Historic Indianapolis Events Venue
Restored Downtown Theatre
Originally opened in 1928 as a 1500 seat motion picture and vaudeville Theatre with a 40 foot domed ceiling with twinkling stars, the Theatre enjoyed many years as a premire entertainment venue. After extensive renovations beginning in 1994, the Fountain Square Theatre is once again transformed into a starlit courtyard. The Mezzanine level retains much of it’s original architectural details including a painstaking restoration of painted ceiling motifs.
Our History
MAY 4, 1928
Completion of the Fountain Square Theatre Building
On Friday, May 4, 1928, the Indianapolis News announced the completion of the Fountain Square Theatre with a full news section with advertisements and articles outlining the evening’s entertainment. The building is referred to as “the Big Light on the Avenue”.
January 1, 2015
Fountain Square Recreation 1928-to 1957
Fountain Square Recreation, a bowling alley, and a billiard hall were located on the fourth floor of the Theatre building from 1928-to 1957. Photograph of American Can Company Bowling League, 1938-1939 season.
JANUARY 5, 1940
Fountain Square Theatre Interior 1940’s. looking toward the East
The Theatre enjoyed many years as a premier entertainment venue showing moving pictures as well as hosting live vaudeville entertainment with a full orchestra pit and Marr-Colton organ. The organ console, located to the left front of the stage, was on a “lift” that could be adjusted to various heights.
APRIL 2, 1955
Changing Times
By 1955 the original Prospect Street and Shelby Street marquees had been removed and replaced with a new marquee on Shelby Street advertising a “COOOL” theatre space. Several business had also changed in the street front retail locations. By 1957 the fourth-floor bowling alley was closed and empty…
MARCH 5, 1960
Woolworth’s takes over the Building 1960’s
By 1960, the Fountain Square Theatre was closed and gutted, its contents sold at auction. Woolworth’s bought the building and opened the ground floor interior as a shopping space, including a lunch counter. The outside of the building was covered with an enameled porcelain skin, which required the removal of the marquee and a few exterior terra cotta decorations. Woolworths’s lasted throughout the 1960’s but was closed by the end of the decade.
JUNE 5, 1970
1970 – 1993
Throughout the 1970s and into the early 1990s, the Fountain Square Theatre Building’s second and third-floor offices, which previously had doctors, dentists, and other professionals as tenants, were now sitting vacant and falling into disrepair. The ground floor was occupied by various businesses including a used furniture store and the Value Village thrift store.
1111 Prospect Street entrance, the original marquee and terra cotta tiles were removed by Woolworth.
JUNE 5, 1993
A New Life for the Bowling Alley 1993
In 1993 restoration of the fourth-floor bowling alley started, to bring the alley back to life with eight lanes of duckpin bowling. As everything was removed from the original fourth-floor alley, equipment and furniture were sourced from all over the country to make the alley as original as possible. Most of the bowling equipment, including ball returns, lane seating, and masking units were found in an old barn in Columbia City, Indiana. After almost 40 years of “storage” in the barn, much work was involved to return it to working order.
Action Duckpin Bowl…the start of restoration.