theaters began popping up on Broadway in the 1910s. Some were for vaudeville, others were nickelodeons, but by 1918, the construction of Sid Grauman’s Million Dollar Theater cemeneted the district as the premier place to see movies in Los Angeles.

Found in almost every major city in the early 1900s, movie palaces were known for their rich, oppulent decor.  Broadway’s theaters showed a diverse array of decorative influence from around the world which sought to elevate filmgoing to be on-par with traditional theatre. Most importantly, though, movie palaces were some of the first public buildings with air conditioning—endlessly attractive during hot LA summers.  

The Broadway District began to fall out of favor in the 30’s as production companies built bigger theaters near their Hollywood lots. Decades went on, and movie palaces lost further appeal when large multiplexes sprung up across the country. Being obsolete, most historic theaters were torn down, though there are sporadic few that have survived. 

In present day, Broadway is mostly known as downtown LA’s jewelry disctrict, though several of the theaters are still being rented as event spaces, and their ornate exteriors can be viewed from the street.