Copernicus Center (Chicago, Illinois)  The Copernicus Center (formerly Gateway Theatre) is a 1,890-seat former movie palace that is now part of the Copernicus Center in the Jefferson Park community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The Copernicus Center is located at 5216 W. Lawrence Avenue. The former Gateway Theater was designed by architect Mason Rapp of the prestigious firm of Rapp and Rapp, famous for their design of deluxe theaters not only in Chicago (Chicago, Oriental, and Palace Theatres) but throughout the United States. It is the architect's only surviving atmospheric theatre in Chicago. June 27, 1930 was the opening day for Jefferson Park's new deluxe motion picture palace. Weeklong festivities in the area leading up to the opening were capped off by a gargantuan parade sponsored by area businesses. All the Chicago dailies covered the event, and in fact, the "Chicago Herald-Examiner" put forth a full page spread proclaiming the new theater as "the most acoustically perfect theatre in the world." The reports were not guilty of sensationalism, as the architects indeed had given extra special attention to the acoustics, as talking pictures, a relative newcomer to the entertainment field had found a perfect environment in this new, different theater. The original Grand Hall and Grand Foyer ceilings and walls were designed and hand painted in a maze of connected Greek/Roman scenes of Deities and custom patterns by noted Chicago artist Louis Grell (1887-1960). Because of the new sound films (nicknamed "talkies"), plans to include a stage for vaudeville and stage shows were abandoned. Instead, a small "sound stage" was built to the back of the proscenium opening to house the screen and "newfangled" speakers. If the "talkies" were just a fad, the sound stage could easily be replaced with a full stage house with the usual complement of dressing rooms, proper rooms, fly space for the scenery and the like. The talking pictures soon became the norm, and, in 1932, all motion picture studios stopped making silent pictures, thus sounding the death knell for vaudeville and stage shows. For over 50 years, the Gateway was the direct-from-the-Loop flagship theater for the prolific Balaban and Katz movie theater chain. For decades, images of such Hollywood stars as Astaire and Rogers, Hepburn and Tracy, Bogart and Bacall, Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Cary Grant, John Wayne, and hundreds of others graced the screen of the Gateway.