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Building History

This theatre was transformed into a church after movies were discontinued; subsequently, the Los Angeles Jewelry Mart took over the theatre and the Pantages Office Building within which it was housed.

Building Notes

This theatre was located in a larger Pantages Office Building in Downtown, Los Angeles, CA. David Naylor, in his American Picture Palaces The Architecture of Fantasy, (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1981, p. 216), stated that the Pantages Theatre #2 in Los Angeles, CA, had 1,757 seats.

This was the office building in which the alleged 08/09/1929 rape of 17-year-old Eunice Pringle (1912-1996) by Alexander Pantages (1867-1936) had occurred in a janitor's closet nearby to Pantages's office. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County convicted Pantages on 10/27/1929, sentencing him to 50 years imprisonment, but he was later exonerated in a second,1931 trial. Pantages's guilt or innocence will probably never be proven definitively, although many books and articles have been written on the subject. Authors have over the years published a great deal of misinformation about Pringle, including that she was poisoned in 1933 and recanted her accusations while dying. This story proved false. Also, Pringle was said to have been bribed by Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., (1888-1869), a one-time business rival of Pantages, although no clear proof of this has been offered.

PCAD id: 14709