Pomona Fox Theater, Art Deco movie theater in Pomona, US

The Pomona Fox Theater is an Art Deco cinema at 114 W 3rd St in Pomona, California, designed by Balch & Stanberry. Its pale tower rises from the center of the building, painted with vertical panels of light purple and light blue, and narrows near the top to an octagonal drum with vertical fins. Above the drum, a tall vertical sign carries the word FOX in red capital letters. At street level, the base is gray with a dark band, and lower sections extend to the right.

Opened on April 24, 1931, the theater was designed by the firm Balch & Stanberry and operated as a first-run cinema for 50 years. Hollywood studios often used it for sneak previews to gauge audience reactions. It declined in the early 1970s with the rise of multiplexes, showed Spanish-language films for a few years, and closed in 1977. The city bought it after citizen activism; the Tessier family acquired it in February 2007 and spent $10 million on restoration. It reopened on May 21, 2009, with a capacity of about 2,000.

The Fox Theater Pomona is the flagship attraction of the Pomona Arts Colony, a district of galleries, nightclubs, lofts and restaurants. Its 2009 reopening made it a venue for concerts, cinema, performances and parties, with a capacity of roughly 2,000. Bands such as Green Day, Blur, Morrissey and Twenty One Pilots have played here.

The building sits on West 3rd Street in downtown Pomona and is easily accessible on foot. After restoration, it now hosts concerts and special events, so checking ahead for programming helps you plan your visit.

The theater's tower is crowned by a vertical sign spelling FOX in red capital letters stacked one above another, and the marquee below is edged with rows of round bulbs. The 2009 restoration cost 10 million dollars and brought the auditorium back to a capacity of roughly 2,000. The venue was ranked #23 in LA Weekly's top 50 venues in Los Angeles.