Detailed Information

The historic district runs along South Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. Pre-dating it is the Main Street theatre district where many nickelodeons and small theatres existed at the start of the 20th century. Many of these theatres switched to movies in the early 20th century, but the grand movie palaces being built a couple of streets west on Broadway drew the crowds away with their larger screens and opulent surroundings.

By 1931, when Broadway’s last movie palace was built, there was capacity for more than 15,000 patrons nightly. Broadway had the highest concentration of movie theatres in the world, with theatres ranging in capacity from several thousand down to 900. The largest theatre by seating capacity was the State Theatre at 2,404 seats, and the smallest was the Tower Theatre at 906 seats.

Broadway was the hub of LA’s entertainment scene, a place where “screen goddesses and guys in fedoras rubbed elbows with Army nurses and aircraft pioneers”.

In the 1950s and 1960s the downtown area entered a general decline as a result of many people moving out to the suburbs and the rise of television. Local neighborhood theatres became much more popular.

Many of the Broadway theatres turned to exhibiting newsreels, Spanish language / Spanish-dubbed films and entertainment, soft porn, or any combination of the above. Had it not been for the activities of the Hispanic community many of the Broadway theatres would probably not have survived.

The area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places  in May 1979 as the Broadway Theater & Commercial District, a six-block stretch of Broadway from 3rd St to 9th St.

With the closure of many theatres in the 1980s, alternative tenants and uses were sought. Churches moved into some spaces (notably the State and United Artists theatres), with other theatres such as the Globe Theatre being given over to swap meets, a fate which almost befell the Tower Theatre as well. Some of the theatres also became regular fixtures as locations for Los Angeles movie and television shoots.

In the late 1980s Broadway started to receive some preservation attention. In 1987 the Los Angeles Conservancy  commenced a program called “Last Remaining Seats” , in which the old movie palaces were opened each summer to screen classic Hollywood movies. 31 years later, “Last Remaining Seats” is still going strong and regularly selling-out theatres during its summer run.

In 2002 the listing on the National Register was amended to extend the historic district by approximately half a block in both directions, resulting in the district stretching from approximately 250 Broadway at the north end (between 2nd and 3rd Streets) to 950 Broadway at the south end (between 9th St and Olympic Boulevard). The boundary increase brought the United Artists Theatre, now the United Theater on Broadway, into the historic district.

In 2008, then councilmember Jose Huizar launched a ten-year strategic economic development plan for the revitalization of the historic Broadway corridor in Downtown Los Angeles, called “Bringing Back Broadway” .

One of the key elements of the Bringing Back Broadway initiative was the “Night On Broadway”  event, started in 2015 where several blocks of Broadway were closed to traffic for a free arts and music festival. The event continued annually, with an area of eight by three blocks closed to traffic for the day, and permitted access to over half of the historic Broadway theatres, some of which were not generally accessible to the public.

Attendance at Night On Broadway in 2015 was 35,000, swelling to 60,000 in 2016 and 75,000 in 2017, then ballooning to 250,000 people in 2018. The following theatres participated in the most recent (2018) Night On Broadway:

• Million Dollar Theatre
• Los Angeles Theatre
• Palace Theatre
• Globe Theatre
• Orpheum Theatre
• The Theatre at Ace Hotel, now known as the United Theater on Broadway

The event went on hiatus for 2019 and promised to return in 2020, however the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in no events in 2020 or 2021.

In early 2019 Langdon Street Capital, who had recently bought the Million Dollar Theatre along with the adjacent Grand Central Market , submitted an application to nominate the Million Dollar Theatre for Historic-Cultural Monument status with the City of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation  helped facilitate the nomination, and in early July 2019 the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously in favor of granting the theatre Historic-Cultural Monument status. As of 2021 and following the Covid-19 pandemic, the theatre is used as both a church and as a regular location for screening movies.

The Tower Theatre was under renovation for several years however reopened in June 2021 as a flagship Apple store: the Apple Tower Theatre . The renovation included a seismic retrofit of the entire building, a faithful recreation of the theatre’s original 1927 marquee on Broadway, a recreated ornamental cap at the top of the clock tower (removed after severe damage caused by the Sylmar / San Fernando Earthquake in February 1971), and an accessible area dedicated to the renovation project highlighting techniques used in the restoration and replication processes.

In late 2023, long-term tenant of the Globe Theatre, Erik Chol, was evicted by his landlord. Whatever the disagreement was, Chol’s management of the Globe Theatre, which had brought diverse sell-out crowds to Broadway multiple nights per week, is now sorely missed. As of late 2024 the theatre space is still seeking a new tenant.

In the Fall of 2024 it was announced that a new street festival called Broadway Night Lights  would come to Broadway. The event would be presented by then councilmember Kevin de León. Broadway Night Lights took place on Saturday 12th October 2024 and saw several blocks of Broadway being closed for a street festival reminiscent of Night On Broadway, with three historic theatres opened for free events: the Los Angeles Theatre, the Palace Theatre, and the Million Dollar Theatre. Crowds were estimated at 50,000 however as of late 2024 no official attendance figures have been published.

The Current State of Broadway

The Los Angeles, Palace, Tower, and State theatres are still owned by the Delijani family and are managed by the Broadway Theatre Group , aside from the Tower Theatre which is long-term rented to Apple for their Downtown Los Angeles Apple Store . The State Theatre is leased to a church however the Palace and Los Angeles theatres are available for rent and are programmed for special events. They are also regularly used for movie and television location shoots.

The Orpheum Theatre and the United Theater on Broadway host a healthy variety of events most weeks. The Million Dollar Theatre hosts occasional events in conjunction with its popular neighbor on Broadway Grand Central Market .

As of mid-2024, the Globe Theatre is currently closed and is seeking a new tenant.

The Roxie, Cameo, and Arcade theatres are currently closed but open to re-use proposals. The Rialto Theatre was adaptively reused as an Urban Outfitters store which opened in December 2013.

Map of the Broadway Theatre District

Broadway Theatre District theatres featured on this website:

Other Broadway Theatre District theatres:

• Arcade Theatre

  Opened September 1910 as the Pantages Theatre and renamed as the Arcade in 1928. Closed 1992, currently used as storage space for the retail unit located in the theatre’s lobby space.

• Cameo Theatre

  Opened October 1910 as Clune’s Broadway and renamed as the Cameo in 1924. Closed 1992, currently used as storage space for the retail unit located in the theatre’s lobby space.

• Rialto Theatre

  Opened May 1917 as Quinn’s Rialto. Closed in 1987 and converted into an Urban Outfitters store in 2013. The theatre’s neon façade has been restored.

• Roxie Theatre

  Opened November 1931 as the last theatre to open on Broadway. Closed in 1989 with the lobby space having been divided into two retail units.

Broadway Theatre District adjacent theatres featured on this website: