Western Neighborhoods Project is dedicated to the history of San Francisco's Richmond, Sunset, OMI and West of Twin Peaks districts. read more ...
Parkside Theater proscenium, 1943
Photo courtesy of J.E. Tillmany
Jack Tillmany: "This is the original 1928 proscenium of the Parkside, flanked by a couple of typical Depression-era murals, added during the mid-1930s modernization. All of this was hidden behind the ubiquitous drapes of the 1965 remodelling."
More from Jack: "For thirty years, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s this handsome facade of the Parkside Theatre was the anchor of the Taraval Street shopping district, as this 1959 photo shows. Muni #1003, also seen here, was a fixture on the L-line during most of the same time period, and is preserved today at the Califronia Railway Museum at Rio Vista Junction.
"Sadly, in 1965, Fox West Coast decided to make the Parkside a first-run, reserved seat outlet for the then trendy road show attractions, and the embarrassingly ugly marquee with which it played out it final years replaced this one. 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines' and 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' were the first two, and the only important films to be shown under the new policy, but they did succeed in ending the Parkside's days as a second-run 'neighborhood' theatre, thereby doing more long-term harm than good, and no doubt contributing to its eventual demise."
Images: Both courtesy of J.E. Tillmany.
Page launched 3 February 2004.
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