Uptown Theatre
10545 St. Clair Avenue,
Cleveland,
OH
44108
10545 St. Clair Avenue,
Cleveland,
OH
44108
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The Uptown Theatre was located on St. Clair Avenue, just east of East 105th Street. The theatre was built for vaudeville and had dressing rooms. It originally had 3,580 seats on orchestra and balcony levels. It was equipped with a Wurlitzer pipe organ, and there was a magnificent crystal chandelier in the center of the auditorium ceiling.
By the early-1940’s the Uptown Theatre was operated by the Warner Bros. Circuit Management Corp. who also operated the Colony Theatre, Doan Theatre, Hippodrome Theatre, Lake Theatre and Variety Theatre, all in Cleveland.
Contributed by
Roger Stewart
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
Various Film Daily Year Books list this as the Up-Town Theatre, with 3,200 seats, which could be an error. If the theatre was that large, it should have been on the usually reliable “Big Theatre List” published by Theatre Historical Society of America in 1991, but it’s not. That list covers all USA movie/vaudeville theatres with more than 2,800 seats.
That figure is probably correct – there were several large theatres in this neighborhood, comparable to the big downtown theatres. A couple of blocks over was the Loew’s Park and Keith’s 105, and each of those had over 3000 seats.
Speaking of Cleveland theaters, does anyone know what happened to the Old Mayfield theater in Little Italy? I cant find a listing for it here.
In 1955, the Uptown Theatre’s last year, it presented live entertainment by the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, Sarah Vaughan, Al Hibbler, Muddy Waters and the Les Brown Orchestra. I would appreciate any additional information about the Uptown Theatre. Thanks!
Joe Mosbrook
A Wurlitzer theater organ opus 1989 style 240 special was installed in the Uptown Theater on 11/2/1928. Status: sold.
The Uptown Theater was operated by Warner Bros. theaters as well as the smaller Doan theater across the street on St. Clair Avenue in the Glenville section of Cleveland, the Variety on the west side, the Colony at Shaker Square and the Vogue in Shaker Heights. Warners, then known as Stanley Warner Theaters built the Great Northern Theater in North Olmsted in the early 1960s.
1948 photo of the Uptown Theatre,
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St. Clair & 105th was far more than a few blocks from Loew’s Park & the Keith’s 105th.
This opened on November 22nd, 1928
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To all of the above, here is true history, right from the horses mouth. I was the Assistant Manager of the Uptown Theater from approximately 1947 through 1950. And it was definitely UPTOWN not UP-TOWN. And whats more, it did have at least 3,200 seats, because one year I had to count them for the City tax rolls. On June 11, 1948, the theater hosted a “Major Bowes” type amateur Show, sponsored by ESSO, (forerunner of EXXON), the winner of which would appear on that new fandagoed box called television. Thats when I met my wife to be, (now going on 62 years). Fond Memories. Admission was $.50 adult, $.25 junion & $.10 child.