By 1941, moviegoing crowds had returned to the Regal Theater at 4719 South Parkway (Martin Luther King Drive). Opened in 1928, the Lubliner and Trinz theater seated 3,000 patrons in air-conditioned splendor as they watched film or listened to one of the theater's two orchestras. The Chicago Defender described the theater's inerior as "an Oriental garden on a moonlight night." Part of a larger construction project that included the Savoy Ballroom and the South Center department store, the Regal helped make 47th Street's reputation as the Harlem of Chicago. The theater was demolished in 1973, but it legacy lives on in the New Regal Theater, the former Avalon Theater renamed in its honor.

Photographer: Russell Lee
Source: Library of Congress