Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 19/06/2026 22:34:00

An Art Deco landmark with a soaring neon sign along an original stretch of Route 66, the Tower Theatre opened on 15 July 1937 as one of Oklahoma City's first suburban movie houses. Designed by the prolific theatre architect W. Scott Dunne, its ornate 1,500-seat auditorium boasted a full working stage, a pipe organ housed in an orchestra pit and billowing scarlet waterfall stage curtains, a touch of glamour for the Uptown 23rd Street neighbourhood. For nearly four decades the Tower operated as one of the city's premier cinemas before a downturn in the 1970s sent it into decline, screening kung-fu films, midnight shows and Spanish-language pictures before a brief run as an adult cinema and a final closure in 1989. A short-lived revival as a music venue around the turn of the millennium lasted only about a year, and the building changed hands several times. Its rescue came when the development group known as the Pivot Project bought the theatre and its adjoining storefronts and office spaces in 2014 and undertook a historic tax-credit renovation. Craftsmen restored the facade with refurbished glass, glazed tiles and painted trim, reconstructed the demolished ticket booth, brought the neon sign back to life and laser-scanned the damaged ceiling so it could be rebuilt to its exact historic shape. The restored Tower reopened in 2016 as a multipurpose entertainment and live-music venue, with the original balcony seats refurbished and the main floor terraced into a flexible space, giving a total capacity of around 1,000. Affiliated with other local rooms, it can host shows any night of the week, and the original film projectors were preserved, one displayed in the lobby. Anchoring a booming district now branded Uptown 23, the Tower's revived marquee is once again a beacon for the surrounding neighbourhood. The building also houses mixed-use retail and office space, its restoration credited with helping spur the wider revitalisation of the corridor along Northwest 23rd Street.