Many Alamedans still remember the Alameda Theater’s beginning and its early years.
Alan Ward, 79, who was almost 4 on Aug. 16, 1932, can recall the theater’s grand-opening night, saying, “It was a dramatic and colorful event. I remember the lobby’s glittery lights and the colorful costumes of the usherettes.”
The theater indeed opened with much fanfare, and the guest of honor was California Gov. James Rolph Jr., who dedicated the theater while Alameda Mayor William Murray presided over the ceremony. Alameda’s 35,000 residents had plenty of theaters-the Strand, the Rio, the Vogue, the Park and the Neptune-but they didn’t have a true movie palace until the Alameda Theater: 33,400 square feet, 2,200 seats, one of the largest movie screens in the Bay Area, a beautiful Art Deco design and a vertical blade sign that soared 70 feet into the sky with “Alameda” in big capital letters. Built in 14 months at a cost of $500,000 by the Nasser Brothers, a company of seven brothers who owned a chain of Bay Area theaters, the Alameda Theater instantly became the dominant building in the Park Street Business District.
The Nassers chose a family film for opening night’s feature, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, starring Marion Nixon and Ralph Bellamy. The bill also included The Chimp, with Laurel and Hardy; a Betty Boop cartoon; and a Fox Movietone Newsreel.
The Alameda Times-Star’s edition of Aug. 17 recounted opening night, which was attended by 5,000 Alamedans. Two searchlights illuminated the night sky to announce the theater’s arrival as people flooded the sidewalk between Oak and Park streets. For the 2,200 people lucky enough to get inside, admission was 10 cents for children and 35 cents for adults. The balcony cost 40 cents and was for adults only.
“Its exterior had promised a greater theater than Alameda has ever had, but the gorgeousness and luxurious comfort of the interior surprised even the most imaginative,” reported the Times-Star. “The first-nighters felt like the small boy who joyfully found what he thought was a quarter but on picking it up discovered it to be a five-dollar gold piece.”
Both Gov. Rolph and Mayor Murray delivered platitude-filled speeches, praising the Nassers’ new theater, but their sentiment deserved more credence than usual: For what today would be approximately $7.5 million, the Nassers had built a grand movie theater in Alameda, at the height of the Great Depression when movies were the primary form of entertainment and proved a great escape from the grim realities of the times. It also proved to be the last great movie palace built in the Bay Area.
Other Nasser brothers theaters included the Alhambra and the Castro, which were both designed by Timothy Pflueger, the architect of the Alameda Theater. Pflueger, who had designed the Paramount in Oakland, gave the Alameda Theater many of the same Art Deco features he had bestowed upon its older, bigger brother, which had opened the year before.
The Alameda Theater was beautiful, both inside and out. The front featured eight pink columns, complete with intricate, intertwined embossed floral designs that ran the full height of the façade from above the marquee to the roof. The top of the façade was encircled with decorative waves, a recurring element inside.
Just below the sign were a black marquee, a ticket booth and a terrazzo sidewalk. There were glass double doors, between them an elegant foyer, which opened into the lobby. Pflueger imbued the interior with artwork, stylized bas-relief panels, plaster gods and goddesses and a large gilt-framed mirror bracketed by twin 9-foot-tall gold-leaf lamps, or torchieres, at the rear of the lobby. The lobby stairs glowed with the bright, abstract pattern of a richly woven, luxuriously thick carpet, the design created in the art department of a Hollywood motion picture studio. The mohair seats and carpet blended splendidly with the teal, copper, terra cotta and dark mustard colors of the auditorium’s walls and ceiling.
Alameda resident Jerry Justin, 89, remembers how central the theater was to her life. “I saw all my movies there. There were other theaters, too, such as the Strand and the Vogue, but this particular theater was so gorgeous and glamorous; everyone went there.”
Alameda resident Dorothy de Maria, 90, one of four children raised by their single mother in a family that didn’t have much money, remembers how proud she was of her hometown’s new theater. “It was a very depressing time. There was no money, no fun. If you could get a dime, you could go to the theater,” she says.
During the Great Depression, theater operators such as the Nassers offered promotions to attract people during the week. There was grocery night, dish night and bank night, which gave away groceries, dishes and cash, respectively.
Trips to the theater had sentimental value, too, for people such as Alan Ward. “I remember numerous Sunday matinees with my father. It was the only day he had off,” he says. “There’s something about going out with your dad. Just the two of you. That made it special.”