Mainstreet Theatre

About this property

The Mainstreet Theater, also commonly referred to as The Empire Theater, is a historic theater in the Power & Light District in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in February 2007. Designed by Rapp & Rapp, the 90,000-square-foot (8,400 m2) theater opened on October 30, 1921 as the Mainstreet Missouri. The 3,200-seat theater was a popular vaudeville and movie house, and the only theater in Kansas City designed by Chicago firm Rapp and Rapp. The interior was designed in French Baroque style, and the exterior is a blend of neoclassical and French Second Empire. The lobby is topped by a dome encircled by circular windows. The Mainstreet Theater was the largest theater in Kansas City until the Midland Theatre opened in 1927. The Mainstreet was the first theater in Kansas City to have a nursery for children whose parents were attending a show. Located in the basement and staffed by a trained nurse, it offered toys and games for older children and cribs for babies. A tunnel connected the theater's lower level to the nearby President Hotel at 14th and Baltimore. Built to allow actors to enter the theater from their dressing rooms, it became infamous as a passage for bootleggers to escape police during Prohibition. The supposed tunnel is not shown on the Sanborn fire insurance map for 1939 (The Sanborn Map Co., New York, Kansas City 1939-1940 vol. 1, 1939, Sheet 34). The theater also had space in the basement and sub-basement to keep animals for vaudeville shows. The space included an elephant cage, a pool for seals, and an elevator large and powerful enough to haul elephants to the stage. Noted performers such as Cab Calloway, Charlie Chaplin, Harry Lauder, the Marx Brothers, and Olsen and Johnson headlined at the vaudeville house. In the early 1920s, at the height of the theater's popularity, attendance averaged over 4,000 daily. The Mainstreet Theater's name changed to the RKO Missouri Theater in April 1941. The RKO Missouri ran Cinerama three strip film. AMC Theatres, then known as Durwood Theatres, bought the theater in the late 1950s and reopened it in December 1960 as the Empire. The first film shown at the theater under the new name was Exodus. The new Empire's seating configuration was reduced to 1260 to accommodate modern amenities and technology. Durwood replaced the Empire's three strip Cinerama with the seamless 70 mm film version. The 70 by 30-foot (9.1 m) Walker Hi Gain motion picture screen was designed to collapse, fold, and store on stage within two and a half hours to allow for quick conversion for live stage events. The stage curtain measured more than 120 feet (37 m) and claimed to be the world's largest. In keeping with Kansas City's reputation as the "City of Fountains", the Empire included decorative fountains in the box office area and at the main staircase. The prominent signage suspended from scaffolding attached to the building's roof during the "Mainstreet" and "RKO Missouri" eras was removed when Durwood converted the theater to the Empire. The Empire kept an organist until 1961 when there was a dispute with the musicians' union.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Jackson County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Jackson County.

More historic places in Missouri

Browse all historic places in Missouri.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Missouri history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.