View of the United Artists Theater located at 933 S. Broadway. This 2,150-seat, 12-story movie palace with a parquet sidewalk was the only theater on Broadway built as a flagship house by a major studio, and was financed by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin. The interior was designed in 1926 by C. Howard Crane (1885-1952), and the building was completed in 1927 by architects Percy A. Walker & Albert R. Eisen. The grand opening took place on December of that same year, and the featured film was "My Best Girl" starring Mary Pickford (see marquee for billing). The Spanish Gothic style building included a beautiful and ornate 50-foot high "dummy tower" to circumvent the local height restriction of the time, and all of the offices inside were leased by the California Petroleum Co. The United Artists Theater Building/Texaco Building, as it was known, was the city's tallest privately owned building for over 20 years. In 1979 Texaco Oil moved its operations to Wilshire Blvd. and the building remained vacant for some years. Today, this magnificent structure is home to Dr. Gene Scott's University Cathedral.
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