Olympia Theatre
3353 East 55th Street,
Cleveland,
OH
44127
3353 East 55th Street,
Cleveland,
OH
44127
1 person
favorited this theater
The Olympia Theatre was a neighborhood theatre, located at E. 55th Street and Broadway Avenue in Cleveland. The theatre opened around 1913 as a vaudeville house, and had operated continuously as a movie theatre until 1980, when the theatre closed.
The theatre fell into disrepair, and when the Olympia Building was renovated in the 1980’s as apartments and doctors' offices, the auditorium was demolished to make way for off-street parking for the apartments, but the lobby is still there. No renovation was done to the lobby since the theatre closed.
In 2001 the Olympia Theatre was known as the ‘Luce Theatre’ when the film “Welcome To Collinwood” was shot in the East 55th/Broadway neighborhood.
Contributed by
Toby Radloff
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Recent comments (view all 19 comments)
No…I was not a thought during those years as I came into being in ‘38. My mom was 30 when she had me. She was telling me she went to Rice business college in that area somewhere, she did not know the street..they lived on Steinway for awhile..the candy store was near Dolloff & broadway I believe according to her story..they sold it at some point and her father got a job as a machinist. She went to a catholic school as a young girl until she got her knuckles rapped with a ruler for relaxing them from a prayer position..her father took her out soon after…and went to public school. Any idea what public school was in that area of the city (elementary)?
Seems to me there was a very old school building right on Dolloff, maybe at Barkwell. Dolloff is just a half block away from the Olympia.
Yep Ray, got that right. It was Barkwell Elementary! I went to Willow before transfering to Mound, lol. Seems like decades ago, lol. Heck, it was! LOL
I also recall that the Olympia Theater, several months after it closed to mainstream movies, operated briefly in mid-1981 as a porn house. However, there was vocal community opposition in the Broadway area, where people from the Broadway/East 55th neighborhood was picketing the theater, and the porn movies lasted for only a few months as a result. Also, shortly before the Olympia closed for good, someone crashed a pickup truck into the lobby…obviously someone unhappy with the porn that the Olympia was showing at the time. The Olympia closed for good after that.
1971 photo of the Olympia Theatre.
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1939 photo of the Olympia Theatre.
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1978 photo of the Olympia Theatre.
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Ray, I worked at the Olympia theater when you were the manager. I was in high school at the time. I worked the box office. My name is Jeannie. Do you remember? I have great memories of that theater. I haven’t seen it in years. Is that building being used at all?
Here is a 1969 ad for the “Green Slime”.
The Olympia Theatre was in operation prior to January 19, 1916, on which date a telegram from its operator, W. H. Miller, was entered into the records of a hearing being held by the Federal Motion Picture Commission. It was one of many telegrams sent by Cleveland theater operators to express opposition to a proposed Federal censorship law.
A page from the Cleveland Landmarks Commission about builder and architect George Allen Grieble lists the Olympia Theatre as one of his projects, dated 1913. It also lists a Gordon Square Theatre (apparently not yet listed at Cinema Treasures) as a 1911 project.