Like most cities, Milwaukee, as you likely know, was once dotted with movie palaces – stunningly ornate structures that served to entertain a hard-working public with moving pictures and live performers during the vaudeville era.
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Very few of these survive today – the Oriental, the Avalon, the MSO’s Bradley Symphony Center.
But, somewhat amazingly, until now, all three of the movie palaces designed by local architects Gustave Dick and Alex Bauer in 1926-27, have remained on the landscape.
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While the Oriental, which opened in July 1927, is still up and running, surviving for a variety of reasons, including its division into a triplex, and the empty Tower Theater (1926) awaits redevelopment, the last of the bunch to be built – The…
