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Overview

Portland impresarios Keating and Flood spent $65,000 to open this new Tivoli Theatre in 11/1913. In order to manage his Seattle property, L.C. Keating moved to the city from Portland, indicating the importance of the new house to the company. Keating and Flood engaged the Seattle architect Francis W. Grant to design the new facility, built on the site of the Star Theatre.

Building History

The Tivoli Theatre #2 opened at the southeast corner of 1st Avenue and Madison Street on 11/10/1913. It was located in a new facility located on the site of the former Madison Street/Alcazar/Star Theatre.

Building Notes

The Tivoli opened as a vaudeville house in 1913 seating 900, and was probably converted to showing movies in the 1920s; in 1925, a large 2/5 Bennett organ was installed which was removed in 1933; another organ of the same type (obtained from the Arabian Theatre in Seattle, WA) was reinstalled in the theatre by at least 1952; at least by 1941, the building was known as the Rivoli and used this name until c. 1950; after this, the theatre was used as a venue for live theatre under the name "Old Seattle Theatre;" it ended its existence as the Rivoli again, this time staging burlesque revues. According to historian Eugene Clinton Elliott, in his study, A History of Variety-Vaudeville in Seattle from the Beginning to 1914, the Tivoli Theatre #2 began operations in 1910. (See, Appendix I, Eugene Clinton Elliott, A History of Variety-Vaudeville in Seattle from the Beginning to 1914, [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1944], p. 66.)

Demolition

The Tivoli Theatre #2 was torn down in 1970 to make way for the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building;

PCAD id: 4143