Outside the Twin Cities, his more ambitious projects include the Church of the Holy Rosary (now the Queen of the Holy Rosary Memorial Shrine) located 60 miles to the north in LaSalle. In Bloomington, Arthur Moratz buildings include the acclaimed Art Deco-style Holy Trinity Catholic Church at the north end of downtown, and his own residence, 317 East Chestnut Street, on the south side of Franklin Park. Moratz, another prominent local architect. The Normal’s striking Art Moderne architectural style makes it one of the most photographed buildings in Bloomington-Normal-especially with the marquee light on! The architect was Arthur F. Sylvan Kupfer, though, kept the title of manager, and he and his family remained associated with the theater for more than four decades. Once completed, they leased their “show house” to Publix Great States Theatres, a regional chain which also ran the Irvin and the Castle, Bloomington’s two top movie theaters. More than 30 years later, Sylvan and Ruth Kupfer obtained financing for the $100,000 project to open the first ever standalone, commercial movie theater in the Town of Normal. The movie theater business ran in the family, for his father Henry opened the Scenic, an early nickelodeon in downtown Bloomington, way back in 1906.
Sylvan, a graduate of the old law school at Illinois Wesleyan University in adjacent Bloomington, was a local attorney and later real estate broker. The Normal Theater (or “Theatre”-for much of its history the two were used interchangeably) was built by Sylvan and Ruth Kupfer, who owned the 209 North Street lot where the movie house went up. Fortunately, the Normal survived neglect, disfigurement, and closure to become, after its restoration, one of the finest movie venues in the Midwest.įinishing up the theater in 1937 (Photo courtesy of McLean County Museum of History) Its golden years lasted better than three decades before the aging movie house began facing its share of the tough times and indignities common to pre-World War II theaters in American downtowns. Yet the Art Moderne-style theater goes back much farther-all the way to 1937 and the Great Depression. Today, the theater is a central attraction in the revitalized “Uptown Normal” district just east of the Illinois State University campus. Opened in 1937, Normal Theater Now Twin City Iconįor more than 25 years, the Normal Theater in Normal, IL has thrived as a town-run venue for classic, independent, and foreign films.
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