Allen Theatre

Holy shit. That really is desecration.

I cant believe they are going to carve up this beautiful theater after spending so much money to restore it. Have they started this desecration yet? Horrible!

The Loews Ohio is also in this photo,its marquee was just in front of the Loews State.This theatre did not have a vertical sign.

The Grateful Dead played here on 10/29/71.

A unique feature of the Allen Theatre in its early years was a soda fountain called the Tea Room, located on the main floor and open to the auditorium. The facility was for the exclusive use of theater patrons, and was without a separate entrance from the street.

The July, 1922, issue of a trade journal called The Soda Fountain featured this article about the operation. There is one photo. The article says that the idea for the Tea Room came from the theater’s architect, C. Howard Crane.

From the 1920s a postcard view of the Allen and Loews Theatres in Cleveland’s Theatre District.

True Mike, in all the photos I have seen of the CRESCENT sign you could not see the LOEWS NEON during the day if you did not know it was there you would not know it,I remember that I had to turn on I think it was 26 breakers to turn on all the signage and outside lights. I have seen a video of Church street when the sign was being turned of for the night, it when off in stages as you know not all the lights came on or off at the same time.I wonder if it was me turning them off in that clip.May have been I did it many,many times.Now back to the Allen Theatre.

I agree CWalzak,I was just pointing out the style of the vertical looked very much like many Loews verticals I have seen in photos I knew that Loews did not have this theatre in 1948.And the overlapping neon we had I thought looked cheap,but cheaper than building a new sign I quess.In fact I just remember after Loews closed the Crescent I drove down Church street one night after Martin theatres had taken over the Crescent and the LOEWS neon was still buring even though it had its own breakers,I guess who ever turned on the signs did not know, and this was like 2 years after Loews left.

By the way the photo I was refering to was the 1948 shot.

Thanks nice old ad CWalczak.

Right up until they were vacuumed up by amc in 2006, Loew’s wasn’t shy about letting people know who was managing their theaters. A point of negotiation with the merger, amc let the Loews name remain on the New York City theatres, because A.) Loews has had operations and headquarters there since the earth cooled, and B.) as a half-hearted acknowledgment that Loews had a more storied past than they do.

Was this theatre known as LOEWS ALLEN when they ran it from 1922 to 1932.

And what on earth do they need more lobby space for when there is already that magnificent domed rotunda? Do we really need more space for cocktail parties and black-tie events when what is really needed right now is more people from across the economic spectrum filling auditorium seats?

Frankly, I am disgusted that the Cleveland Playhouse, once one of America’s most distinguished regional theater companies is involved in this travesty. I attended many of their productions growing up in Cleveland and was very impressed with the Johnson complex when it opened (although rather liked their old 77th Street theater which, I think, was once a church or a synagogue, with its thrust stage). I thought (I am sure with many others), that the new complex not only would help revive surrounding area, but assure the longtime vitality of the Playhouse. One can only wonder what all those contributors and benefactors that helped build the Johnson complex and restore the Allen are thinking now. I have friends in the Cleveland theater community who often say that over the last decade or so, the Playhouse, unfortunately like some other venerable arts institutions in other cities, has been plagued with egos, conflicts over vision and purpose, and internal politics. Now this abomination.