Structure Type: built works - performing arts structures - theatres

Designers: Balch, Clifford A. Architect (firm); Walker and Eisen, Architects (firm); Clifford A. Balch (architect); Percy Augustus Eisen (architect); Albert Raymond Walker (architect)

Dates: constructed 1930-1931

721 West Main Street
El Centro, CA 92243-2921

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The team of Clifford A. Balch (1880-1963) and Walker and Eisen combined to design the 1,179-seat, single-screen Crest Theatre in El Centro, CA. These two firms collaborated on many movie theatre designs throughout Southern CA.

The building had the pronounced Art Deco-influenced, superimposed layers of vertical pilasters and symmetrical composition seen in other designs by Balch and Eisen and Walker.

In 1952, the Fox West Coast exhibition chain took the United Artists over and set about remodeling it; in the process, Fox West Coast renamed it the "Crest," relaunching it in 06/1952. By c. 1980, it became the "Valley Cinemas 4-5-6" before discontinuing operations in 1999.

PCAD id: 11823