Esquire Theatre
320 Ludlow Avenue Clifton,
Cincinnati,
OH
45220
320 Ludlow Avenue Clifton,
Cincinnati,
OH
45220
3 people
favorited this theater
The Esquire Theater opened in Clifton, a district of Cincinnati, Ohio in 1911 and became an art house in the 1960’s. Closing in 1983 due to competition from new multiplexes, it was scheduled to become a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant in 1984.
However, the planned conversion was blocked over a six year period by neighborhood advocates who eventually helped reopen the theater in 1990 as a 400-seat triplex. Around 1999, the theater was remodeled again and now houses six auditoriums.
Contributed by
Ross Melnick
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Recent comments (view all 30 comments)
Here is a September 2009 close-up shot of the Esquire.
Times change ,August 9 1974 now playing a piece of crap that shouldn’t even play at the worst drive-in. TOM LAUGHLIN in BORN LOSERS. Can’t believe it is also playing at the 20th Century,
Nov.28,1963 an auto smashed into Esquires lobby ,no one was injured since the outside box office was closed earlier. The cars driver said his foot hit the gas pedal instead of its brake, he was charged with reckless driving.No damage estimate was given for the structure.
The Esquire opened originally as the Clifton Operahouse with a small stage in 1911 so it did amatuer vaudeville and movies it its early era.
I’ve been told by one of the performers of the Cincinnati ROCKY HORROR shadowcast that the screen in the largest auditorium is being replaced with a silver screen and being converted to digital projection, no doubt to accomodate the 3-D craze. Thankfully, it sounds like only this house is dropping 35mm projection; the other five houses will still be film.
Strangely enough, I remember when a silver screen was installed here during the ‘80’s 3-D revival, though I never saw a 3-D show there.
A list of Cincinnati movie houses was published in the March 29, 1915, issue of The Cincinnatian, the official publication of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. The only house listed for Ludlow Road was the Clifton Theatre, at Clifton and Ludlow. In a comment above hank.sykes says the theater had originally been called the Clifton Opera House, but it was definitely showing movies as the Clifton Theatre by 1915.
A listing in the Cincinnati City Directory of 1915 refers to this theater as the Clifton Opera House and it would not be surprising to find that it was showing pictures along with its stage presentations.Many nab Opera Houses never played an Opera.
hank.sykes: The directory, being an annual publication, probably went to press before the name was changed (in fact, most city directories were published late in the year previous to that which they were dated.) The magazine was a monthly, and would have had the latest information. That would give a probable date of early 1915 for the theater’s first name change.
Here’s a link to The Cincinnatian, Volume 1, issue 32. The list of theaters is search result 5 (Google’s page number 41, in case Google Books doesn’t bring the page up automatically.) Some of these theaters might not yet be listed at Cinema Treasures, and others are probably listed under later names. I’m not familiar enough with the Cincinnati portion of the database to figure out which might be which. Maybe you can recognize some of them.
Hello Joe, Many thanks for The Cincinnatian volume , the only one I could find at our main library was for 1927,it’s a real plus to have this link.
In case you haven’t seen it, follow the “About this book” link at the upper left of the Cincinnatian page, then scroll down to the “Other Editions” section. Google Books provides full views of two more volumes of the Cincinnatian, from 1916 and 1917.
Also, you might be interested in the several editions of Ohio Architect, Engineer and Builder available at Google Books.