The Cameo

“Are you sure you don’t want to take my picture too?” said the owner of the electronics store when I asked for permission to photograph his storage room. Most people wouldn’t be too thrilled about strangers wandering between their stacks of merchandise, taking photos. But perhaps the employees here are used to sight-seers, since no one paid the least attention when he pointed the way to the back of the building. A generous man, even if he didn’t let me take his portrait after all.

Hardly a stage of decay, this theater has been kept in excellent shape since its closure. Opened in 1910, it was California’s longest running theater until it folded in the 1990s. Like several other original Broadway theaters in Los Angeles, it’s hanging on as a warehouse space. This site has a few dramatic night-time postcards and other information on the former Cameo Theater, also known as Clune’s Broadway.