Tower Theatre

Los Angeles' Tower Theatre opened in 1927 and enjoyed the dual distinction of being the city's first theatre with air conditioning and the nation's first movie house wired for talking pictures. On October 5, 1927, the theatre showed a sneak preview of The Jazz Singer one day prior to its premiere in New York City, making Los Angeles Tower Theatre the world's first movie theatre to run a feature-length talking picture. The Jazz Singer is believed to be the first feature-length film to incorporate sound in conjunction with a musical score, but it also featured blackface, common at the time. The theatre stopped showing movies in April 1987 and was vacant for most of the time through the 1990s. It briefly housed a Brazilian church and later was a rock concert venue. From 2019 to 2021, the building was restored and renovated to house an Apple store.

The historic theatre opened as one of multiple motion picture palaces that appeared during the 1920s. Between 1925 and 1929, more than 3,000 movie theater palaces opened nationwide, with moviegoers doubling during that period. The grand theatres and their lavish characteristics ostensibly symbolized the good feelings associated with the thriving economic climate of the "Roaring '20s" and the concurrent rise in consumer culture.

The Tower Theatre sits within the broader historic Broadway Theater and Commercial District, a six-block thoroughfare containing the relics of the Los Angeles theater and commercial center developed from the early 1890s to the early part of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Construction of the new city hall in the late 1880s on Broadway between Second and Third Streets begat a building boom in the area that effectively turned the now-historic area into the city's commercial center, aided substantially by the opening of The Lankershim Hotel in 1902, Hamberger's (one of the city's most prominent retailers) in 1905, and the Yorkshire Hotel in 1909.

By the time Tower Theatre opened in 1927, Broadway supported a multitude of shops, hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues, and various other commercial enterprises. Moreover, in 1903, the Mason Opera House (now demolished) opened on Broadway as the first of many theatres to open on the street. Over time, theatres along Broadway grew larger and more extravagant despite a shift in the city's theater and movie industry district to Hollywood.

A young architect named Simeon Charles Lee designed the historic theatre at age 28, the first of more than 285 theatres he created during his career. The historic Tower Theatre replaced a one-story theatre built in 1911. The 900-seat theatre enjoyed a Baroque Revival style with French, Spanish, Moorish, and Italian elements. Lee designed the theatre's interior in a French Renaissance style with a small lobby inspired by the Paris Opera House. Although wired for sound, few "talkies" existed, so after the theatre provided a sneak preview of The Jazz Singer on October 5, 1927, the theater officially opened one week later on October 12, featuring The Gingham Girl, a silent movie starring George K. Arthur and Lois Wilson.

The theatre enjoyed success, even during the Great Depression of the 1930s. During the 1940s and 1950s, the theatre primarily functioned as a Newsreel theatre, which provided news to patrons in an era pre-dating television news. The transition symbolized the changing nature of movie theatres from grand designs to modern Multiplexes. Despite major renovations during the 1960s, declining attendance and profits slowly led to its closure by 1988. The iconic corner tower was shortened after it was damaged in an earthquake in the 1970s.

After the 1980s, it served many functions such as a ballroom, nightclub, church, and swap meet (some plans never materialized). The theatre also served the movie industry as a popular movie shoot location. In 2019, work began to convert the Tower Theatre into an Apple store, which included plans to restore the building's original features and grandeur; the Apple store opened on June 24, 2021, and continues to operate in the space as of 2025.

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"LA Tower Theatre." Evergreen Architectural Arts. Accessed April 16, 2025. https://evergreene.com/projects/la-tower-theatre/.

Sitton, Tom. "Nomination Form: Broadway Theatre and Commercial District." National Register of Historic Places. nps.gov. 1979. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/d41bca98-3f44-45c2-b049-ad3bce5f4c01/.

Slowinska, Maria A. "Consuming Illusion, Illusions of Consumability: American Movie Palaces of the 1920s." American Studies 50, no. 4 (2005): 575-601.

"Tower Theatre." Cinema Treasures. Accessed April 16, 2025. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/3.