Milwaukee is fortunate to have many historic movie theaters still in operation, from the Oriental and Downer on the city’s east side, to the Avalon in Bay View. But the city was once home to many lavish movie palaces fitted with lavish decor and seats for thousands of movie goers.
“There was really no detail spared in designing these places, you know, marble in the lobbies, very nice staircases. The furnishings, the draperies… there's art on the walls, there's murals, there's fountains in some of these theaters,” says Matthew Prigge, a historian and author who wrote about the city's movie palaces for Milwaukee Magazine.
He continues, "The old Princess Theater on 3rd Street, when it first opened, it had, birds in gilded cages. Everything was really designed to, to uplift the, the moviegoing experience."
Unlike earlier spaces used to watch silent films, these new movie palaces were created with the film-watching experience in mind. These theaters could fit thousands of movie-goers and would show the latest motion pictures, making downtown theaters a destination for Milwaukeeans from all over the city.
"When a new movie came out it was downtown, you couldn't see it in your neighborhood theater. Even like the Oriental back in the 20s and 30s, a movie had to be out a few months before it would show up there. So really, if you wanted to kind of experience what was going on culturally or economically, you had to be downtown," Prigge explains.
For decades, these theaters lined the streets of downtown Milwaukee, but that quickly changed after World War II, as many people moved to the suburbs which were rapidly expanding. As malls began to replace the shops in downtown Milwaukee, movie theaters also became a mall staple, moving the economic and cultural center away from the city.
As foot traffic declined, these movie palaces began to suffer.
Prigge explains, "The buildings were in rough shape, they reduced their seating capacity by the 60s or 70s. You know, you can't sell 3000 tickets to a movie anymore.”
Some theaters closed, others began to show different films for the evolving audience. According to Prigge, by the 1970s theaters like the iconic Princess movie palace were primarily showing pornographic films.
Most of these theaters fell to disrepair and were demolished, but two of the movie palaces built during that time remain: the Riverside Theater and the recently restored Warner Grand Theater.
