Galo Galvan

The top floor of the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona is a dusty relic of its past. Built in 1931, the building is a classic Art Deco movie palace with a spacious entrance, a maze of performance spaces and lounges, and a central tower with an old marquee. It’s where everyday Angelenos would go see first-run silent movies before they hit Hollywood. But on the top floor of the Fox, its earliest projectors and reels of film have been seemingly undisturbed for over 50 years —except by the ghosts that live there, allegedly. “We’ve had paranormal investigators up here and they saw a lot of activity,” says Galo Galvan, the theater’s current manager, who is alone in the building when it sits empty between performances. “I feel like I’m cool with the ghosts because when I walk in here, the lights will turn on automatically,” he says, referring to the theater’s main space. “So I don’t freak out anymore.” Once, an 83-year-old woman from the neighborhood reached out to Galo and told him her father used to work the old projectors. “She told me she would sit right here and watch all the movies her father showed,” says Galo. “You could tell this place was emotional for her.”