Liberty Theatre

Address: 1401 Macdonald Avenue, Richmond CA

Date Opened: April 14, 1943

Date Closed: May 31, 1949

Circuit: Fox West Coast Theatres

Number of Screens: 1

Number of Seats: 503

Current Status: Demolished

Fox West Coast Theatres opened the Liberty Theatre on April 14, 1943 with RKO's "Hiltler's Children" and Republic's "Ice-Capades Revue". The Liberty was named for the Liberty Ships (World War II cargo ships) which were being produced at an amazing pace at Richmond's Kaiser Shipyards and which were in main part responsible for Richmond's population explosion. The Liberty played a combination of first run films, move overs from the Fox and Costa after their first week's engagement at those theaters, second run films and reissues.

Ads from the Richmond Independent from various dates in 1944 and 1945 showing examples of the type of programming that played at the Liberty during the war years.

When the war ended and no more Liberty Ships were needed Richmond's boom town economy came to a rather sudden end. It was inevitable that some of the new movie theaters opened to serve the expanding war time population would be closing. The Liberty hung on for a few more years but became the first official casualty of the economy downturn and closed for good on Tuesday May 31, 1949, just a little over six years after it opened.

The final program at the Liberty which played Sunday to Tuesday May 29-31 consisted of a couple of Universal Abbott and Costello comedies re-released by Realart Pictures, "Pardon My Sarong" (1942) and "It Ain't Hay"(1943).

This March 2017 image from Google Maps shows a parking lot currently occupying the entire 1400 block of Macdonald Avenue. The Liberty was on the corner of 14th (now Marina Way) and Macdonald as shown in this photo.

I don't remember much about the Liberty although I do recall that my mother took me there to see a reissue of "Fantasia", quite possibly the only time that I was ever inside. Aside from that I only have vague memories of looking at their daily newspaper ads in the Richmond Independent and later staring at the closed theater from the bus for a short time before the Liberty was converted into another business and/or demolished.

So far I haven't found even a single photo of the Liberty. If anyone has a web link or a personal non copyrighted photo that I can use with a credit I would greatly appreciate it if you would leave a comment or e mail me. Quality of the photo or even if it's a closeup or not is not that important. In the Liberty's case a shot of the intersection of 14th and MacDonald Ave. taken between April 1943 and approximately June 1949 would be sufficient assuming that you can see the Liberty in the photo. Thanks!