The El Camino Theater

Devices to project images in motion were being experimented with in houses called nickelodeons. The projection of images (photos) on film evolved, and places to show "movie film” as they became known were sought. Green’s Hall in San Bruno fit the bill perfectly. A piano for background music was placed in the hall, people brought their own chairs to sit on, and shows were presented to the public.

Green’s Hall was so successful that a separate building with a stage was built at the corner of Taylor, San Mateo Avenue and El Camino Real, and the public flocked to the building now called the Novelty Theater. The films were without sound until the late 1920s when a process of placing sound on the film was invented, thus making the Novelty Theater obsolete. The one-story, wooden building was torn down and a new multi-story, cement building complete with a large stage and screen was planned.

Although the people of the area anxiously awaited the completion of the theater, it boasted only a foundation for three years. A depression had descended upon the United States and money was tight. Finally, in July, 1930, it opened, and the El Camino Theater immediately became the showpiece of the northern Peninsula.

The Theater was a huge concrete structure that covered two fifty-foot lots facing San Mateo Avenue. It was the largest building in the city at that time – two floors, with a third floor facade that a large El Camino Theater sign with blinking lights was supported from. This huge sign and the marquee that announced the present and future movies could be seen for many blocks.

The theaters of the 30s were designed to offer a feeling of excitement and escape. Just buy a fifteen cent ticket to the show from the glass-enclosed ticket attendant in front of the glass-doored entrance, and for a few fleeting hours you were lost in a world of fantasy and fun. The darkness of the theater was both relaxing and exciting.

Just within the entrance, a large lobby greeted you. Often this was decorated to promote up-coming features. A glass-topped counter displayed candy and snacks that could be purchased and taken into the movie house to be eaten during the film. The fragrant smell of a ten-cent bag of popcorn encircled you the minute you entered the lobby, making it hard to resist buying a box to enjoy eating during the movie.

The floors in the lobby were carpeted, a rarity in the city. This reduced the noise and distraction for the viewers. The attendants, ticket-takers and ushers, who were usually local teenagers, were dressed in smart uniforms that readily distinguished them from their peers.

To add to the pleasure of the movie-goers, in the mid-1930s, the El Camino Creamery-Café was opened adjacent to the theater entrance. A few hundred yards away, across from the theater on El Camino Real, stood the famous restaurant, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, where a wonderful meal or snack could be had after the film. Across the street was the Union Gas Station and behind it was Gus Jenevein’s two-story restaurant and hotel, Junction House. Everything that was needed for a night-on-the-town was to be found close to the El Camino Theater.

The 1950s proved to be a disastrous decade for the movie industry. A new entertainment phenomenon, television, became popular, and attendance at the El Camino Theater, as well as all theaters, declined until it was closed and then sold in 1974. In July 26, 1975, adult entertainment producers, the Mitchell brothers of San Francisco, took a five-year lease on the building, but due to controversy it never was occupied by the brothers. It stood vacant until 1978, when the interior of the theater was gutted for development of a 23,000 square foot business complex.

In 2008 the building has been sold again, and it is awaiting the fate of the wrecking ball. Coming attractions are plans to construct a new multi-story apartment/store complex on it site.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of The Daily Journal.