Less than a week ago, we told you about the sudden end for the Forum Theater and Les Gals, two vestiges of a bygone era of when people actually used to leave their homes for their smut. At the time, we wondered whether these shutdowns near 22nd & Market were merely temporary or a more permanent end to their seedy presence.

The Forum

Les Gals

According to a post last night on Philly.com, the porn appears to be gone forever at these locations. Anthony Trombetta, who operated both of the businesses, was evicted over $29K in unpaid rent by landlords STB Investments. It’s amazing to consider the dramatic shift that’s occurred in a very short time, as it was less than three years ago that it seemed likely that the Forum would

Today, a reader reached out and gave us some of the more surprising news we’ve heard in recent months. The Forum, that old movie palace at 2208 Market St. that’s somehow still been showing nudie films for the last however many years, that venue that attempted to expand its building and its services until being denied by a judge last year, that business that nearby residents at the Murano have hoped would just disappear since the day they moved in, has closed its doors.

Yup

The building

Three men were working on the site, but a language barrier precluded any of them from sharing with us exactly why the business closed or what was in store for the building moving forward. We don’t even know when the theater closed, but we did find a…

Do people actually go to porn theaters anymore? More specifically, do people actually go anywhere on the 22nd block of Market Street? The answer is yes, a profitable yes.

Anthony Trombetta’s Forum Theater on 2209 Market Street is the last old-fashioned, dry porno houses in Philly (“Save The Forum!”), and although we thought (based on no facts at all) its next headline would also mention the words “For Sale” or “Failed Kitchen Inspection,” it seems the Forum is very much alive and stripping (congratulations to Nico M., the Forum’s reigning Mayor on Foursquare). The Zoning Board of Adjustments has approved an expansion project to add live nude dancers (as oppose to the lifeless ones so common these days), private booths and a second-floor mezzanine area that the Forum’s 19-foot ceilings allow for. The “expansion” in question actually is just a joining of X-rated forces. Trombetta also owns…