Avalon Theater
East 131st Street,
Cleveland,
OH
44105
East 131st Street,
Cleveland,
OH
44105
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I saw my first movie in this theater. I was 9 years old at the time and my Dad took my older brother and me to to see “The Ten Commandments”. The theater closed in the mid-1960’s and like many other neighborhood theaters in the inner city, it was turned into a church. The building is still standing. The Avalon Theater was located about two blocks north of Miles Avenue on East 131st Street.
Contributed by
T. Hudak
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Recent comments (view all 11 comments)
I have a list of theatres showing the Avalon’s address as 4134 East 105th Street. Which address is correct?
The address that I found also shows the address 4134 E. 105th St., also that the thetre closed in 1964.
TO: Jim Basnik and Chuck1231
The Avalon was located exactly where T. Hudak described — on E. 131st Street, north of Miles. (I also have that list of Cleveland theatres you refer to, and I can tell you that there are many, many errors contained in it — especially in the opening and closing dates shown.) Anyway, I worked briefly at the Avalon in about 1956. It was a fairly nice neighborhood theatre, all on one floor, and I’d estimate the seating capacity at 1200-1500.
In 1963, General Theaters was the operator of the Avalon. General president was Leonard Mishkind. Other Cleveland theaters in this chain at the time were the Detroit, LaSalle, Lyceum, Regent, Olympia and Southern.
There are a lot of churches on E. 131st north of Miles. I tried to figure out which one could have been the Avalon, but no luck. The church may have done some remodeling.
The Avalon is located on the west side of E. 131 st. Just south of Marston Avenue. It is only about four or five storefronts from Marston. The parking lot in the rear of the theater was entered from a driveway on Marston.
Seating given for 1955 was 1,580 seats.
Boxoffice of June 4, 1938, announced that the Avalon Theatre had opened the previous Friday. The new house had been designed by architect Paul Matzinger.
This opened on May 28th, 1938. ad: View link
The Avalon showed double features with show dates being Sun,Mon. Tues and a single date of Wed, only and then Thurs, Fri, Sat, The Wed, show usually included Bank Night where a cash prize was awarded to atendees between the two features. The manager mounted the stage and picked the winning ticket. Needless to say I never won a prize.