INTRO
In the days before motion pictures, cycloramas (each a giant mural running along the interior wall of a cylindrical room) were a popular form of entertainment. Cyclorama measured nearly 50 feet high by about 400 feet long and occupied its own building on Michigan Avenue, between Madison and Monroe Streets and two buildings on Wabash avenue.
Cyclorama Buildings—Wabash and Hubbard Court
Cyclorama Buildings—Michigan Avenue
I am writing the first spreadsheet from the American point of view about 19th century rotunda panoramas. These were the biggest paintings in the world, 50 x 400=20,000 square feet, housed in their own rotundas which were 16-sided polygons. Chicago in 1893 had 6 panorama companies and 6 panorama rotundas. I have deep background on CHICAGO FIRE PANORAMA.genemeier@frontier.com
There were six rotunda panoramas represented at World Columbian Exposition:
GETTYSBURG (Philippoteaux studio), Panorama Place, Wabash & Hubbard Court (present Balbo)
JERUSALEM ON THE DAY OF THE CRUCIFIXION (Reed & Gross), Panorama Place,Wabash and Hubbard Court .(present Balbo)
CHICAGO FIRE panorama (Reed & Gross) on Michigan between Madison & Monroe
BERNESE OBERLAND,(import from Switzerland), Midway Plaisance
KILAUEA VOLCANO (Albert, Burridge & Grover studio) , Midway Plaisance
BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA (Eugen Bracht studio, Berlin) in THE FAIR BEHIND THE FAIR, 57th & Stony Island
The World’s Columbian Exposition hosted six panoramas:
two at Panorama Place (Wabash & Hubbard Ct., now Balbo)
one on Michigan between Madison and Monroe
two on either side of the Ferris Wheel on the Midway Plaisance
and one in “the Fair behind the Fair” at 63rd & Stony Island
The cyclorama at 700 Wabash & Hubbard/7th/Balboa became home to the 7th regiment in 1894 and in 1903 was remodeled to become Cleveland’s Theater, a vaudeville house. John Barrymore and Will Rogers debuted there. It went through various name changes after 1904 and by 1916 was the Strand movie house. The man who had it converted in ’03 from an armory to a theater, William S. Billy Cleveland, was a noted manager of minstrel troupes. A few weeks before opening it got caught up in the city council’s 1903 graft investigation, then in the first week of Jan 1904 was closed for a month after the Iroquois fire. One oddity is that in the numerous 1903/4 newspaper stories about it, and in the 1894 stories relative to the 7th regiment, none mentioned the structure’s unusual shape.
Judy Cooke, please contact me
genemeier@frontier.com
Thank you so much, Gene Meier! The former Cleveland Theater was the cyclorama on the southeast corner, not the southwest, and rather than becoming The Strand moving picture house it burned in 1912. Sometimes putting history back together again takes a village 🙂
http://www.iroquoistheater.com/cleveland-theater-chicago-1903-building-ordinance-violation.php
Round and round it goes., abracadabra! Billy Cleveland’s theater has moved back to the southwest corner of Wabash and Hubbard. Those pesky cycloramas are always on the move.
PARIS BY MOONLIGHT: Origins
Panoramas were the mass medium of the 19th century
These took on many forms–
reel-to-reel panoramas(“crankies”) toured the American
frontier, and could be housed in tents, opera houses,
auditoriums,accompanied by lecture, singing, musical instruments.
There were two types of ROTUNDA panorama:TYPE ! existed from
the early 1800 through the 18 70s; TYPE 2 originated in Brussels 1878 and
spread throughout Europe, North America and Australia/New Zealand
though sophisticated international/global panorama cartes.
PARIS BY MOONLIGHT was a TYPE 1 panorama
This originally appeared in THE COLOSSEUM, Broadway, 35th & 36th Streets, New York
“The Largest Iron Structure in the World”
comprised of THREE cycloramas
[]London of 1828 by Daylight painted in 182 by E.T Parris
[]Paris by Moonlight by Danson & Sons and
[]London of 1 873 b y Night painted by Danson & Sons
to be followed by
[]Paris of 1873
directed by P.T.BARNUM
The catalog for THE COLOSSEUM is available on-line
and contains schematics of LONDON BY DAYLIGHT,
PARIS BY MOONLIGHT and LONDON BY NIGHT
My own project,
PANORAMA FOR A SMALL CITY: Histories of a Mass Medium
is concerned only with TYPE 2 ROTUNDA PANORAMA