These four images represent the rise and fall of Oakland’s T&D Theatre. Opened in 1916, the T&D Theatre gained a great deal of press for it’s $48,500 organ (that’s around $1,054,347,83 today). The first image in this post shows the advertising savvy of the theatre owners, as they used the horse-carts transporting the organ parts to promote the majesty of the soon-to-open theatre. 

Over the next half century the T&D would stand as one of Oakland’s largest movie theatres, but as the demand for huge theatre venues died down, the T&D began to adjust its programming. In 1973, the theatre began showing pornographic films, and would continue to do so until its 1976 closing.

The marquee in the final photo reads

Supreme Court Rules
Nudity Not Obscene
We Specialize In It

This bold sign, undoubtably a reference to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. California that overruled California Penal Code 311.2 that prohibiting the exhibition of any “obscene” materials.

(credit: American Theatre Architecture Archive, Theatre Historical Society of America)