Movie Palaces Of The 1940s: The Miami Theatre On Flagler St. | Bedford Hills Real Estate

At first glance, 777 International Mall in Downtown Miami at 145 East Flagler Street seems as ordinary as any mini shopping mall in the area. There are various mom and pop type of stores, a two-story Payless ShoeSource, jewelry and perfume vendors, and a Peruvian restaurant in the main courtyard. However the building dates back to 1948 when it was built as the Miami Theatre, a major movie theater of the famed Wometco theater chain.

Wometco Enterprises, Inc. undeniably launched the popularity of the moviegoing experience in South Florida. Brothers-in-law Mitchell Wolfson—the same Wolfson family that brought the Wolfsonian museum, the Florida Moving Image Archives, and the Downtown Miami Study Centre to South Florida—and Sidney Meyer founded the Wolfson-Meyer Theatre Company  (“Wometco”) in 1925 in Miami. During the first two decades of its existence, Wometco’s objective was to provide affordable entertainment venues in Florida for the general public. The film industry skyrocketed in the 1920s and there was a high demand for venues to screen these innovative moving pictures. The company launched the largest theatre chain in South Florida that included the Capitol Theatre-later the future home of WTVJ; Miami’s first television station-the Lincoln Theatre designed by Thomas W. Lamb; and the theatre-turned-nightclub Cameo designed by Robert E. Collins; both built in 1936, among many others.