Newton Theater
- Architect
- John Jacob Zink
- Style
- Art Deco
- City
- Washington, DC
- Collection
- d.c. deco
The Newton Theater opened July 29, 1937, at 3601 12th Street NE in Brookland, an Art Deco movie house designed by John Jacob Zink, who is credited with more than 200 theater projects across the region. Its first screening was I Met Him in Paris, starring Claudette Colbert and Robert Young.
the building
From screen to stage to drugstore. After closing in the mid-1960s, the building passed through Catholic University (which used it until 1971), a brief late-1970s revival as a movie house, and a 1984 run as a punk venue hosting bands including Husker Du, Government Issue, and Void, before becoming a Peoples Drug, later CVS, store in the 1990s.
Art Deco survives the pharmacy. When CVS took over the space, it kept the theater's Art Deco exterior largely intact. The marquee and stepped ziggurat detailing remain, with only the sign lettering changed to read "CVS/pharmacy."
the style
Zink designed the Newton in the Art Deco idiom typical of his movie-theater work, a body of more than 200 projects region-wide. The building's ziggurat detailing and marquee are the clearest surviving traces of that style.
More on Art Decothe architect
John Jacob Zink was a prolific theater architect credited with more than 200 movie-theater projects in the Washington region, of which the Newton, opened in 1937, was one.
significance
The Newton Theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, owed in large part to the Art Deco exterior details, marquee, ziggurat, and signage structure, that survived its conversion to retail use.
nearby
- Franciscan Monastery & Memorial Church of the Holy Land
- Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
- Ralph Bunche House
- Engine Company No. 26
- President Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldiers' Home
- Old Engine Company 26