The New 400 Theater on Sheridan Road, a Rogers Park mainstay for over a century, is closing soon, the end for the oldest movie theater in Chicago.
” — so well, the Music Box is considering adding a screen and expanding into new locations. He toured The New 400 recently, and through he hasn’t “looked at the numbers yet,” he found it charming, in a cool neighborhood, but in need of “a complete makeover.” He said, “We’re getting contacted often about buying theaters. At least three in Chicago spring to mind. People still want to go out to movies. It’s still cheaper than a concert or opera.
“From a historical point of view, it’s only ever been a movie theater, which alone says something. It’s hung on, it’s never been anything else. It survived the switch from silents to talkies, then the decline of moviegoing itself during the rise of TV, then the decline of Rogers Park itself. I watched the Oscars, and they kept talking about how the movies are back! But I wonder if the truth is really: The movies are.
In fact, when the theater first opened, Rogers Park, formerly a suburb, had been a part of Chicago for only 19 years. But with its proximity to the North Shore , entertainment venues proliferated across the neighborhood. For movies alone, you could choose the Morse, the Adelphi, the Granada, the Norshore, the Devon. The Howard alone sat 1,700. Some closed in the 1950s; most were gone by 1980. The Granada sat abandoned for years near Loyola.
This is not a 100% done deal, Fox said. Besides Music Box execs, owners from the Davis in Lincoln Square and the Pickwick have taken a peek; even The Harper in Hyde Park already has a new tenant, Aksarben Cinemas of Nebraska. Fox would prefer to have a theater in The 400, but he’s doubtful the economics of the neighborhood movie theater business work anymore. At least, not in the long term. He’s listening to alternatives for the space: a day care, a school, a restaurant, apartments.
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