Livingston Theatre
1567 East Livingston Avenue,
Columbus,
OH
43205
1567 East Livingston Avenue,
Columbus,
OH
43205
3 people
favorited this theater
The Livingston Theatre was a neighborhood theatre that opened in 1946 on the east side of Columbus. The marquee still has “Livingston” in stainless steel letters across the front of the building.
The theatre closed, I think, in the 1970’s. The Flex Club, a gay bath house, occupies the theatre now.
Contributed by
Toby Radloff
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Recent comments (view all 31 comments)
I forgot to note that the “Gayety” name came with the advent of live “sentertainers”. This got a LOT of police action and attention, and I don’t recall it lasting very long.
Sure with this site had an edit function! The above post should, of course, be “Entertainers”.
As an early teenager reading these ads, I found it strange that ‘art’ was used as a synonym for ‘porn’ — not just here, but also at the Little Art Theatre and the chain that owned the Bexley and World.
I know that the Bexley and World did for a while legitimately show foreign art films that were not porn. Did the Livingston Art and Little Art ever do so?
No.
Don’t forget the Paris Theatre, the former Parsons Theatre that also showed “adult” films.
A projectonist named Carl Leigh and I (John Williamson) were the last folks to operate the Livingston in 1974. We ran black and action product (“The Mack”, “Coffee”, “Big Bad Momma”) exclusively. I remember it having around 1100 seats including the cry room. The auditorium was parallel to the street behind the sporting goods store with the screen on the east end. During the porno days, a large screen (20'x40') was installed for a short lived process called “Panasccope 35”. The screen covered the proscenium completely. “The Gayety†name came from one owner who tried to present live burlesque. The code enforcement people made him install an asbestos fire curtain along with many other improvements. He opened with a stripper, a whistle blew and the cops closed the place. The Livingston had one live show that lasted about 5 minutes.
As for the film aspects, it had an RCA booth with Brinkert BX60’s, RCA 9030 soundheads and Strong 135 lamps burning 11mm carbons. At the time the building owner was also the owner of the drug store next door (Joe Shade in 1970’s). We closed due to lack of product. After we closed, the Livingston was out of the entertainment business. Shade turned it into a doctor’s office catering to Medicaid recipients. The entrance to the waiting room was the theatre entrance and the exit was through a door cut in the west lobby wall into the drug store (traffic went right by the pharmacy counter). I later partnered with Frank Marzetti on a deal to purchase the equipment. It was later sold and scattered all over the Mid-west. After the Dr’s office closed it became a bath house which closed. It is now vacant and has been for some time.
Sorry, the film process was called ScanOscope-35 (Panoscope was a typo) – John Williamson
The Livingston reopened on July 6, 1973, showing THE MACK with Max Julien, Don Gordon and Richard Pryor, and BLACK GIRL with Leslie Uggams and Brock Peters (“She’s got to cut it…or cut out.”)
The last ad I could find for the theatre was August 4, 1974, showing TRUCK TURNER with Isaac Hayes and SCREAMING TIGER.
Marty Hart’s WIDESCREEN MUSEUM site has a page on the Scanoscope process. It includes a film-clip that would be rated PG-13.
View link
Mark your absolutely right. Joe Shade operated it when it re-opened in ‘73. He had real problems as he was a pharmacist and had no theater experience. When Carl & I took over the previous owners main complaint was that he couldn’t make any money in he concession stand. Come to find out, when the stand needed candy he let then come over to the drug store and get what ever they needed from the back room with no supervision. Needless to say we initiated an inventory, watched the stand, and made money. The double feature policy is what killed us. We ran all of the black product and all of the ‘kung-fu’ pictures we could find and ran ourselves out of product.
This location is no longer listed at flexbaths.com . Is it still open as a gym or has it been converted to a different use now?
Property was taken over in 2/11 by a local man who owns a variety of properties. He now owns the entire block that houses the Livingston and the parking lot west of the building. I can’t find any recent occupant, and I did find a site confirming that Flex Baths had closed.