My piece on old movie houses seems to have touched some nerves, with many of you e-mailing me your own memories of theaters from your pasts. Two folks also informed me that I prematurely closed the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, which is still up and operating.
What fooled me is that its closing was announced a few years ago (here's a 1999 news story, complete with photo) but protests were mounted, and the place is still hanging in there, albeit barely. Over at its website, one can read a bevy of recent news articles about the battle to keep its doors open.
Here's a silly trivia item. In 1961, not long after George Reeves died, DC Comics decided to try to sell a Superboy series and produced a pilot with Johnny Rockwell in the title role. It was a pretty awful pilot and it never went anywhere. You can view it online at this site if you have QuickTime installed and a half-hour to waste.
So what does this have to do with the Aero Theater? Well, the pilot is about a doorman who works at…the Aero Theater. It was shot outside the place back in '61. The last time I drove by the Aero, it hadn't changed much.