A LOOK BACK -- JERRY PERSON

Many locals are concerned about the bankruptcy of the Edwards Cinema

chain, especially the multiplex Downtown.

Over the years, Downtown Huntington Beach has seen many a movie

theater come and go. Starting with the Princess Theatre in the second

block of Main Street in the early 1900s and the old Surf Theatre that J.

Cleve Scott built with state-of-the-art projection equipment in 1925 on

5th Street to the 1960s Huntington Theater at the Five Points Shopping

Center.

This week, we’ll look at a theater planned for the post-World War II

boom but never built. In late 1946, plans were submitted to the city to

build a $75,000 swank new movie theater at the corner of 7th Street and

Pacific Coast Highway.

Its builders -- Roy Churchill, Ray Dolan Sr. and Ray Dolan Jr. -- had

high hopes that this theater would attract large crowds from the western

parts of Orange County. Churchill was a film distributor for Fox, RKO and

Goldwyn pictures.

The elder Dolan owned and operated the 107 Club at 107 Main St. and his son, Ray Jr., was a graduate of Huntington Beach High School.

Architect Everett E. Parks of Santa Ana was hired to draw up the

blueprints.

The theater would take up most of the 75-foot-by-110-foot property,

and the theater would be built of reinforced concrete with a colored

concrete facade. Because the theater was so close to the ocean tidewater,

the three chose the name Tide for their new theater.

The Tide would embody the ultra modern styles that were appearing in

Orange County after the war. Inside the theater, 850 seats would comfort

its patrons in the lower floor and balcony, and as was a common custom in

those days, smoking would be permitted inside. Indirect inside lighting

would be used to accent its architectural features. Also there would be

comfortable loge seats in both sections.

A lighted marquee would extend 12 feet out from the U-shaped building

and over the sidewalk. But the major element of the building would have

been a 60-foot tower reaching skyward, and on this tower would be in

large letters -- Tide.

The three owners were looking for an experienced person or company to

lease the theater. Remember that this was the time television was just

coming into your living rooms. Plans were approved by the city but, as we

know, the theater was never built.

Instead Dolan built Dolan’s Drive-in liquor store on the property, and

today there stands the only gas station in the original Downtown area.

I’ve seen a sketch of the theater and, if it had been built, it would

have been something for the city.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.