Statler and Tuller: 1920

I'm guessing from the picture that the Statler Hotel isn't rectangular, but is it an optical illusion that the right side of the building (as I see it) is about 2 feet off kilter? Perhaps it's due to the camera lens that was used? Perhaps I'm just seeing things (trust me, it wouldn't be the first time).

[Look at the streets radiating out from Grand Circus (which is, as the name implies, a Big Circle). The hotel is the same shape as the block it's on -- a trapezoid. The right side of the wall facing us is farther away from the camera than the left side. - Dave]

Thanks Dave; "trapezoid", that's the word. I still think the camera may have not been level at the time of the photo.

I have recently been inspired by photos posted here. I call my series "The twilight world of Shorpyville."

[Ooh. Intriguingly eerie! - Dave]

Here's a street level view of the Statler and Tuller from a different corner of Grand Circus Park:

http://www.shorpy.com/node/6736?size=_original

The Tuller was demolished in 1992, and the Statler went down in 2005. Both had sat vacant for well over a decade. They were replaced by... well, nothing yet.

Oh, and the theater in the foreground showing the Fatty Arbuckle movie? It is the then-new Adams (opened in 1917). It was torn down in 2009, except for its facade, which rather spookily stares down empty-eyed on the park across the street

at lower right. It was at 44 Adams Avenue West and opened in 1917 as a vaudeville house before switching to movies the following year. After numerous renovations and direction changes, the Adams finally closed in 1988. The Fine Arts Building it was in was demolished in 2009.

The motor car takeover is nearly complete - there are only two equine holdouts in view.

Lightening up that bit at the lower right does indeed point to the marquee reading both "Fatty Arbuckle" as well as "Talmadge." He worked with Natalie Talmadge in three short comedies 1917-1918.

[The Talmadge on the marquee is Constance. - Dave]

Is that a theatre marquee in the lower right corner the reads FATTY? This would be about a year before the famous Fatty Arbuckle scandal.