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Paramount Theatre (Atlanta)

Buildings and structures demolished in 1960Cinemas and movie theaters in Georgia (U.S. state)Demolished buildings and structures in AtlantaFormer cinemas in the United StatesHentz, Reid & Adler buildings
Movie palacesRenaissance architecture in the United StatesTheatres completed in 1920Theatres in AtlantaUse American English from September 2022Use mdy dates from September 2022
Howard Theatre, 1924
Howard Theatre, 1924

The Paramount Theatre was a movie palace in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The building was designed by Philip T. Shutze and was completed in 1920 as the Howard Theatre, a name it kept until 1929. It was located at 169 Peachtree Street, in an area that soon became the location of several other major theaters, earning it the nickname "Broadway of the South". With a seating capacity of 2,700, it was at the time the second largest movie theater in the world, behind only the Capitol Theatre in New York City. In addition to functioning as a movie theater, the building hosted live performances, with several nationally renowned orchestras playing at the venue through the 1940s and Elvis Presley playing at the theater in 1956. By the 1950s, however, movie palaces faced increased competition from smaller movie theaters and the rise in popularity of television, and the Paramount was demolished in 1960.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Paramount Theatre (Atlanta) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Paramount Theatre (Atlanta)
Peachtree Street Northeast, Atlanta

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 33.757916666667 ° E -84.387361111111 °
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Address

Peachtree Center

Peachtree Street Northeast
30303 Atlanta
Georgia, United States
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Howard Theatre, 1924
Howard Theatre, 1924
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Georgia-Pacific Tower
Georgia-Pacific Tower

Georgia-Pacific Center is a 212.45 m (697.0 ft), 1,567,011 sq.ft skyscraper in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It contains 52 stories of office space and was finished in 1982. Before the six-year era of tall skyscrapers to be built in Atlanta, it was Atlanta's second tallest building (only surpassed by the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel) from 1982 to 1987. It has a stair-like design that staggers down to the ground, and is clad in pink granite quarried from Marble Falls, Texas. The tower is on the former site of the Loew's Grand Theatre, where the premiere for the 1939 film Gone with the Wind was held (133 Peachtree St. NE, near intersection of Peachtree and Forsyth streets). The theatre could not be demolished because of its landmark status; it burned down in 1978, clearing the way for the tower. The architectural firm that designed it was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The general contractor who constructed the project was a joint venture of J.A. Jones Construction Company's Atlanta office and the H.J. Russell Company, also of Atlanta. The tower is the world headquarters of Georgia-Pacific. Other tenants include consulting firm McKinsey & Company and the downtown branch of the High Museum of Art, which opened in 1986.On March 14, 2008, the tower sustained minor damage when a tornado tore through downtown Atlanta. A number of windows were blown out. It was the first tornado to hit the downtown area since weather record keeping began in the 1880s.The Consulate-General of the United Kingdom is located in the building. The building served as a filming location for the 1985 action film Invasion U.S.A. starring Chuck Norris and Richard Lynch, in which it served as the setting for the final battle between the U.S. Army and the army of international terrorists.

Loew's Grand Theatre
Loew's Grand Theatre

Loew's Grand Theater, originally DeGive's Grand Opera House, was a movie theater at the corner of Peachtree and Forsyth Streets in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. It was most famous as the site of the 1939 premiere of Gone with the Wind, which was attended by the stars of the film, except for the African Americans who appeared in it, who were also excluded from the souvenir program. (They were to be segregated and be in the "colored-only" regions if they were to be present in the theaters at all.) It concentrated on showing films made or released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), a Loews-owned studio, even boasting a sign under its marquee proclaiming it "The Home of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures". Although the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. case divested studios of ownership of theater chains in 1948, many MGM films made afterward still had their first showings in Atlanta at this theater, including Singin' in the Rain, the 1959 Ben-Hur and Doctor Zhivago. The theater was built as DeGive's Grand Opera House in 1893 by entrepreneur and Belgian consul Laurent DeGive, and hosted many concerts and touring opera productions. It is often confused with DeGive's first opera house, which opened in 1870 four blocks south, at the corner of Marietta and Forsyth streets. The confusion is understandable, as DeGive had his name carved prominently above the entrance of the Grand Theater. The Grand was bought by the Loews organization in 1927 and renovated into a movie theater by architect Thomas W. Lamb. The one-screen theater had 2,088 seats. It was extensively damaged as the result of a fire on January 30, 1978. Although the real estate where the theater had stood was of high value, the theater could not be demolished because of its historic status. This led many to speculate that the cause of the fire was arson, although this speculation has never been proven. The Georgia-Pacific Tower was built on the former site of the theater. Bricks from the building were recycled and used to build a popular Atlanta restaurant, Houston's which features a plaque of remembrance of the theater in the waiting area of its original location five miles north, at 2166 Peachtree. A chandelier from the building now hangs prominently at the center of The Tabernacle, a church turned concert venue in Atlanta.