Overview

The 1,360-seat Zenith Theatre opened as a north side neighborhood movie theatre in 1926, designed as an atmospheric theatre with a Spanish Courtyard theme. The theatre was fully equipped for vaudeville in its early days.

The asymmetrical auditorium side wall decoration featured large French doors with matte glass panes, which were in fact scrim/gauze-filled frames fronting the organ chambers where the pipes of a Kilgen theatre organ were installed.

Fox Theatres took over the theatre in 1938, however by 1954 business was not good and the theatre was sold to a church for $110,000. Following $70,000 of renovations the former movie palace was reopened as the Milwaukee Evangelistic Temple.

The church moved out of the building and it was listed for sale in 2015. The theatre is currently vacant and its status largely unknown.