Most Depressing theatre photos ever

That breaks my heart. Makes me wish I had lots of money to repair some of those gorgeous sacred spaces.

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Once the Roxy went, it was fair game for all theaters to go

How could one demolish "The Cathedral Of The Motion Picture"?

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Some of those look gorgeous and salvageable. Others look depressingly beyond repair and some look like they have such little wing space I can understand why they might be undesirable if the goal was to house a major musical.

That little opera house in Nevada looks straight out of CRAZY FOR YOU!

Morosco wins- that is the most heartbreaking picture!

"Looks like they could just use new seats."

Hard to say from just one photo, but there are numerous reasons that they may not be able to renovate/re-open some of these theaters. There could be structural damage that you can't see, a lack of adequate exits and changes around the building making it hard to impossible to bring it up to fire code, loss of support services (such as bathrooms, backstage space, etc) to surrounding buildings, inability to bring it into compliance with ADA codes, and the list goes on. Though it would indeed be great to be able to claim some of these as success stories such as some cities have been able to do with their old vaudeville and movie palaces (such as Cleveland did with Playhouse Square Center).

The vast majority of these are old movie palaces. Most of them likely closed and aren't viable just due to local economics.

Lamar Theatre, Memphis, TN

Low blow Chewie

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Aw, I went to SUNY Geneseo and used to walk past the Riviera all the time. I always assumed at the time that it was an abandoned movie theatre, but now that I'm looking into it, it looks like it was a live theatre after all.