Egyptian/Holiday Theatre - Denver, Colorado
Posted by: 
Big B Bob
N 39° 45.715 W 105° 01.209
13S E 498274 N 4401333
A once old and shuttered neighborhood theater is now slowly on it's way back.
Waymark Code: WM6ACV
Location: Colorado, United States
Date Posted: 05/02/2009
Views: 13
This storefront theater was originally built as the Egyptian
Theatre in 1914. Eventually it became part of the Atlas Theatre Company chain
and was known as the Holiday Theatre, and continues with its script marquee
today, although after closing as a movie theatre in the 1980's, it was used as
a restaurant in its front lobby, with the snack bar and theater sectioned off.
The current owners, Albert and Judith Ovando, are in the process of bringing
back this once popular movie house. They are currently working on a pizza
parlor where the original theater entrance was.
In 2006, the Ovando's spoke to Westword Magazine:
The Holiday Theatre, at 2644 West 32nd Avenue, originally opened as the
Egyptian in 1914 and was one of the few theaters screening
Spanish-language movies in the '60s and '70s. The movie house was
shuttered in the late '80s, when ticket sales fell off with the rise of
the video-rental market. In 1993, Alberto Ovando
bought the building, which also includes apartments and office space,
and attempted to revive the onetime community hub, but the Holiday
remained comatose. "We are working on trying to reopen," says Ovando,
who began slowly fixing up the interior a year ago. The movie screen is
still in good shape, but the place needs seats and projectors. He hopes
to lease the space to someone willing to bring the building up to date.
I was able to enhance the vintage photo to show the original theater
entrance had an external ticket booth (normal for that era) and two
arched french doors which led into the lobby. From the photo, to
the left of the entrance, you can also see that the current entrance
was possibly a grocery store, as I can make out fruit baskets with a
price marker sticking up. There is a large "S" for the business
logo next to the theater marquee... could that have been an original
"Safeway"?
They are slowly refurbishing
the theater seats and extending the stage for live music shows. Sometime in the
1950's the Egyptian theme was covered as it was renamed the Holiday Theatre.
The snack bar is virtually untouched, with some of the condiment servers and butter-popcorn
vat, are still in place. 
The Ovando's have discovered Egyptian style hieroglyphics under the paint along the top of the walls in the lobby and in
the auditorium. They hope to one day restore the original decorations by the
time they re-open the theater in December 2009.