The decades between WWI & the end of the Great Depression ushered in one of America's audacious gems: the movie-palace. As cinema's glamour percolated into the public's sensibility, 19th-century spaces in particular galvanized Hollywood's sumptuous new showplaces. Designed and built in 1928 by Scottish architect Thomas W. Lamb in a majestically-ornate Spanish Baroque style, it served the downtown community as a Loew’s movie house with its own theatre orchestra and accompanying organ. During its heyday in the era of vaudeville, it showcased live performances to an audience of nearly 3,000.