Source: LAPL Digital Archives
Opened circa 1940 and named for land developer and Temple City founder Walter P. Temple, this proud single-screen theater once stood on the corner of Rosemead and Las Tunas Blvds. Seating 750, it was designed by S. Charles Lee, a prolific Southern California architect with more than 70 movie houses to his credit, almost all of them now closed or razed.
Having grown up in Temple City, I personally have many fond memories of the movie house. In fact, ask any “old-timer” about the place and they’ll happily recall its unique wagon-wheel fence, creaky balcony and 12-cent Saturday matinees featuring plenty of cartoons for restless kidlet audiences throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
The Theater’s Final Curtain
Sadly, however, by the late 1970s the Temple had become better known for its sticky floors, sagging seats and second-rate movie experiences. Purchased by the Edwards Cinema chain, the Streamline Moderne building was demolished in 1982 and replaced with a contemporary four-screen cineplex — quite an innovation at the time for the sleepy little San Gabriel Valley hamlet.
The same place now.
But the relentless decades marched on, and within 25 years the four-theater bigbox had itself become obsolete, thanks mainly to even bigger movie megaplexes in nearby Pasadena, Alhambra and Arcadia, along with the advent of Netflix and Internet videos. Leveled in 2006, its former site now remains a vacant dirt lot awaiting yet another undetermined redevelopment project. (A number of locals continue to lobby for a new theater.)
With or without a theater to call its own, my childhood hometown nevertheless celebrates 50 years of incorporation May 30. For additional historic Temple City photos, visit its Chamber of Commerce website.
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Great Nostalgia piece Michael….also speaks volumes about Southern California’s disregard for our common history and lack of respect for our built environment. Sad to see so many communities destroy their architectural heritage and instead give in to “progress” in the form of mini malls (a scourge IMO).
Creative reuse of that building would have been a better use of the facility, while at the same time preserving a local landmark and maintaining a sense of local pride.
The Greater LA area has made it almost a sport, to give away everything to developers with little planning and enabling a “rape and pillage” mentality. I wonder what other landmarks in Temple City and other socal communities have been lost in the never ending name of progress?
While Temple City awaits the fate of the Temple City Piazza mall project that has been stalled on this vacant lot,(the developer embroiled in a Mayor/Council Person bribery allegations), at least the destruction of more of the buildings that give us a sense of place has slowed down across our communal landscape.
:)
Mike, do you remember the Aloha Miniature Golf Course? Wonder whatever happened to it . . .