Uptown Theatre (Chicago) facts for kids

Balaban and Katz Uptown Theatre
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Uptown Theatre, 2011
Location	4816 N. Broadway, Chicago, Illinois
Built	1925; 100 years ago (1925)
Architect	C.W. Rapp, George Rapp
Architectural style	Tudor Revival, Mission/Spanish Revival
NRHP reference No.	86003181
Quick facts for kids Significant dates
Added to NRHP	November 20, 1986

The Uptown Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, was once a huge movie theater and concert hall. It's also known as the Balaban and Katz Uptown Theatre. Famous architects Rapp and Rapp designed it. It was built by Paschen Bros. contractors. This theater was one of many "movie palaces" created by the Balaban & Katz company. This company was run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban, and their partner Sam Katz.

The Uptown Theatre is the biggest movie palace still standing in Chicago. It has 4,381 seats. People say its inside space is larger than any other movie palace in the United States. This includes even the famous Radio City Music Hall in New York. The theater covers over 46,000 square feet (4,273 square meters) of land. It sits at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Broadway in Chicago's Uptown Entertainment District. This giant theater has a fancy five-story entrance lobby. It used to have an eight-story front.

The Uptown Theatre has been closed since 1981. For many years, people talked about fixing it up. Several groups tried hard to restore it, but they didn't succeed. This left the theater in bad shape. In 2018, there were plans to fix the theater. However, these plans fell apart in 2021. This was partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

History of the Uptown Theatre

Grand Opening Day

The Uptown Theatre first opened on August 18, 1925. It was called "An Acre of Seats in a Magic City." The opening day was a huge event. There was a "Central Uptown Parade" with over 200 floats. A big dance was held at Harmon's Arcadia in Uptown. More than 12,000 people stood in line to get tickets for the very first show. Some women even fainted from waiting so long!

Theater Staff and Shows

When it opened, the theater had more than 130 staff members. This included a full 34-person orchestra, a nurse, and firemen. Each movie came with a fancy stage show. These shows were special because they matched the movie's theme. Other theater chains usually had simple Vaudeville acts before their movies. The Uptown Theatre is now listed on several important landmark and historic registers.

Decades of Movies

Uptown Theatre around 1980

Movies continued to play at the Uptown Theatre. Stage shows were stopped for a while to save money. But in 1949, the stage shows came back for a short time. Movies kept playing through the 1950s and 1960s. During this time, the TV show Queen for a Day was filmed at the Uptown with a live audience.

Later, fewer people came to see movies. At the same time, the Uptown area itself saw fewer shops and businesses in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Becoming a Music Venue

In the 1970s, the theater found new life as a big concert hall. It hosted many local and national music groups. The Grateful Dead played there several times between 1978 and 1981. The J. Geils Band was the last group to perform at the theater.

Closed Since 1981

The Uptown Theatre has been closed for regular events since the winter of 1981. The owner at the time, Plitt Theatres, turned off the heat. This caused a water pipe to freeze and burst. The burst pipe caused a lot of damage inside the theater. Over the years, not fixing things and vandalism made the building even worse, both inside and out.

Since 1981, the theater has been used for filming movie scenes. Some movies filmed there include the Academy Award-nominated Backdraft, I Love Trouble with Julia Roberts, and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. In the 1990s, the theater lobby hosted the "Hearts Party." This party raised money for an AIDS charity. In 2016, the theater was used for the music video for Regina Spektor's song "Black and White."

Current Restoration Efforts

In 1990, a group of people who wanted to save the theater convinced the owners to donate important parts from the Uptown's inside. These parts were meant to be used for future restoration projects. A civil engineer named Curt Mangel helped arrange for these pieces to be stored by a collector, Jasper Sanfilippo, at his estate.

In 2006, the outside of the theater was made safe. Pieces of its terra cotta (a type of pottery used for decoration) were listed and stored for future repairs. In 2007, an article in Crain's Chicago Business said the Uptown Theatre was "suddenly a hot property." Three big entertainment companies were trying to buy, fix, and reopen it.

JAM Productions bought the theater on July 29, 2008, for $3.2 million. This sale was finalized in court on August 18, 2008. Experts believe it will cost about $70 million to fully restore the theater. JAM Productions also owns the Riviera Theatre, which is about one block away on Broadway.

In August 2013, parts of the movie Transformers: Age of Extinction were filmed in the theater.

On June 28, 2018, it was announced that $75 million had been set aside to restore the theater. Construction was expected to start in the summer of 2019.

Saving the Uptown Theatre

A group called Friends of the Uptown was started in 1998. This group includes friends, neighbors, historians, and theater fans. They support fixing the theater so it can once again be an important place for entertainment and business in the Uptown neighborhood.

In 2006, filmmakers John Pappas and Michael Bisberg made a documentary called Uptown: Portrait of a Palace. This film explores the history of the Uptown Theatre. It asks why the largest and one of the most detailed theaters in the country has been empty since 1981. The film shows old photos next to new video to show how the building has lasted for over 80 years. The documentary includes interviews with people who know the theater well. It highlights the challenges of saving historic buildings across the country. The film first showed at the Portage Theatre in Chicago in June 2006. It has also been shown on WTTW, Chicago's public television station. Uptown: Portrait of a Palace won "Best Documentary" at the 11th Annual Flicker Fest.

The preservation group Landmarks Illinois has listed the Uptown Theatre as one of their "Ten Most Endangered Historic Places." It was on this list in 1996, 2001, 2010, and 2014.

About the Uptown Theatre

The Uptown Theatre is shown on the cover of a book. The book is called The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz by David Balaban. It was published by Arcadia Publishing.

Famous Performers

Many famous artists and bands have performed at the Uptown Theatre.