The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to designate the 95-year-old Granada Theater in Wilmington as a historic-cultural monument.
The 1,000-seat venue was opened in 1926 to house vaudeville acts. Friends of the Wilmington Granada claim that the building has been in various hands and used for a variety of purposes over the years, including as a performing arts center, filming site, World War II-era cinema house, Spanish cinema theater and a recording location.
Friends of the Wilmington Granada has been trying to raise funds and reopen this theater as an independent moviehouse and performance center since the church that had occupied it for 15 years has left. “Reopening the Wilmington Granada theater will not only create jobs but will stimulate the economy by offering performances and films,” Friends of the Wilmington Granada shared their thoughts on Facebook.
632 N. Avalon Blvd. in Wilmington, about 25 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, the theater’s defining characteristics that have survived include terrazzo floors, balcony seating, an ornate proscenium and, most notably, an intact pull-down advertising curtain that still displays ads for small local businesses from the 1920s and 1930s (see photo above).
A representative of the L.A. Historic Theater Foundation who called into the City Council meeting today noted that the curtain is the “last remaining example we know of across the whole city.”
Councilman Joe Buscaino, who represents the Wilmington area, has sought since 2014 to designate the building as a historic-cultural monument for its value as “an excellent and rare example of a neighborhood theater with Renaissance Revival architectural influences in Wilmington,” according to the application.
“It is imperative that the city’s historic-cultural treasures be celebrated, and foremost, that its historic architecture be preserved for future generations,” Buscaino stated that at the time. “The Granada Theater located on Wilmington’s Avalon Boulevard is an architectural treasure and integral to the development of this South Bay community.”