Talk:Chestnut Street Opera House

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1880 sketch

• ... that the model movie theater at the Chestnut Street Opera House (pictured) in Philadelphia aimed to attract "the very best people" but closed within the year? Source: "Made for the Masses with an Appeal to the Classes": The Triangle Film Corporation and the Failure of Highbrow Film Culture https://www.jstor.org/stable/3661092
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Created by TSventon (talk) and 4meter4 (talk). Nominated by TSventon (talk).

Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has less than 5 past nominations.

Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

TSventon (talk) 15:18, 20 April 2024 (UTC).

• New enough and long enough. Nominator is QPQ-exempt. Hook fact checks out. No textual issues. Ready to go. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 19:14, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm not sure being a short lived movie theatre is all that interesting or hooky. Here are a few alt hooks that I think are better. I also added a pic. @ Sammi Brie can ypu take a look at these please?4meter4 (talk) 12:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• Alt1 ... that a contested will bequeathing the Chestnut Street Opera House (pictured) to the University of Pennsylvania became the subject of a court case before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania?

• Alt2 ... that the Chestnut Street Opera House (pictured) was bequeathed to the University of Pennsylvania to fund women's education?

• Comment 4meter4 I was amused by "the very best people" in Alt0. I had something like Alt2 in mind in case an alt was needed. Alt1 could possibly be shorter, hopefully I got the legal jargon right. The picture is slightly skew, it would be nice to rotate it if it went to main page. TSventon (talk) 13:22, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• @TSventon I like the quote too, I'm just not sure the fact is interesting enough by itself to get people to come to the article. They might mistakenly assume the theatre wasn't around for very long based on that short blurb. As for the image issue, if you look at the original much larger sketch, you'll see that the building is tilted, but I am not sure if this is because the artist drew it that way or because the artwork was creased/damaged. See: https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/im_display.cfm/502809?ProjectId=EBAD9819-D04B-4FB2-819CEF615254FC04 Best.4meter4 (talk) 13:39, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• @4meter4, I was just giving my opinion, I am happy for Sammi Brie to choose whatever she likes. On the larger picture, the black border at the top slopes, which suggests that the scan could be skew, but damage could also be involved. TSventon (talk) 13:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• Alt1a ... that a will bequeathing the Chestnut Street Opera House (pictured) to the University of Pennsylvania was contested at the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania?

• It probably is a skew issue, probably for paper damage, which might be fixable especially for this crop. The image is acceptable in license. New ALT1 is fine (AGF). ALT2 is fine and checks out to source. I don't like the wording on ALT1 with "Pennsylvania" twice. 4meter4, I had to make a lot of small copy tweaks to the large addition that was made; you should read MOS:DATECOMMA. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 17:47, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie Thank you for the copy edit. I appreciate your help. As for the wording... this isn't a case of improper word redundancy. There isn't a way to remove the word Pennsylvania as the proper names of both these organizations include that word. The University of Pennsylvania is the University of Pennsylvania, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. If we remove the word Pennsylvania from the university it could be any university rather than the well know Ivy League school. Likewise, if we remove it from the court, readers would likely assume it was the national Supreme Court and not a state Supreme Court. I don't see any way of rewording this without it ending up in Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors and loosing 'hookiness' for lack of a better word.4meter4 (talk) 18:12, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree—it's redundant and looks off but is needed to avoid obvious confusion. It's kind of why, if I were a promoter, I would skip it. But I want the promoter to choose the hook. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 18:25, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

That's fair. The wording may read awkwardly to some people even if it is technically a necessary redundancy. I personally would pick it anyway because I believe it is the most interesting fact (to me anyway) among the hook choices. I guess it depends on whether one prefers style or substance (not that the other hooks are lacking substantive value).4meter4 (talk) 18:36, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Article expansion

4meter4, thank you for expanding the article, do you want to be credited as cowriter on the nomination? TSventon (talk) 18:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@TSventon No problem. I'm enjoying working on it. I'd be happy to be named as a co-writer. Thanks.4meter4 (talk) 18:23, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

4meter4 the University of Pennsylvania history says that Bennett bought the property on which the theatre stood so I have edited the text to say that, hope that makes sense. Presumably the PAFA had kept the land until then. TSventon (talk) 21:16, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

TSventon I'm not entirely certain. Tracking theatre purchases (and real estate in general) is always tricky because they can mean the land, the building, or the lease; or a combo of some or all of those components. Unfortunately the sources aren't specific enough to know for certain. It would require finding the legal documents of sale to know for sure.4meter4 (talk) 21:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

4meter4 as I am sure you know, Wikipedia prefers secondary sources. The history says "In 1881 he [Bennett] bought the property on which Fox's Theatre stood" and Andrew Davies says "Mrs. Goodwin sold them [Nixon and Zimmerman] the lease on the Chestnut Street Opera House", which support what the article now says. The Philadelphia Inquirer of Sat, Sep 18, 1880 describes on Page 2 a "Reception for the Inspection of the Chestnut Street Opera House" on the previous day, where Goodwin and Bennett (and Zimmerman) were involved, so I agree that we don't have the whole story. TSventon (talk) 22:08, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

TSventon I'm satisfied with the way you have presented the information. I think it's the best we can do with the sources we currently have access to.4meter4 (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

TSventon I expanded the lead. If you could give it a look over I would appreciate it. I tried my best to find some performances to highlight. Obviously a lot happened at the theatre during its nearly 70 year history. Unfortunately I was not able to locate a source that gave a performance overview, so I had to do my best to select events of interest based on sources that talked about individual shows or people that worked at the theatre.4meter4 (talk) 22:49, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

4meter4 I will have a look tomorrow. Do you have access to Glazer's Philadelphia Theatres, A-Z? On page 82 he mentions Ben Hur in 1900 and "Sarah Bernhardt, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, [Helena] Modjeska, [Richard] Mansfield , Eva Le Gallienne and the Lunts". Also vaudeville from 1904, drama and musicals back by 1918 with "interims for hard ticket reserved seat movies". TSventon (talk) 23:23, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

4meter4 according to wikt:unexceptionable the meaning is Beyond reproach; unimpeachable, so I disagree with your edit of 00:02, 22 April 2024. TSventon (talk) 00:12, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I initially mistakenly interpreted it as a synonym for not exceptional. I don’t have access to the book by Glazer. 4meter4 (talk) 00:27, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Glazer is mostly about the buildings, I have summarised what he says about performances at the theatre above. Fortunately fluent 19th-century English is not required for editing Wikipedia. TSventon (talk) 01:40, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

4meter4 I have tweaked the mention of film in the lead and the body of the article. I also think Stephen Rush Jr was too obscure for the lead. According to philadelphiabuildings.org he was an architect, while Sr was a builder. TSventon (talk) 21:13, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks good.4meter4 (talk) 21:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

4meter4 I am not entirely convinced by "portions of the PAFA building were altered and incorporated into the structure of Fox's New American Theatre". The article text looks like WP:SYNTHESIS to me as reference 3 says "The building was demolished in 1870" and reference 4 "The building was formerly the Academy of Fine Arts, being changed into a theatre after extensive alterations and preparations by Robert Fox, in 1870". Also I think the detail about the PAFA building would be more relevant to the PAFA article. TSventon (talk) 13:31, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

TSventon Do what you think best with the text. You have my support.4meter4 (talk)