How did Tower Bridge in Sacramento get its name? Tower Theatre? Here’s a look back
Have you ever driven or walked across Sacramento’s Tower Bridge?
Caught an indie film at Tower Theatre? Bought music at the late, great Tower Records across the street?
These historic Sacramento locales may share part of a name, but they each have a unique origin story.
The Sacramento Bee looked into the history of the capital city’s iconic towers. Here’s what we found.
How did Tower Bridge in Sacramento get its name?
M Street Bridge, which was built in 1911, originally spanned the Sacramento River to connect West Sacramento to the Capitol building, according to the Historic American Engineering Record. The bridge got its name from the street it extended across the river.
Eventually, a new bridge was constructed at the same spot to ease heavy traffic, which had been increasing due to M Street Bridge’s narrow lanes and slow opening and closing mechanisms.
Construction on the new Tower Bridge lasted 18 months, from July 1934 until January 1936.
The bridge, dedicated in December 1935, was considered “the gateway to the State Capitol,” an architectural historian wrote in Caltrans’ form nominating the landmark for the National Register of Historic Places.
Tower Bridge was named after its “most distinguishing feature” — the towers that lift the center of the bridge to allow boats to pass underneath, The Bee reported on Oct. 3, 1934.
Many Sacramento residents disliked the highly literal name.
Joseph Broadley of Fair Oaks wrote a letter to the editor suggesting a new name for the bridge.
“The bridge itself will be nothing more than a massive structure of concrete and steel extending heavenward, and the name Tower represents and portrays nothing more than the structure itself,” Broadley wrote in his letter, published in The Bee on Nov. 28, 1934. “With Sacramento, the capital of the golden state of California in the center of this vast empire, what name could be more appropriate than the Golden Empire Bridge.”
Originally silver, the bridge was repainted ochre in the 1970s.
In 2002, Caltrans asked Sacramento-area residents to choose the bridge’s next color. They picked metallic gold.
Tower Bridge has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982, due to its significance to transportation in Northern California and the Sacramento landscape.
What’s the history of Tower Theatre in Land Park?
Tower Bridge isn’t the only tower-themed landmark in Sacramento.
In 1938, a movie theater featuring a nearly 100-foot-tall white tower opened in the city’s Land Park neighborhood at 2508 Land Park Drive.
Brothers Joe and Abe Blumenfeld commissioned architect William B. David to build a movie theater with a Streamline Moderne-style tower on top, according to film historian Matías Bombal.
Tower Theatre was named in honor of that unique architectural feature.
“It really was just in celebration of the architectural element that defined it differently than any other kind of theater building,” Bombal said.
When Tower Theatre was built, it was the only business named after a tower in the area.
However, it’s not the only tower-topped movie theater in Northern California.
Tower Theatre for the Performing Arts opened in Fresno in 1939 with a similar Streamline Moderne-style spire protruding from its roof.
David originally designed plans for Fresno’s Tower Theatre, but the city ended up awarding permits to designs by a different architect, according to a form nominating the Fresno building for the National Register of Historic Places.
David went on to design two other movie theaters with similar tower features: Tower Theatre in Marysville and Tower Theatre in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Both have since closed.
Movie theater building has housed drugstore, restaurant
Several businesses have leased storefronts in the Tower Theatre building, including a corner drugstore that opened in late 1938.
Owner Clayton Solomon named his business Tower Cut-Rate Drugs to quickly indicate to customers which building the drugstore was in, Bombal said.
After Tower Drugs closed in 1985, a restaurant serving international fare — Tower Café — opened in its place at 1518 Broadway.
Tower Café, which opened in April 1990, has become a staple among Sacramento-area residents.
When the café reopened following a COVID-19 related shutdown, customers waited more than an hour to finally order their favorite meals from the restaurant again, according to The Bee’s archives.
Other current tenants of the Tower Theatre building include an Italian restaurant, Sampino’s Kitchen at Joe Marty’s, and a tobacco shop called Tower Pipes and Cigars.
Two other businesses that once called Tower Theatre home — Tower Liquor and Tower Real Estate — stayed nearby. Tower Liquor is at 1525 Broadway and Tower Real Estate is at 1618 Broadway.
What about Tower Records?
Clayton Solomon’s son, Russell Solomon, started reselling jukebox records out of his father’s drugstore in the early 1940s — founding Tower Records in 1960.
Tower Records soon outgrew the space at 1518 Broadway and opened its first storefront on Watt Avenue.
At its peak, the record store chain operated more than 200 locations in 20 U.S. states and 18 countries, The Bee previously reported.
Those included a Tower Records shop at 2500 16th St. that neighbored Tower Café, Tower Liquor and Tower Real Estate.
After becoming a Dimple Records store, the 16th Street building was demolished in 2019, The Bee previously reported. Now a multi-use building that will house apartments and retail stores is under construction at the site.
Although Tower Records is gone, its namesake remains. Tower Theatre is currently owned and operated by Angelika Film Center, a national chain of cinemas with a focus in independent and foreign films.
Its towering spire still serves as a landmark for locals.
Tower Theatre became a “destination because of this architecture of fantasy,” Bombal said. “(It) really was a standout thing.”
This story was originally published June 8, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
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