. . . Plentiful Companion Movie Houses in Downtown Iowa City
From their new vantage, the Englerts could see from their front windows a lot across Washington Street they purchased, and on which they built yet another motion picture venue, Garden Theatre. They opened it during June 1915, charging an admission of 5¢, equal to about $1.25 during 2012. Unlike the Englert, Garden Theatre was purely a movie venue, with a minimal stage and without an orchestra pit or tall scenery storage area.
A decade later, fire that started in an upstairs cafe seriously damaged that foodservice and the adjoining rooms housing the State Historical Society of Iowa, although the Garden continued operations on the main level with little damage. It eventually was remodeled into Varsity Theatre (1932–1960), which became The Astro, which was closed during 1991 as local movie houses took hold in outlying shopping centers. The Garden-Varsity-Astro site was engulfed by a major expansion and renovation of First National Bank, now US Bank.
In addition to Pastime Theatre (later Capitol) noted above, other movie houses also screening their wares in downtown Iowa City during the 20th century included Strand Theatre in the old Mendenhall Block along the south face of College Street about where the check-in desk in the Sheraton Hotel now is located. The Strand was razed by fire about 1961.
Another was Iowa Theatre along the Dubuque streetscape adjacent to what now is the west face of the Iowa City Public Library building. The Iowa Theatre structure was transformed during 1983 into a unique two-level fast-food franchised burger joint, and subsequently into other uses.
At the 1946 peak of the "golden era" of cinema of the United States, then generally screened in "motion picture theatres" there were five operating full-time in downtown Iowa City, including Englert, Iowa, New Pastime, Strand, and Varsity, but none yet had sprouted in outlying malls.
The first oulying theater to be built was Iowa City Drive-In Theatre, which actually was located along the then northwest edge of Coralville, now site of the Coralville City Hall, police, fire, and library buildings, plus some privately owned apartment structures along its northern edge. It was opened about 1949.
A mall-type three-screen cinima multiplex landed in downtown Iowa City during 1983 with opening of the Campus III theaters adjacent to the university campus in a new Old Capitol Mall, which initially housed a large two-level Younkers department store, as well as an outsized Osco Drug. Now called Old Capitol Town Center, the second-level theater space currently is occupied by University of Iowa uses, as is much of the other space in the center.
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