[BifRayRock]

Alhambra Cinemas in So Cal. More than one? (At least 3!)

“World’s only double bill-single bill theatre”.

The theater building, located at the southeast corner of Atlantic Boulevard (originally called Wilson Avenue) and Main Street, included a row of shops with apartments upstairs, fronting on Main Street, with the theater entrance at the east end, farthest from the intersection.

The total seating capacity of this room was probably more than 1,000.

But the most unusual feature of the Alhambra Theatre was a second auditorium, constructed (in 1940) in some of the commercial space adjacent to Main Street, and which was entered from a side passage opened in the side of the main lobby, opposite the concession stand. This second auditorium was called the Annex, and sometimes called the Single Bill Theatre. Double features had become the norm during the depression years, but some people still preferred single features, and The Alhambra accommodated both groups by showing double features in its main auditorium and a single feature in the Annex. (The Annex even had its own, small separate marquee, flat against the wall just west of the main theater marquee.) Declining patronage at movie houses in the 1950’s led to the end of this policy early in that decade, and the Annex was left unused for several years. Still, the theater continued to be listed in the newspapers as the Alhambra & Annex well into the 1960’s, and listings in the Alhambra Post-Advocate newspaper of that period continued to carry the tag line “World’s only double bill-single bill theatre”. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/9364

702 W. Main Street, Alhambra
1922 - Lapl

Lapl

1939
Flcikr



731 S. Hill Street, Los Angeles
Lapl

1931 - Hill and Seventh


USC Digital


Evidently there was an Alhambra Theater in San Pedro too.
Lapl