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The Grand Opera House in Seattle, Washington, USA, designed by Seattle architect Edwin W. Houghton, a leading designer of Pacific Northwest theaters, was once the city's leading theater. Today, only its exterior survives as the shell of a car park.〔(213 Cherry ST / Parcel ID 0939000090 ), Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Accessed online 20 December 2007.〕〔Eric L. Flom, (Fire burns Seattle's Grand Opera House on November 24, 1906 ), HistoryLink, September 7, 2000. Accessed online 20 December 2007.〕 Considered by the city's Department of Neighborhoods to be an example of Richardsonian Romanesque, the building stands just outside the northern boundary of the Pioneer Square neighborhood.〔 The building at 213–217 Cherry Street, Seattle, Washington was originally owned by John Cort, of Cort Circuit fame. Opened in 1900, after Cort convinced the city to extend the northern border of its official entertainment district north from Yesler Way to Cherry Street, it was the city's leading theater of the time. It survived a November 24, 1906 fire, but after it was gutted by another fire in 1917, it was converted to a parking garage in 1923.〔〔 The reign of the Grand as Seattle's leading theater was relatively short. Cort himself was one of the reasons for this, when he made Seattle's Moore Theatre, also designed by Houghton, his flagship house after its December 28, 1907 opening. The 1911 opening of the showpiece Metropolitan Theatre in the Metropolitan Tract further eroded the Grand's position. By the time a January 20, 1917 fire gutted the building, it had become a movie theater.〔〔(STG Presents Moore 100 Open House ), on the STG/Moore site. Citation for date of Moore's opening and secondary citation for Cort's use of the theater. Accessed online 20 December 2007.〕 After the 1917 fire, the building sat empty for several years before becoming a multi-level parking garage in 1923.〔 ==Theater== The Grand Opera House was constructed 1898-1900. Nearby at Third Avenue and Cherry Street, John Considine, a veteran of box house days and a pioneer of vaudeville had his highly successful Seattle Theater.〔Frank Cullen and Florence Hackman, ''Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America'', Routledge (2006), ISBN 0-415-93853-8. p. 263. Citation for Considine's box house background.〕 Cort had the basement level of the Grand built in 1898 and opened it as a variety and beer hall known as the Palm Gardens.〔〔"Grand Was Oldest of Seattle's Playhouses", ''The Seattle Daily Times'', January 20, 1917, p.2.〕 In the summer of 1900, the rest of the building was built "in record time,"〔 with its official opening on October 8, 1900.〔 In the winter of 1901, Cort signed a contract with New York-based impresarios Klaw & Erlanger. The contract went into effect in July 1901, quickly establishing the Grand as Seattle's leading theater and forcing the nearby Seattle Theater into second place. Within a year, Cort had taken over the Seattle Theater as well, placing both theaters in the Klaw & Erlanger circuit.〔 A fire on November 23, 1906 destroyed the interior and led Cort to briefly make the Seattle Theater his flagship; in December 1907, Cort's new Moore Theatre opened and eclipsed the Grand once and for all. that time, Eugene Levy took over the Grand and ran it as a movie theater with "incidental" vaudeville.〔 The stage of the Grand was and wide. Two tiers of boxes stood six on each side of the proscenium. There was also a balcony. In all, the highly ornate auditorium had a capacity of 2,200 people. The St. Charles/Rector Hotel was constructed next door on Third Avenue in 1912-13; it was originally interconnected to the opera house at the balcony level.〔 Although the Grand was the twenty-second playhouse in Seattle's history and it was a mere 17 years old when it burned, by that time it was the oldest Seattle playhouse still in use.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Grand Opera House (Seattle, Washington)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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