Tivoli Theatre (Chicago)

The Tivoli Theatre was a movie palace in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. It the first of the "big three" movie palaces built by the Balaban & Katz theatre chain run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban and their partner Sam Katz, who were also owners of the Rivera Theater (North Side) and the Central Park Theater (West Side), that opened on February 16, 1921.^[1][2] The opening was a gala affair, complete with music from a 55 piece orchestra. The theater cost $2,000,000 to construct; its lobby was two stories high and was able to hold 3,000 people.^[3] About 1924-1925 Milton Charles was the resident organist who recorded for Marsh Laboratories on the Paramount label using the new electric recording system of Orlando R. Marsh with microphones, compared to the more common acoustic method using horns. Charles succeeded Jesse Crawford as a Marsh artist after Crawford went to New York to play at the Paramount Theater and eventually record with Victor Talking Machine Company. The theater, which stood just south of the southeast corner of 63rd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, closed in 1963 and was demolished shortly thereafter.^[1][4][5]

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