Palace Theatre
16 E. Sixth Street,
Cincinnati,
OH
45202
16 E. Sixth Street,
Cincinnati,
OH
45202
2 people
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I purchased and removed the above mentioned WurliTzer organ from this Palace Theater, along with several others of note, and took it to Louisville, KY. If anyone would like to hear more about it, feel free to e.mail me at
Naming the Theater the Palace was a tip of the hat to The Palace Hotel from the 1880’s which still exists today, but is renamed the Cincinnatian Hotel, a most posh place to stay as evidenced by the many national personalaties who stay there.
Feb. 1982 photo of the Palace Theatre. Must have been demolished after Feb.
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Another Feb 1982 photo of the Palace Theatre.
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A Wurlitzer theater organ opus 214 style 210 was installed in the Palace Theater on 3/29/1919.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980
Palace Theatre (added 1980 – Building – #80004067)
12 E. 6th St., Cincinnati
Historic Significance: Event
Area of Significance: Performing Arts
Period of Significance: 1900-1924
Owner: Private
Historic Function: Commerce/Trade, Recreation And Culture
Historic Sub-function: Business, Theater
Current Function: Recreation And Culture
Current Sub-function: Theater
The Palace Th. Cincinnati,Ohio held the world premiere of the 1943 re-make of ,“Phantom Of The Opera”,starring Claude Rains, the original ,“Phantom”,was a silent starring Lon Chaney from 1925. Why our Palace was chosen for the opening is anybodys guess.
It’s too bad the library put their logo on top of the marquee, though.
Great photo, tinyurl. Never saw that one before. Looks like the mid-30s by the cars on the street.
Here is a 1930 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/qp8rp
I have one fairly decent photo of the Palace. Email me at and I will attach it to a reply.
Chuck: Thanks for the beautiful b/w photo of this former theatre.
The RKO Palace Theatre was an early design from the architectural firm of Rapp & Rapp.
On 24th October 1978 it re-opened as a concert and roadshow house with a newly decorated interior, additional lobby space with new bars, new lighting and sound equipment installed. Sadly this didn’t last too long, as it states in the opening description here that it was torn down in 1982 (or was it 1992 according to the first posting above?)
Here is a ling to the RKO Palace Theatre
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The address for the RKO Palace was 16 East 6th Street, Cincinnati, Oh.
This was quite a theatre! In the 60’s and 70’s, it booked mostly what was known as reserve seat/Roadshow films. “The Sound Of Music” probably played there for a year. It was the Cinerama theatre after The Capitol closed and it’s where I saw “2001: a space odyssey”. Other first run films that played there exclusively included: “Far From the Madding Crowd”, “Carnal Knowledge”, “Hello Dolly” and I believe “The Godfather”. Located across Fountain Square from the RKO Albee and just down the street from The Grand and the Times Towne Cinema and around the block from the Studio Cinemas and The Shubert. I left Cincinnati for Los Angeles in 1975 and am glad that I didn’t have to witness all these wonderful theatre’s fall from greatness.
I remember going to the RKO 70 when I was a kid. For a young lad under 5'-0" tall, these places become more larger than life than they actually were!
In high school the theater had become a 2nd run movie house – we went to see EARTHQUAKE in Sensoround – oh, the poor theater. Pieces of paint would fall from the ceiling every time they turned the big sub woofers on.
When they changed the venue and renamed it the Palace, they started booking one dumb road show after another – you can only see Dawn Wells in productions of Chapter Two so many times! That was the beginning of the end. Too bad – it was the last of the downtown Cincy theaters – of course the Emory is chugging along. A homely theater by comparison.
The Palace (aka RKO International 70) was demolished about a decade ago. Located on the lower floors of an office building, I remember a Cincinnati Enquirer article of a dentist refusing to vacate his space in a vain effort to delay demolition of the theatre.