Movie Theater - The Orpheum Theater 1940 - Side by Side
by Mike Savad
Title
Movie Theater - The Orpheum Theater 1940 - Side by Side
Artist
Mike Savad
Medium
Photograph - Colorized Photo
Description
Colorized photo from 1940, April
Original title: Old Orpheum theater
Photographer: John Vachon
Location: 400 Main St., Dubuque, Iowa
This building and this location has a very long history, all of which are theaters of different kinds. My all colorized version has the history, I'll keep this one brief.
There were 3 buildings, each opened as a theater of some kind. The first one was built in the 1840's, it was renovated a number of times, changed names as well, then burned down. The second, same thing as the first and also burned down. This is the last version, built in 1910 or so.
The made this into a movie theater and from what I can tell did not renovate the building at all. I made the paint on the top look like it weathered for 50 years because that's what it looked like to me. The theater used to be called the Majestic so I imagined they painted it all pretty like. But getting up to high places to repaint it was probably expensive.
They probably spent all that money on that huge neon sign decked out in Art Deco, covered in neon lights.
Oddly there are no good color pictures of this building despite being a 100 years old. This building was saved from being destroyed in the mid 70's, and the sign was still there then, so I can only assume it was so worn out, and so urban looking that people probably just ignored it. I used colors from other Orpheum signs, as well as colors from the 30's. One of their tips was to use opposite colors. Cyan background, magenta lights. So I used that here and there.
The original image had a weird spot missing in the marquee, I repaired that. I couldn't stand looking at that.
The building is still here today, because it was saved, and it was made into a local area for large events.
Uploaded
December 2nd, 2020
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