The San Francisco Peninsula serves as a geographic and transportation link between the cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and all points north and south. As commerce increased along its highways and railroad lines from the late 19th century onward, cities and towns flourished along that corridor. Wherever commerce went, entertainment followed. Beginning with early playhouses and storefront nickelodeons, continuing through the movie palace period, the golden age of the drive-in theatre, and into the days of the multiplex, this volume of vintage photographs captures the various eras as they...

You read the sad stories in the papers: another ornate, 1920s, single-screen theatre closes, to be demolished and replaced by a strip mall. Thats progress, and in this 20-screen multiplex world, its happening more and more. Only a handful of the 100 or so neighborhood theatres that once graced these streets are left in San Francisco, but they live on in the photographs featured in this book. The heyday of such venues as the Clay, Noe, Metro, New Mission, Alexandria, Coronet, Fox, Uptown, Coliseum, Surf, El Rey, and Royal was a time when San Franciscans thronged to the movies and vaudeville...