Good News/Bad News, Travel Close to Home at the Granada Theater

One of the guiding principles of Under Western Skies is that one doesn’t have to travel to distant places or exotic locales to find things worth seeing.

Now, if ever, is the time for me to live up to that premise.

Constrained by the pandemic, we’re not hitting the road for the traditional midsummer trip to … somewhere. We’re staying at home and going — not precisely nowhere — just not very far.

A few miles from home, at the head of the Port of Los Angeles, is Wilmington, California. Founded in about 1858 on land acquired by the ambitious Phineas Banning, it got its name from Banning’s birthplace, Wilmington, Delaware.

Once a bustling harbor town, Wilmington still boasts its share of once imposing 19th and early 20th century structures, as do many American towns. No longer an independent city, it’s part of greater Los Angeles.

I’ve written before about a few of Wilmington’s historic sites, including the last remaining Civil War era military installation in Los Angeles, which I wrote about here, the Drum Barracks.

My objective this week was to see what remained of another local landmark in downtown Wilmington: the Granada Theatre movie palace. Built in 1928, it seated nearly 1,000 patrons in an interior — reportedly — in Art Deco styling typical of the era.

The old house closed in about 1956. After that, it reopened for a time as Teatro Granada, showing Spanish language films.

At some point — a familiar repurposing for old theaters everywhere — it was home to a series of church congregations.

Here, in an undated photo, probably from the 1980s, as the Iglesia Universal. Pare de Sufrir means “End the suffering.” Good enough.

Los Angeles — movie capitol of the world — is replete with these old showplaces, although many others have met the wrecking ball. I’ve written about a number of them, not only in L.A., but in towns all over the American west.

Here’s one example, not far from Wilmington, in San Pedro. The Warner Grand, which opened in 1931, has been restored and hosts films and live events.

Here’s another, in another part of L.A., The Academy, from 1939. Last time I was there and shot this photo, it was a church.

I knew in advance I’d only see the exterior of the Granada. It’s been shuttered for a number of years. There are few photographs of the interior available, although eyewitness accounts indicate some amount of the Art Deco interior decor is intact, if worn.

Here, according to Google Street View, and a site devoted to the Granada on Facebook is about what I expected to see.

Nothing lasts forever. Here’s what I saw in early July, 2020:

All things must change. The old marquee is gone.

That, however, is not necessarily bad news. It may, in fact, be good news.

For some years, an organization named Friends of the Wilmington Granada — that link takes you to their Facebook page — has been devoted to restoring the Granada. Does the removal of the marquee — perhaps for restoration, perhaps merely for safekeeping — indicate they’re making progress?

I don’t know. There are no recent posts on that FB site.

We’ll have to wait. If this post comes to the attention of someone involved with a pending restoration, I invite you to contact me.

Is there an old movie palace in your town? Or, if yours is gone, what do you remember of those halcyon days when the lights went down? Where were you? Balcony? Back of the house? Down front? Who else was there? Leave a comment.

Roll ’em.

© Brad Nixon 2020. Iglesia Universal photograph retrieved from http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2171, July 8, 2020. “For Sale” photograph © Hunter Kerhart, retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/WilmingtonGranadaFriends/?ref=page_internal on July 8, 2020.