City
Scenes
Going
to the Movies
 Step
in, sit down and enjoy the extravagance of this miniature
moving-picture theater. It features a black-and-white
"talkie" about life in Michigan cities during the 1920s.
During
the twenties, cars, streetcars and buses brought people to ornate
theaters known as movie palaces. In 1919 Michigan boasted 452
moving-picture theaters. That number rose to 634 by 1931. Some were
splendid new buildings like the Fox Theatre in Detroit. Others were
former opera houses and vaudeville theaters. This
ticket booth once graced the Eagle Theatre in Pontiac. Built in 1927,
the Eagle Theatre is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The
first motion pictures were "silents," short films filled with
action but no sound. Silents gave way to talkies in 1927 when audiences
crowded the theaters to see—and hear—Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer.
Technicolor film had been under development since 1917, but it would not be
widely used until the late 1930s.
Providing
Services
The 1920 census
was the first to find more Michiganians living in urban than in rural
areas. As more people moved to the cities, the need grew for such
services as police and fire protection, paved streets, public
transportation, traffic regulation, sewer systems and water mains.
Lansing suffered
"undirected, uncontrolled growth," according to a 1921 city
plan that recommended zoning.
Flint, whose
population increased sevenfold between 1900 and 1920, went heavily into
debt to build sewer lines, water mains and paved streets.
Reflecting the new
importance of cars, Grand Rapids introduced its first motorized patrol
wagon in 1911. It featured a top speed of 35 miles per hour.
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