A replica of Warsaw's Royal Castle clock tower rises over the Kennedy Expressway, marking the movie palace that became the capitol of Polish Chicago. The Copernicus Center at 5216 West Lawrence Avenue in Jefferson Park opened on 27 June 1930 as the Gateway Theatre, a deluxe Balaban and Katz house designed by Mason Rapp of the great theatre firm Rapp and Rapp - the Chicago Herald-Examiner devoted a full page to proclaiming it the most acoustically perfect theatre in the world, and a week of neighbourhood festivities climaxed in a businesses-sponsored parade on opening day. The auditorium is the last surviving atmospheric-style theatre in the Chicago area: a 2,092-seat Italian-Baroque fantasy under a dark-blue plaster sky that twinkled with stars, classical statuary and vines climbing the side walls. It packed houses as a movie theatre for five decades under Balaban and Katz and later Plitt Theatres, until the Copernicus Foundation - a Polish-American cultural organisation searching for a permanent home - broke ground on its remodel in 1979, preserved the historic auditorium while building three floors of offices and classrooms around it, and took over the theatre fully in 1985. That year the foundation crowned the building with the Solidarity Tower, its facade modelled on the clock tower of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, turning the roofline into a landmark for every commuter on the Kennedy. Renamed for the astronomer Copernicus, the complex became the anchor of Polish-American life in a city holding one of the largest Polish communities outside Poland - home of the annual Taste of Polonia festival each Labor Day weekend. Today the restored Mitchell P. Kobelinski Theater seats about 1,800 for a calendar as international as its neighbourhood: Polish stage stars and film festivals, Latin, South Asian and Filipino concerts, symphony programs, comedy and community celebrations, with modern sound, lighting and a video wall threaded through the 1930 atmospherics.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 5216 W Lawrence Ave, Chicago, IL, United States, 60630

Website: https://copernicuscenter.org

Capacity: 1800

Opening Date: 27/06/1930

Serves Food

Accessible