Oregon Theatre, Adult movie theater in Southeast Division Street, Portland, United States
The Oregon Theatre is a two-story brick building of about 8,700 square feet at Southeast Division Street, designed by Hubert A. Williams in Italianate and Streetcar Era Commercial styles. Its facade has a glass-filled retail base, beltraces, double-hung second-story windows and ornamental brickwork on the parapet. Inside, the single screen measures 16 by 20 feet, and sofas replaced the original 750 high-backed chairs.
The theater opened in 1925 as a vaudeville venue with a Wurlitzer pipe organ and later became a traditional cinema. It shifted to adult entertainment in the 1970s and closed in 2020.
The theater's name comes from Oregon, and its 1975 marquee was fitted with corrugated aluminum by Multi-light Broadway Sign Co. In 1949, while the Waverly Heights Congregational United Church of Christ rebuilt nearby, services and Sunday school classes were held inside the auditorium. Since 2023 the Portland Art Museum's PAM CUT runs it as Tomorrow Theater, a venue for multimedia storytelling.
The entrance is on Southeast Division Street, reached through a green doorway that leads to a sloped corridor lined with adult DVDs. In 2013 Portland Monthly reported an $8 door charge collected by a doorman, with snacks, drinks and towels sold in the lobby and free condoms provided. The single screen room is kept nearly dark, with sofas and a partitioned area for couples at the front.
The theater's 1925 Wurlitzer organ, worth $16,000, was later repossessed by the William Wood Organ Co. and reinstalled at radio station KXL's Portland studios. The building also hosted church services and Sunday school classes in 1949 while the Waverly Heights Congregational United Church of Christ rebuilt its own sanctuary.
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