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Building History

The father-and-son partnership of David J. (1852-1921) and Sidney Grauman (1879-1950) opened this Market Street theatre in San Francisco, CA c. 1898, and managed it until 1906. The head of the Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit, Morris Meyerfeld, Jr., (1855-1935) doubled the rent from $500 to $1,000 on the Graumans in 01/1906 and they shut down their establishment. Before leaving it on 01/28/1906, a group of men paid by the Graumans wrecked the interior with axes, making all interior equipment unusable. Meyerfeld supposedly could no longer use the building as a theatre, due to changing fire codes in San Francisco, but the Graumans prevented him from reusing the seating and other fixtures. The Grauman's Unique Theatre existed before the new fire laws were enacted and were therefore exempt. (See “Grauman Uses Axe in His Unique Theater,” San Jose Evening News, 01/30/1906, p. 5.)

Despite the changed fire codes, another operator, Samuel Davis, did lease the Unique Theatre between February and the San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906. He lost the $9,000 he spent on new equipment and his $1,000 rent when the theatre burned. (See "San Francisco Theatres: Grauman's Unique," accessed 11/16/2020.)

The Graumans went on to open the National Theatre in a tent on a lot at Post and Steiner Streets just after the quake, becoming some of the first theatre managers to restart business after the disaster.

PCAD id: 11778