Hippodrome Theater
W. Federal Street,
Youngstown,
OH
44503
W. Federal Street,
Youngstown,
OH
44503
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It was the largest theater at the time it opened in 1915, and was such an event that 18 pages of the Youngstown Vindicator were devoted to it.
Contributed by
Joyce
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Recent comments (view all 12 comments)
Thanks for the info wolfgirl500.
The June 21, 1914, Vindicator article linked above notes that the construction of the Youngstown Hippodrome was being supervised by the Cleveland architectural firm of Knox & Elliot. It doesn’t specifically state that they had drawn the plans for the building, but Wilm Knox died in 1915, and his obituary in The Ohio Architect, Engineer and Builder attributed the design of the Youngstown Hippodrome to the firm. Knox & Elliot also designed the Hippodrome Theatre in Cleveland. John Elliot continued to operate the firm until 1925.
Construction of Youngstown’s Hippodrome was well along in the fall of 1914. On the afternoon of October 6, part of the structure failed while concrete forms were being removed, causing a partial collapse of the building. Three workmen were killed and three others injured.
The December 2, 1914, issue of trade journal Engineering and Contracting published a letter from Edward Godfrey, a leading structural engineer of the period and a long-time critic of what were then the standard methods used in reinforced concrete construction. The letter discusses the failure, and is accompanied by two photographs of the collapsed structure.
The Youngstown Vindicator must have had articles about the event, but unfortunately the issues that most likely carried them (October 7, 1914, and probably some later issues) are not available from the Google News Archive.
The Vindicator did report it in their October 29, 1914 issue.
I got the date of the partial collapse of the Hippodrome building wrong in my previous comment. It was October 26, 1914, not October 6.
There is another photo of the collapse at the Hippodrome in the November, 1914, issue of trade union journal The Bricklayer, Mason and Plasterer. The item quotes a Youngstown Vindicator article of October 27, 1914. The collapse was apparently confined to the arcade portion of the building, and the theater’s auditorium was not affected.
Joe: I have a hard copy of the article that ran on 10/29/1914 which is missing in the Google News copy.
“SIX MEN ARE BURIED IN RUINS OF ARCADE WHEN NEW POURED FLOORD CRUMBLE; TOLL OF LIFE IS BELIEVED TO BE THREE”
There was an alley that seperated the theater from the McElroy portion and this was where it happened.
I see that the October 27 Vindicator article includes a plan of the main floor of the building, making it much easier to understand the scope of the disaster. It also makes it easier to picture how catastrophic the collapse could have been had it happened not during construction but after the building had been completed and the theater opened. There might have been a large crowd of patrons in the arcade, either exiting from or waiting to enter the theater.
It certainly could have been a real disaster.
During the days it was open, it riveled the Park Theater in popularity by bringing in big name shows such as Earl Caroll’s Vanities (sp), but once the Palace opened, folks gravatated to the Palace, and the Hip had to settle for lesser names and movies.
After it finally closed for good, it was completely gutted and turned into a Grayhound Bus station. The arcade portion remained quite busy right up until the building was finally demolished and a parking deck was built for the G. M. McKelvey Department Store.
Here are some postcard views of the Hippodrome from the West Federal Street side which was the main entrance. The sign with the elephant was the original sign.
View link
Sorry that I don’t have any clear photographs of the views but will try to get some from the library.
For a city the size of Youngstown, it’s amazing how many theaters it had both legitamate, vaudeville, burlesque, and movie. Fred Childress, the former theater editor/critic for the Vindicator ran the following column on some of the old houses including the first theater in the city, and the Princess Theatre known at various times as the Family Theater; Princess Theater; Grand Theater and finally the Esquire Theater.
12/8/1946
Theater History In Youngstown
View link
Sadly, it’s difficult to locate the history of most of the old theaters, and all we have to go on are newspaper ads on the theater pages of the Youngstown Vindicator and the Youngstown Telegram.