High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Uptown Theatre, also known as the Balaban and Katz Uptown Theatre, is a massive, ornate movie palace in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Designed by Rapp and Rapp and constructed in 1925, it the last of the "big three" movie palaces built by the Balaban Katz theatre chain run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban and their partner Sam Katz.