The Glittering Show Places of Jacksonville: Theaters of the Great White Way

Theaters served Jacksonville well as part of a complex of theaters called the “Great White Way” that made Forsyth Street a miracle strip in the center of the town.

During the early 1900s every major city in the United States built grand  downtown movie palaces,  whose ornate auditoriums were designed to heighten the escape from the reality that was projected on the Silver Screen.

In May of 1911 the Imperial theatre opened and the press stated “no money will be spared to make our theater the Acme of perfection.   Our aim is to entertain the public with the very best moving pictures, music and singing”.

The entrance to the theater was like “a monster seashell brilliantly illuminated with several hundred electric lights”.

The Arcade theater was built in 1912 with a thousand seats.   Originally a vaudeville house, it was converted to a film cinema in 1915.   The theater had a unique dual entrance on Adams and Forsyth Street that were connected by an arcade type hallway and later became known as the Center Theater.

The Empress theater was constructed shortly after Jacksonville’s Great Fire of 1901, but the theater didn’t come into the equation until the twenties.

It was noted as a popular theater for black residents making a downtown outing, as well as hosting vaudeville acts early in its lifespan.

In 1919 a third building filed in along the same block of Forsyth Street known as The Palace Theater,  the three-story building could fit just under 1900.

The Florida theater became the sixth theater to be built on a four block stretch of Forsyth Street.

It was called the “Palace of Dreams”, and was built with over one million bricks used during its construction.

Jacksonville architect Roy A Benjamin designed the Florida,  Imperial,  Palace, the Empress theaters.

A giant Wurlitzer Organ played before each show with sing-alongs on screen before the Movietone news, as ushers decked out in splendid military looking uniforms seated the crowd.

The doors opened on April 8th 1927 with 1900 seats and today it’s famous for Elvis Presley’s numerous shows there during the mid 1950s.

In the 1930s the Great Depression brought an end to the construction of these glittering show places as the flight to suburbia and decline of downtown areas throughout the United States in the 50s and 60s doomed many to extinction.

Florida State Theaters owned the Florida, Palace,  Arcade, Imperial, Empress, Fairfax, San Marco and the Edgewood theaters in Jacksonville

In the 1960s there was always a double or triple feature playing at the Imperial and the Empress.   During the summer kids could see five or six films in a day for soft drink bottle caps.

In the early 1970s most of these theaters were demolished for parking lots but the Florida theater was restored and is booked solid with live concerts today.