Loew's Theatre
125 North Main Street,
Dayton,
OH
45402
125 North Main Street,
Dayton,
OH
45402
2 people
favorited this theater
Opened on 4th May 1918 as the Dayton Theatre, it was the classiest of all the Dayton movie theatres. It was acquired by Loew’s Inc. in 1920 and from 1924-1930 was known as Loew’s Dayton Theatre and from 1930 to 1972 Loew’s Theatre.
It was a really cool theatre. It had a big oval mezzanine that was open to look down into the lobby. The balcony had more seats than the orchestra level! I watched a lot of Disney movies growing up in the 1960’s then went on to see concerts such a Phoebe Snow, Lou Reed, and George Carlin in the 1970’s. My grandmother gave me a table that was in the upper level lobby that has a mirror top and painting on the side.
I remember it being very plush. In the womens restroom they had about ten chairs in front of a big mirror for primping and lots of velvet chairs thoughout the theater.
In 1972 Loew’s sold the building and it was taken over by the owners of the Victory Theatre across the street. Re-named Palace Theatre it was used for concerts, but this was short lived and it closed in 1975 and was demolished.
News reports at the time stated that an office block would be build on the site which would include two theatres on the ground floor, but this never materialised and the site remains an empty lot, used for parking.
Contributed by
Patty Stewart, Jerry Young
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Recent comments (view all 15 comments)
This is another case of “r” before “e” in the ending to the “t” word: Loew’s Theatre (not Loew’s Theater). Please see documentation to “small photo” link posted above today at 9:40am for proof of this.
I probably saw more movies at this theater when I was growing up than in any other theater in Dayton. It was a very large theater with a large lobby and a huge marquee. WING radio used to do a noontime man-on-the-street broadcast each weekday here. The James Bond movies used to be exclusive here as were most of the MGM films. The Victory across the street got the Disney movies. Everything else seemed to go to the RKO Colonial, RKO Keith, and RKO State.
@Chuck1231 I think this is the link you meant to post:
View link
Carl Rogers was manager from 1951 to 1970 and a fantastic celebration/promotion of the 50th anniversary in 1968.
Great picture posted by Zack. The marquee looked great, different from most Loews marquees.
The orginal marquee looked very much like the LOEWS PALACE in Washington,D.C.
Here’s an item from the trade journal The Ohio Architect, Engineer and Builder, issue of February 6, 1917. Datelined Dayton, it probably refers to this theater:
Taking more than a year to get a theater built in this period would have been unusual, except in 1917-1918, when the entry of the United States into the WWI led to some disruptions in both the labor market and the supply of building materials, especially in the industrial areas of the northeast.Schenck & Williams (Harry I. Schenck and Harry J. Williams) was one of Dayton’s leading architectural firms during the 1910s and 1920s. I haven’t found any other theaters attributed to them, but they designed many other major projects.
Schenck & Williams designed the Dayton Theatre in a restrained Beaux Arts style, as can be seen from the photographs here, in the August, 1920, issue of the professional journal Architecture. There’s also a floor plan. Scroll down to see a page with four interior photos.
The Internet Archive reader displays the photos as they were published, so some face sideways on the monitor, and there’s no mechanism for turning them right side up. Fortunately, they can be downloaded. Resize the pages using the + sign in the toolbar at lower right, then right click and save as usual. Any decent image viewer program should be able to rotate them. I’d recommend IrfanView for anyone who doesn’t have it. It’s free, and fairly easy to use.
Thanks to Ken Roe in the UK he directed my steps to the Loews Dayton Theatre only to read that this theatre is gone and that “the site remains an empty lot used for parking”. So sad and so shameful that Dayton no longer has this treasured cinema!
When theatres like the Dayton came down in the 70’s for most likely Urban Renewal didn’t the folks of these communities ever think they would need or want a place to show movies, plays and musicals? They had this theatre and then let it be demolished for “an empty lot used for parking”.