N. Hollywood’s El Portal Theater Declared L.A. Cultural Monument

The El Portal--the run-down dowager of San Fernando Valley theaters that has been the subject of numerous cultural controversies in recent years--can now claim a regal title. The North Hollywood theater was declared, by unanimous vote of the Los Angeles City Council Tuesday, as an official historic-cultural monument.

“Maybe the theater has seen better days,” said David Cameron, acting president of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation, “but we feel it is possibly the most architecturally significant suburban theater in the Valley.”

The theater foundation and a small group called Friends of the El Portal were the primary sponsors of historic-cultural status for the El Portal, which opened in 1926 as a Vaudeville and silent movie house.

The designation means that the theater can be neither demolished nor significantly altered, architecturally, for at least one year.

The El Portal was designed by noted architect L.A. Smith, who did several other local theaters, including the Rialto in South Pasadena. Cameron admits that, architecturally, the El Portal is not nearly as lavish as the famed Art Deco movie palaces that were built at around the same time in downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood.

But he said that the 1,200-seat El Portal nonetheless has significance. “The interior fixtures, such as in the auditorium ceiling and the lighting, are classic examples of the designs used in neighborhood theaters in the 1920s.”

Pending final approval, the Actors Alley theater troupe, which hopes to move into the El Portal, will receive a $250,000 loan and grant package from the Community Redevelopment Agency to renovate the theater.

When the sound era arrived in movies, the El Portal thrived as a second-run theater. Later it became a Spanish-language movie house. But in the last several years the theater has been mostly dark and allowed to deteriorate. It was proposed that it be used for rock concerts, but that plan failed when one of the first such concerts turned into a riot.