Albee Theatre
12 E. 5th Street,
Cincinnati,
OH
45202
12 E. 5th Street,
Cincinnati,
OH
45202
6 people
favorited this theater
At a cost of $4 million, the Albee Theatre was considered Cincinnati’s finest movie palace. Opened on December 24, 1927, this Thomas Lamb palace was named after its builder, E. F. Albee, noted vaudeville theater owner and a relative of famous playwright Edward Albee.
The first movie to be shown in its 3,500-seat auditorium was “Get Your Man!” with Clara Bow starring.
Until 1960, the theater booked stage show acts in addition to showing movies. Another source says the stage shows stopped as early as 1957.
It was torn down in 1977 and a hotel was constructed in its place. Some portions of the theater were saved and are now located in other buildings including Music Hall and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.
The facade was also later duplicated on the 5th Street side of the Albert B. Sabin Convention Center — about 3 blocks from where the original theater once stood.
Contributed by
Ray Martinez, Anna Horton, John Ryan
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 52 comments)
The ALBEE a Stanley-Warner Theatre on August 9 1974 they are showing TOUGH ! about a tough black kid, Rated G. Guess some G rated movies do play in Downtown theatres in those days. It was first run.
This photo is INCORRECTLY identified in the Life Magazine archive as Indianapolis. It is actually in Cincinnati and shows the Albee Theatre in the background: View link
I’m working on a post about the Albee for my new website, which will be devoted to Cincinnati’s historic architecture, and I’d appreciate any comments, stories, etc., about the Albee Theater, the Emery Theater, etc.
Thanks
Melissa –
Contact me via PM on this site. If that fails, visit the ‘contact us’ page at http://www.cincyworldcinema.org
View link
I am writing a book about running a movie palace in the nineteen seventies, and I am a native Cincinnatian (living currently in New York City). My favorite movie palace of all times was and is The Albee, and I remember with great sadness its demolition.
Does anyone remember what the policies were towards black patrons in movie theaters, in the years when the Albee was an active theater? Some theaters were segregated, with black patrons required to go to the balcony; in other cases, there were movie houses in black neighborhoods. I was a child at the time I went to the Albee, naive and unaware , but I need to be enlightened on what black patrons were doing.
armleder I saw a number of films at the Albee in the early sixties. Gorgeous wonderful palace of a theater, including “The Music Man” in stereo sound. I attended a couple times with a black friend and have no memory of any racial discrimination.
when I would visit relatives in Cincinnati as a youngster from Chicago in the 50’s, there was definitely de facto segregation in public places, like movie theaters and the Coney Island amusement park.
No surprises here. In his autobiography, the comedian Dick Gregory wrote about having to sit in the segregated balcony of a Carbondale Illinois movie theater. Illinois and Ohio did not have Jim Crow laws on the books, but they existed in unofficial practice,nonetheless.
All 8 of our RKO first run houses downtown escaped the water damage from Ohio’s 1937 flood as they were all above the waters peak by 69 feet.
CORRECTION: the above states that “The facade was also later duplicated on the 5th Street side of the Albert B. Sabin Convention Center — about 3 blocks from where the original theater once stood.” My father worked in Urban Renewal and I clearly remember when the Convention Center was built and the Albee town down. The Albee theatre facade was NOT DUPLICATED, it is the ORIGINAL facade that was saved and placed on one of the Convention Center’s entrances. Yes, the Albee facade was saved!!!