Uptown Chicago Resources
Historic Theatres & Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz
The Howard Theatre. Image courtesy HAARGIS.
The Howard Theatre — A Brief History
Like the Uptown Theatre, the neo-classical Howard Theatre, located at 1621 W. Howard Street in Rogers Park, Chicago, was a northside neighborhood theatre. It was designed by Henry L. Newhouse of Newhouse & Berhnam and opened its doors in 1917. It was purchased by Balaban & Katz sometime after that.
The Howard was a very popular theatre and showed first-run films all the way up to its close in the 1970s. After twenty years of neglect, the audiorium of the theatre was demolished. The lobby was converted into a community room and the meeting rooms above the lobby were made into housing with a mix of small units subsidized through tax credits as well as larger market-rate condo units. Street-level commercial space was restored, as was the ornate terra cotta and brick facade.
