Bonita Theatre

The Bonita Theater was a small theater located at 1923 3rd Avenue North. It was constructed in 1906 and sold to H. M. Newsome in 1913. Newsome converted it into the Rialto Theatre in 1915.

The Rialto closed in the 1930s, a victim of the Great Depression. The building was next inhabited by the Guarantee Shoe Company, which built a new floor level above the original sloped floor and added Art Deco styled partitions and stairs. In the 1980s, it housed the Famous Shoe Bar. In 1985 the building was documented as a contributing structure to the first boundary increase of the Downtown Birmingham Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

By 2004 the building, having been vacant for at least a decade when it had housed "Gift World", was back up for sale. It was purchased by Sam and Gwyn Moore and their son and daughter-in-law Chad and Chesney for use as a showroom for their office furniture company Moore Solutions and as a loft residence for the younger couple. The renovations to the building were documented online in a blog format.

The building currently houses Moore Solutions commercial furnishings showroom on the ground floor.

References

• Wilkinson, Kaija (January 27, 2006) "Activity reverses years of decline." Birmingham Business Journal
• "Newest and Handsomest of Newsome's Theaters Will Be Opened Tomorrow" (December 24, 1915) The Birmingham News

External links

• The Rialto Theatre Renovation website