Palace Theatre
1214-16 Market Street,
Philadelphia,
PA
19107
1214-16 Market Street,
Philadelphia,
PA
19107
3 people
favorited this theater
This theater, which was built in 1908, sat a little over 1,100, and stood at Market and 12th Streets. Originally called Lubin’s Palace, it was remodeled in 1919, and again in 1945, given a Streamline Moderne facade by William H. Lee. The Palace closed in 1971, and was later demolished.
Contributed by
Bryan
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Recent comments (view all 26 comments)
WOW, Walter ! Tell us more. What years did your employment span at the Palace?
Come visit my site paying homage to the early years of the Orleans Theatre. I have every movie from opening day, May 8, 1963 till April 1972 listed in the Documents section on the site.
C'mon over and visit and join up.
Regards,
Hughie
http://www.msnusers.com/TheOrleansTheatre/homepage
Both of you and all other visitors to this page should make a special point of going to the following link — http://www.hallwatch.org/faxbank/philadelphia — and using the set-up they have set up there to send a fax to Philadelphia Mayor John Street and City Council letting them know the tremendous importance of the Boyd Theatre, PHILADELPHIA’S LAST STILL-STANDING MOVIE PALACE, and why all efforts absolutely must be made to ensure it does not face demolition. It’s current owner, Live Nation, has hinted that it might be putting it up for sale, and with the high value of Center City Philadelphia land value right now, a greedy developer could swoop in and have that theater torn down tomorrow! And all of us who love theaters, great palaces especially, cannot allow that, most particularly when it’s Philadelphia’s very last. Not only must we pressure the Mayor and City Council to save this theater from demolition, but also ask their assistance in finding a new owner who will restore it to all its glory. Send your faxes right away if you haven’t already. GOD SAVE THE BOYD!!!
Thank You,
TheaterBuff1
This is from the LA Times dated 6/4/71:
Palace Closes in Philly
The Palace Theater once housed the booking office for Al Jolson, Marie Dressler and Eddie Cantor. Once it was known for silent screen features. This week it closed for the last time. The final film was “Censorship in the USA”, typical of the fare since the 925-seat moviehouse became a center for so-called “adult movies”. The 60-some-year-old theater will be demolished to make way for a $20 million, 17-story complex urban renewal project in Center City.
The early 1970s was a very tough time for movie palaces, and probably a great deal of it had to do with the political shifts that were going on at that time — the way America was changing by that point under Nixon, and, in Philadelphia’s case, the mayoral rise of Frank Rizzo. While can you imagine a movie palace falling on so desparate times that it believed exhibiting porno was a logical way to remain afloat? And by that I mean actual, straightforward porno, not serious-minded films that the less educated branded as such. Case in point, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, which hit the theaters just two years before the Palace closed, bore an X-rating at that time.
Demographically, in 1971, the baby boom generation, a very sizeable majority, was just starting to come of age at that point. And so there was a mad political scramble as to who and what would have the greatest control over it from that point forward. And though the babyboomers had been weaned on movies exhibited in movie palaces among other things, in the early ‘70s all efforts were made to knock that influence out of the picture completely — a full undoing, if you will, of what FDR and others had helped bring into prominence many decades before.
Of all types of artistic expression, there is nothing more powerful, more potent, then a well-crafted movie exhibited in a well-run theater, and if that theater is a palace this is true even more so. And it’s not something that politicians weren’t aware of in 1971. For it was an awareness that had been strongly in place ever since the time of FDR.
And I believe that had it not been for a few key assassinations that occured not all that long before 1971, there’s a very strong possibility that when 1971 rolled around movie palaces such as the Palace, the Boyd, the Fox and so forth would’ve received an all-new shot in the arm, rather than forced on hard times the way they were. And the hard times they’ve pretty much been on ever since.
An Austin theater organ opus 624 size 2/13 was installed in the Palace Theater in 1916 at a cost of $5,350.
2 Sept 1939 Box Office reported that the Market Street Palace Theatre had 3 stories lopped off per building inspectors’ instructions
The introduction contradicts the entry for the Palace Theatre in Irvin Glazer’s “Philadelphia Theaters,” which says that “The Palace Theatre, 1214 Market Street, was built in 1908 for film pioneer Siegmund Lubin as his largest center-city outlet. In 1921, architects Hoffman & Henon transformed the spartan lobby into this marble and brass creation [book shows photo]…The Palace was an example of what became known as ‘bowling alley’ architecture, with a block-length auditorium. With exits at both ends only, no side alleys were necessary. This economy feature eliminated the need for additional expensive Market and Chestnut Street frontage. A full stage was used for both vaudeville and movies until the 1921 alteration [pictured in book] placed the components of a large pipe organ behind the screen.”
1986 photo of the Palace Theatre.
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The photo above is not the same Palace Theater. The photo shows the Budco (later AMC) Palace Theater on Chestnut street. That theater originally opened as Theater 1812.
I went to the Palace often in the 1960’s. It frequently played the first run of the Japanese rubber suit giant monster movies. It was also one four theaters in downtown Philly that were open all night. The others, all on Market Street, were the Center, News, and Family (later the Apollo).
The Apollo is featured in the 1981 movie Blow-Out, John Travolta’s character’s office is located above it, you get a good shot of it about ½ hour into the movie.