Downtown Independent
The Downtown Independent was a one screen theater and cinema located at 251 S. Main Street in the downtown area of Los Angeles, California. It was operated by the Downtown Independent and owned by Orange County, California's Cinema Properties Group. The venue is slightly less than and had stadium seating for 222.
Film premieres at the theater include The Miracle Song, Goodbye Promise and Regular Show: The Movie.
History
Early years
The first theater on the site of the current Downtown Independent opened in 1924 as the Arrow Theater. The original owner, George Carpenter, had commissioned John E. Kunst to design a picture theater. The building included a pipe organ, two stores and auditorium seating for 500.Under a new manager, Frank Fouce, the theater began to focus on Latin American films in the late 1930s. It was renamed on March 24, 1940 to the Azteca.
The Aztec hosted burlesque shows in 1941 and 1942.
The Linda Lea
The theater was renamed to the Linda Lea Theater in 1945. During this period, it focused on Japanese films and was especially popular in the 1960s.By the early 1980s, the Linda Lea was declining, due to competition from nearby Japanese theaters and availability of Japanese programming on television and tapes. The theater closed and the building was bought by the Metropolitan News-Enterprise for use as an archive, but it fell into disuse and began to decay.