The La Brea Theatre, also known as Chotiner's La Brea, Fox La Brea, Art La Brea and Toho La Brea was a single-screen

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

at 857 S. La Brea Avenue. The theatre was notable for being one of the few movie theatres showing Japanese films in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was built in the 1920s and had 1,200 seats at opening, and 900 seats after a renovation. The theatre was built initially as part of the "Chotiner's" movie chain. It became part of the Fox theatre chain. It closed in 1954, and re-opened in 1960 as the Art La Brea after a US$70,000 renovation. The 1960 renovation reduced its seating to 640 seats. Later in the 1960s, the theatre was taken over by the

Toho is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the producer an ...

company of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and used to screen its films and other Japanese films directly, without a distributor. The Toho company also took over cinemas in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The architecture of the building used numerous gothic arches over the doorways and second floor windows. The main lobby's exterior and second floor architecture was reminiscent of a

steeple In architecture, a steeple is a tall tower on a building, topped by a spire and often incorporating a belfry and other components. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religi ...

, however it did not have a spire. The building is still standing today, and in fact is used as a church.

References

External links

Fox La Brea
Former cinemas in the United States {{US-theat-struct-stub