Million Dollar Theater Building
- Architect
- Albert C. Martin, Sr.
- Year
- 1922
- Style
- Spanish Colonial Revival
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
- Collection
- broadway’s movie palaces
The Million Dollar Theatre at 307 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles was one of the first movie palaces built in the United States, opening in 1917 with the premiere of William S. Hart's The Silent Man. It was entrepreneur Sid Grauman's first grand cinema palace, built before he went on to open Grauman's Egyptian and Grauman's Chinese theatres on Hollywood Boulevard. Designed by Albert C. Martin, Sr. in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, it stands as the northernmost of Broadway's historic movie palaces, directly across from the Bradbury Building.
the building
Built on the Muskegon Block site. The theater rose on the former site of the Muskegon Block, a c. 1895 building named for Muskegon, Michigan, where its developer Thomas Douglas Stimson had made his fortune in lumber.
Grauman's first palace. The Million Dollar was Grauman's first movie house, a template for the Egyptian and Chinese theatres that followed and helped pull Los Angeles's entertainment district from downtown toward Hollywood in the mid-1920s.
the style
The theater's ornate Spanish Colonial Revival facade anchors Broadway's Theater District, distinguishing it among the historic movie palaces lining the street.
More on Spanish Colonial Revivalsignificance
The Million Dollar Theater Building is individually listed as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1184, designated July 2, 2019, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
nearby
- Bradbury Building
- Broadway Mart Center
- Continental Building
- Judson Rives Building
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
- Title Guarantee and Trust Company Building