{"id":364,"date":"2009-11-05T12:33:25","date_gmt":"2009-11-05T12:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=364"},"modified":"2009-11-05T12:36:03","modified_gmt":"2009-11-05T12:36:03","slug":"costa-mesas-first-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2009\/11\/05\/costa-mesas-first-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"Costa Mesa&#8217;s First Cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Back on November 4, 1948, Costa Mesa welcomed it&#8217;s first\u00a0cinema with the opening of the <a href=\"http:\/\/occinema.com\/2007\/08\/30\/mesa\/#more-94\" target=\"_blank\">Mesa Theatre<\/a>. Having faced strict post World War II construction restrictions, the Mesa&#8217;s opening had been long delayed and only came after some prolonged lobbying by city officials; which reached all the way to the White House.\u00a0The luxurious single screen venue was designed by A. Dwight Gibbs, architect of\u00a0Los Angeles&#8217;\u00a0legendary Carthay Circle Theatre, and served as Costa Mesa&#8217;s premiere\u00a0movie going destination until James Edwards set sights on re launching his namesake chain in the city.<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/MesaTheatreConcession1950s.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-365\" style=\"border: black 2px solid;\" title=\"Mesa Theatre Concession 1950s\" src=\"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/MesaTheatreConcession1950s-241x300.jpg\" alt=\"Mesa Theatre Concession 1950s\" width=\"241\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/MesaTheatreConcession1950s-241x300.jpg 241w, https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/MesaTheatreConcession1950s-120x150.jpg 120w, https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/MesaTheatreConcession1950s.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 241px) 100vw, 241px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>By the close of the 1970&#8217;s, the Mesa had\u00a0fallen from it&#8217;s former prestige, facing stiff competition from both <a href=\"http:\/\/occinema.com\/2007\/08\/30\/costa-mesa\/#more-92\" target=\"_blank\">Edwards&#8217; Costa Mesa Cinema <\/a>and a host of \u00a0theatres that had sprung up around the South Coast Plaza area (forming the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2009\/03\/17\/the-westwood-of-orange-county\/\" target=\"_blank\">Westwood of Orange County<\/a>&#8220;). In 1981, Edwards took over the Mesa and the theatre quickly slipped in to decline, as the chain placed little effort in to keeping the facility viable. Eventually taking on second run booking, the Mesa closed out it&#8217;s years as a rundown shadow of it&#8217;s former\u00a0grandeur.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>In late 1997, the Mesa closed and was\u00a0quickly razed for a retail development. The hard fought for, former, &#8220;entertainment jewel of Costa Mesa&#8221;, disappeared\u00a0with little notice; today, the sight of a large bookstore, across the street from the floundering <a href=\"http:\/\/occinema.com\/2007\/08\/30\/triangle-square\/#more-101\" target=\"_blank\">Triangle Square Center<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back on November 4, 1948, Costa Mesa welcomed it&#8217;s first\u00a0cinema with the opening of the Mesa Theatre. Having faced strict post World War II construction restrictions, the Mesa&#8217;s opening had been long delayed and only came after some prolonged lobbying by city officials; which reached all the way to the White House.\u00a0The luxurious single screen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}