The Mark brothers, Mitchell and Moe, are credited for starting the world's first permanent Buffalo based movie theater in 1896. By 1914, these creative New Yorkers took a gamble and spent a million dollars on the Mark Strand Palace Theater in Times Square. In just a few years the Strand name was protected by the New York Supreme Court and a chain of theaters spread throughout the United States and Canada. While there are more than a 100 old theaters found in New York, a few dozen are thinly sprinkled over the Florida map.
   In the heart of Key West on Duval Street, the Strand's front facade has been carefully restored; and is now the unusual store front of a neighborhood Walgreens. Almost a century ago, this Strand Theater sat 800 people, offering southern Floridians a look at silent films and the latest talking pictures of the day. Here on Duval Street, named after the first territorial governor and home to a string of famous restaurants and bars, the Strand Theatre operated into the 80's, losing out to home theaters and movies complexes. After a few businesses tried the location, Walgreens bought the property in early 2002, restoring the marquee and retaining the interior balcony. It's a novel store front and the exception for a chain of 7000 cookie-cutter drugstores that operate in every state of America.

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