The Wonderful Art Deco Gothic Theater - South Denver

Although I no longer live in Denver, I am a native of that wonderful city and still have a fair amount of family that live there. Some of my earliest memories are of my grandparents taking me to see movies at three special movie theaters. One was the Paramount in the downtown area and the other two are the Gothic, on South Broadway in Englewood and the Bluebird. on East Colfax, almost to Colorado Blvd.

This article is a revisit and review of the beautiful Gothic Theater, it's past and present. The Gothic was originally a movie house for silent films. It opened during the roaring twenties era and was one of Denver's most popular movie houses. According to my grandparents the big movie houses were not just for seeing movies. At that time they were the social center of the city where people went to see and be seen. Taking a drive or riding the tram or bus from down town Denver to Englewood on a weekend was a trip many families happily made as often as possible. My grandfather took me to the Gothic by bus in order to teach me about the Denver bus system. We would get on the bus at the civic center and ride all the way south to Englewood. He loved the art deco architecture and was always worried it would not survive, that type of design no longer in much favor during the 1950's and 1960's.

Like other historic theaters in the Denver area the Gothic started to get over looked by the public starting in the late 1960's Low attendance resulted in lack of maintenance. In the case of the Gothic, the owners tried to attract Mexican American patrons by showing Spanish language films. Reportedly one raid on a Saturday afternoon, by the Immigration department, in search of illegal aliens, effectively put an end to the patronage of that sector of Denver's population. Then the Gothic started to show less and less desirable films, although it never became an exclusively XXX rated film house. Many citizens considered the Gothic and the Bluebird sister movie houses, although it is doubtful they were ever owned simultaneously by the same people.