Tower Theater, Movie theater in Broadway Theater District, Los Angeles, United States.
The Tower Theatre is a 1927 movie theater at South Broadway and West Eighth Street in the Broadway Theater District, now an Apple Store. Its Baroque Revival terra-cotta facade mixes French, Spanish, Moorish and Italian elements, with a corner tower carrying a vertical "TOWER" sign and two round clocks. The interior was modeled after the Paris Opera House.
Commissioned by businessman H.L. Gumbiner, the Tower Theatre was the first cinema designed by S. Charles Lee and opened in 1927 with the silent film The Gingham Girl, replacing the Garrick Theatre on a 50 by 152 foot site. It was the first Los Angeles theater wired for talking pictures and hosted the sneak preview and Los Angeles premiere of Warner Bros.' part-talking The Jazz Singer. Renamed the Newsreel Theater in the early 1950s, it closed as a cinema in 1988 and was declared Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 450 the following year.
The theatre's name comes from the corner tower that carries the vertical "TOWER" sign and two round clocks. Its Baroque Revival terra-cotta front mixes French, Spanish, Moorish and Italian elements, with arched niches holding golden figures. Since June 24, 2021 the former auditorium has served as Apple's Los Angeles flagship store.
The Tower Theatre stands at the corner of South Broadway and West Eighth Street, in the Broadway Theater District of Downtown Los Angeles. It now operates as Apple's Los Angeles flagship store, open to the public during shopping hours; the 1927 auditorium and lobby are the setting for the retail space. The nearest Metro station is Pershing Square, a short walk away.
The Tower Theatre appears in Fight Club (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Transformers (2007), among other films. Its Baroque Revival exterior, with a corner tower and terra-cotta ornament, has stood at South Broadway and West Eighth Street since 1927.
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