CHINA CITY THEATRE

It had already been closed for a while when I moved to the neighborhood; a fading poster showed a coming attraction that looked both wholesome and revolutionary featuring a pretty woman. Probably something in which the righteous heroine fights the Japs, struggles with the evil landlord, and the party emerges victorious as steel quotas are surpassed.
Which, now, I'm sad I never saw.

The building went through several lives over time.

Shanghai Theatre from 1911 to 1911 or 1912, then the Kearney Theatre till the early thirties, when it became the Kearney Burlesque, which then became the Teatro Rex in 1945 showing Spanish language films, then Fillipino films. It finally became the Bella Union in 1948. Which showed Chinese movies from 1964 onward (Chinese name: 華都戲院 'waa dou hei yuen'), eventually closing in 1984. The lease was not renewed in 1985. And for years it seemed deserted. A pity, because it had looked so promising.

[Data from this site: San Francisco Theatres, this article: The Shanghai / Kearny / Bella Union Theatre.]

My best recollection is sheltering there from the rain a few times with my pipe.

It's doubtful that Little Shoe ever knew that it was either the Shanghai (he was from Shanghai) or a burlesque theatre. He would have found that thrilling.

[Little Shoe: well, I can't call him 'tinkle', which is what his Chinese name translates to. And 'little' because he only came up to his blonde girlfriend's shoulders. You can imagine where his eyes were. And where they went.]

That entire area is different now. The three Shanghainese businesses (a basement store with music tapes, a noodle kitchen, and a fun little restaurant with dumplings and hot sauce) have all gone, the hole in the ground where the International Hotel had stood is now Saint Mary's Girls School and a campus for City College, and Clown Alley no longer exists (that space having become Sai's Vietnamese Restaurant recently.

The building is still there. It is much changed.



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