It’s possible that Loew’s operated the Euclid from 1919 until they built the Park in 1921 across the street and a little bit west. As this theatre was less than half the size of the Loew’s Park it probably became a move-over house and Loew’s eventually lost interest. The subsequent operator probably renamed it. It would be interesting to see if there are any advertisements showing Loew’s operating the Euclid and Park simultaneously.
Mr. Schlanger’s role in a number of theatres in New York, DC and presumably this one was usually that of a consulting architect, advising the architect-of-record only on the technical aspects unique to a motion picture theatre. Specifically, things like acoustics, sight-lines, seating layout, floor and balcony pitch and arc, projection and audio equipment, electrical and space requirements for the projection booth were his expertise.
That’s why I questioned the photo of the Albee I saw in the book – one theatre was Lamb and the other was the Rapp Bros. I worked at the Palace and am quite familiar with it. So while perusing the book I saw a photo and automatically assumed was the Palace until I read the caption that indicated it was the Albee.
The RKO Albee was long gone by the time I came to NY so I never got to see it. I saw a photo of the lobby and auditorium in the book “American Picture Palaces” by David Naylor, and It looks amazingly similar to the RKO Palace in Cleveland OH. I suspected it was a mistake in the captioning of the photo, but was never quite sure. I would like to ask the Albee Theatre aficionados here to check out the links below that contain photos of the Cleveland Palace, which has been restored and is open and operating as one unit of a performing arts center. After viewing the photos could you please report here if the lobby and auditorium are similar to your recollections of the Albee interiors? Thanks in advance for your opinions.
RKO PALACE – Cleveland Ohio:
Exterior (front and side):
It has indeed closed after the last show tonight. The other theatre this owner has, the Parma, has been up for sale but is still operating. We’ll see how much longer that one lasts.
Not quite a gut remodel, Al. They built a smaller auditorium within the old opera house. The first time I was in there was the night the ceiling fell down, I was working at CI&II we got the news and rushed down there. The ceiling over the balcony had come down and a large section of that then slid down the incline into the orchestra. I couldn’t see much at that time due to the heavy cloud of dust and there were no lights operable.
Several months later, I was given the key and sent down there to retrieve a buttermat and some other stuff. I took a big flashlight because nobody knew if Con Edison had shut off the power. By that time the entire ceiling was down in the orchestra. At the top of the side walls there was a vast amount of space between where the ceiling had been and the roof. There was enough space that another auditorium could have been built up there. Also, along the sides were the side sections of old horse shoe balcony of the ancient theatre. Snooping around further, I found that in the projection booth there was an old rickety wooden stairway going up to that balcony. That whole structure up there was made out of wood and there was evidence of past fire damage. There was old fabric wall covering straining to stay on the walls along with the old light fixtures. Below this balcony was another, but it was hidden behind the side wall of the cinema. Below that, on the ground level was the exit alleyway from the cinema. This was all on the west side of the building, the east side was similar, but inaccessible, and the ground level was the men’s room, ushers and porter room.
When they readied the place for temporary operation I drew the short straw and was assigned to be the manager. A new ceiling had been installed but instead of putting it in its original position they put it all the way up near the roof, leaving the old balcony’s exposed. In addition to installing the screen we had Geo. Moulinos mask off all that upper area and walls with drapery.
When that was finally shut down to be made into the quad, THEN they did do a complete gut, I was in there when it was just 4 walls and the roof.
Parmatown was the first twin theatre in the Cleveland area, Chapel Hill in Akron was the first twin theatre in Ohio. Southgate was built as a 12 or 1300 seat single screen. About 1971, at the same time the Westgate Cinema City under construction Southgate Cinema II with about 600 seats was built in the alley between the large cinema and the Cleveland Trust. The alley originally contained the auto-teller for the bank. The original auditorium was not divided until the early 1980s. The regional vp over the Cleveland division mgr. had been the opening manager of the Southgate Cinema, and as long as he was in charge of the area would nix any plans to divide that large theatre. Once he was switched to oversee the west coast instead of the midwest, the Southgate #1 was split.
Is it still sitting vacant? I was sure they would divide it up into ten trashy jewelry stores, or have the finally reached the saturation point with that junk? Every other storefront on 74th St. was that stuff. Even then, when the bar next door to the theatre went out of business, it was divided with 2 jewelry stores on the street level and 2 more in the cellar.
Nice pics btw. Is that graffiti on the front recent, since the closing, or something that WMOTTB neglected while they were open? It looks like they are still removing stuff, I can see the box office sales computer still sitting there, I’d be surprised if they left that sort of thing for the demolition crew.
Not that it matters to any of us, but as I think about it more, I’m wondering if the condominium owners realize what will be in store for them once a supermarket opens in their building.
First, a supermarket has mice and roaches virtually built into the place, they get delivered with the first shipment of produce. While the theatre has been there, if a blue-haired resident on the 33rd floor has has been traumatized by an unfortunate encounter a roach the size of a Buick in her butlers pantry, the building manager was immediately dispatched to the theatre to inspect my extermination reports and snoop around the place with flashlights looking for actual vermin or evidence thereof, which they never found at least while I worked there.
Second, a supermarket requires a lot of rooftop refrigeration equipment to oprerate their coolers and freezers in the store. The theatre has one small cooling tower on the roof, as far away from the apt. tower as we could get it, yet if the drive belt on our cooling tower started to wear and the unit rattled a little more than usual I would get a barrage of phone calls from surly apartment residents demanding that I shut off my air conditioning until it was repaired.
Also, There is also the matter of deliveries to the market in the overnight hours, seven days a week.
I predict that after a while the residents will regret the day they agreed to install a supermarket, and look back on the halcyon days of the little old Loews Tower East longingly. “Alas,” they will say, “I fear we have erred. Our quest for big bucks per square-foot was misguided.” But it will be too late, too late for them, too late for us. The Loews is gone. Time marches on. And you can never go back. (I’m getting sappy now, I better stop).
If that’s the case, then Gristede’s has to be using basement space under the stores along with the street level. It was always my understanding that the basement under the stores was mechanical space for the condominium building, there is a garage under there somewhere, too. If they just use the street level stores and divide the theatre horizontally and use both levels it will not be much of a supermarket.
What are the other retail tenants there now? Is it still Bath & Body Works (on the 72 St corner), a yuppie sneaker shop and Vicki’s place (next door to Loews)?
I think the lease is up for renewal. I seem to recall back around 2000 there was great uncertainty surrounding the question of renewing the lease or letting the place go. At the 11th hour Loews signed on for another term of 10 years.
To me it makes little sense to close this theatre, since due to zoning restrictions they can’t build a new 35-plex across the street, even if the property was available. Zoning was changed in the early 1980s to say no new theatres may be built and existing theatres may not add any square-footage in the area bounded by 57th St to 79th St., 1st Ave to 5th Ave. So, in light of the restrictions, I would think they would want to maintain their presence in the area.
The theatre will make money but they can’t just play just any rubbish there like they can on 86th St. It requires a mix of more upscale general release films and foreign product. It also requires a film booker to actually know his theatres, histories and the demographics of the area where they are located. A booker of a place with 25 or 30 screens can use the booking theory of “throw enough sh*t against a wall and some of it will stick”.
The large national circuits are owned by private equity investment firms as well as many of the regional chains and have purged all the theatre people from their ranks. The financial people are running the show these days, micro-managing everything from the home office. History, tradition and common sense have been thrown in the trash. Nothing matters but the bottom line.
I regret to announce that the Walmart of the theatre business from Kansas City has decided the last day of operations for the Loews Tower East 72nd St will be Thursday December 9, 2010, as per CT member astrocks. Unknown at this time if the place will be offered to another tenant for use as a theatre or gutted for retail use.
I thought BBKings was part of the E-Walk complex and newly built. Or is it possible that the old Harem porno theatre was incorporated into the new building?
Actually, I’m looking at the picture in the Harcourt book with a magnifying glass and it quite clearly says ‘Thick Cabinets’. It’s a different photo than the one in Boxoffice, it is a photo of the building with signs on the edge of the roof. Is that another term for Frappe? For instance, carbonated soft drinks, i.e. Pepsi, in the midwest is called ‘Pop’, in NYC it’s called ‘Soda’ and my relatives in Worcester MA called it ‘Tonic’. I thought this might be another regional term that goes by other names in other areas.
I don’t know how I missed that – I guess from the names Euclid and Doan I just assumed…well…no excuse…careless reading at 2am.
It’s possible that Loew’s operated the Euclid from 1919 until they built the Park in 1921 across the street and a little bit west. As this theatre was less than half the size of the Loew’s Park it probably became a move-over house and Loew’s eventually lost interest. The subsequent operator probably renamed it. It would be interesting to see if there are any advertisements showing Loew’s operating the Euclid and Park simultaneously.
Yes I’m watching the same show on PBS… :)
Mr. Schlanger’s role in a number of theatres in New York, DC and presumably this one was usually that of a consulting architect, advising the architect-of-record only on the technical aspects unique to a motion picture theatre. Specifically, things like acoustics, sight-lines, seating layout, floor and balcony pitch and arc, projection and audio equipment, electrical and space requirements for the projection booth were his expertise.
That’s why I questioned the photo of the Albee I saw in the book – one theatre was Lamb and the other was the Rapp Bros. I worked at the Palace and am quite familiar with it. So while perusing the book I saw a photo and automatically assumed was the Palace until I read the caption that indicated it was the Albee.
The RKO Albee was long gone by the time I came to NY so I never got to see it. I saw a photo of the lobby and auditorium in the book “American Picture Palaces” by David Naylor, and It looks amazingly similar to the RKO Palace in Cleveland OH. I suspected it was a mistake in the captioning of the photo, but was never quite sure. I would like to ask the Albee Theatre aficionados here to check out the links below that contain photos of the Cleveland Palace, which has been restored and is open and operating as one unit of a performing arts center. After viewing the photos could you please report here if the lobby and auditorium are similar to your recollections of the Albee interiors? Thanks in advance for your opinions.
RKO PALACE – Cleveland Ohio:
Exterior (front and side):
View link
View link
Lobbies:
View link
View link
View link
Auditorium:
View link
View link
View link
View link
To give proper credit, the photos were taken and links posted on the Palace page on this site by CT member ‘spectrum’ on Jul 9, 2009.
The CT page for the Palace Theatre Cleveland OH is at:
/theaters/1114/
It has indeed closed after the last show tonight. The other theatre this owner has, the Parma, has been up for sale but is still operating. We’ll see how much longer that one lasts.
Wow I never saw that ad. Do you know the date and what paper it was published in? Thanks.
Not quite a gut remodel, Al. They built a smaller auditorium within the old opera house. The first time I was in there was the night the ceiling fell down, I was working at CI&II we got the news and rushed down there. The ceiling over the balcony had come down and a large section of that then slid down the incline into the orchestra. I couldn’t see much at that time due to the heavy cloud of dust and there were no lights operable.
Several months later, I was given the key and sent down there to retrieve a buttermat and some other stuff. I took a big flashlight because nobody knew if Con Edison had shut off the power. By that time the entire ceiling was down in the orchestra. At the top of the side walls there was a vast amount of space between where the ceiling had been and the roof. There was enough space that another auditorium could have been built up there. Also, along the sides were the side sections of old horse shoe balcony of the ancient theatre. Snooping around further, I found that in the projection booth there was an old rickety wooden stairway going up to that balcony. That whole structure up there was made out of wood and there was evidence of past fire damage. There was old fabric wall covering straining to stay on the walls along with the old light fixtures. Below this balcony was another, but it was hidden behind the side wall of the cinema. Below that, on the ground level was the exit alleyway from the cinema. This was all on the west side of the building, the east side was similar, but inaccessible, and the ground level was the men’s room, ushers and porter room.
When they readied the place for temporary operation I drew the short straw and was assigned to be the manager. A new ceiling had been installed but instead of putting it in its original position they put it all the way up near the roof, leaving the old balcony’s exposed. In addition to installing the screen we had Geo. Moulinos mask off all that upper area and walls with drapery.
When that was finally shut down to be made into the quad, THEN they did do a complete gut, I was in there when it was just 4 walls and the roof.
1
Parmatown was the first twin theatre in the Cleveland area, Chapel Hill in Akron was the first twin theatre in Ohio. Southgate was built as a 12 or 1300 seat single screen. About 1971, at the same time the Westgate Cinema City under construction Southgate Cinema II with about 600 seats was built in the alley between the large cinema and the Cleveland Trust. The alley originally contained the auto-teller for the bank. The original auditorium was not divided until the early 1980s. The regional vp over the Cleveland division mgr. had been the opening manager of the Southgate Cinema, and as long as he was in charge of the area would nix any plans to divide that large theatre. Once he was switched to oversee the west coast instead of the midwest, the Southgate #1 was split.
Is it still sitting vacant? I was sure they would divide it up into ten trashy jewelry stores, or have the finally reached the saturation point with that junk? Every other storefront on 74th St. was that stuff. Even then, when the bar next door to the theatre went out of business, it was divided with 2 jewelry stores on the street level and 2 more in the cellar.
sorry, the Alzheimer’s is setting in… HOW could we have forgotten the Ziegfeld. Thanks Al.
Nice pics btw. Is that graffiti on the front recent, since the closing, or something that WMOTTB neglected while they were open? It looks like they are still removing stuff, I can see the box office sales computer still sitting there, I’d be surprised if they left that sort of thing for the demolition crew.
What about the Cinema Village (12 St)?
I think you mean The Paris, not the Plaza… is the UA East (1 Av-85 St) still open?
Not that it matters to any of us, but as I think about it more, I’m wondering if the condominium owners realize what will be in store for them once a supermarket opens in their building.
First, a supermarket has mice and roaches virtually built into the place, they get delivered with the first shipment of produce. While the theatre has been there, if a blue-haired resident on the 33rd floor has has been traumatized by an unfortunate encounter a roach the size of a Buick in her butlers pantry, the building manager was immediately dispatched to the theatre to inspect my extermination reports and snoop around the place with flashlights looking for actual vermin or evidence thereof, which they never found at least while I worked there.
Second, a supermarket requires a lot of rooftop refrigeration equipment to oprerate their coolers and freezers in the store. The theatre has one small cooling tower on the roof, as far away from the apt. tower as we could get it, yet if the drive belt on our cooling tower started to wear and the unit rattled a little more than usual I would get a barrage of phone calls from surly apartment residents demanding that I shut off my air conditioning until it was repaired.
Also, There is also the matter of deliveries to the market in the overnight hours, seven days a week.
I predict that after a while the residents will regret the day they agreed to install a supermarket, and look back on the halcyon days of the little old Loews Tower East longingly. “Alas,” they will say, “I fear we have erred. Our quest for big bucks per square-foot was misguided.” But it will be too late, too late for them, too late for us. The Loews is gone. Time marches on. And you can never go back. (I’m getting sappy now, I better stop).
If that’s the case, then Gristede’s has to be using basement space under the stores along with the street level. It was always my understanding that the basement under the stores was mechanical space for the condominium building, there is a garage under there somewhere, too. If they just use the street level stores and divide the theatre horizontally and use both levels it will not be much of a supermarket.
What are the other retail tenants there now? Is it still Bath & Body Works (on the 72 St corner), a yuppie sneaker shop and Vicki’s place (next door to Loews)?
I think the lease is up for renewal. I seem to recall back around 2000 there was great uncertainty surrounding the question of renewing the lease or letting the place go. At the 11th hour Loews signed on for another term of 10 years.
To me it makes little sense to close this theatre, since due to zoning restrictions they can’t build a new 35-plex across the street, even if the property was available. Zoning was changed in the early 1980s to say no new theatres may be built and existing theatres may not add any square-footage in the area bounded by 57th St to 79th St., 1st Ave to 5th Ave. So, in light of the restrictions, I would think they would want to maintain their presence in the area.
The theatre will make money but they can’t just play just any rubbish there like they can on 86th St. It requires a mix of more upscale general release films and foreign product. It also requires a film booker to actually know his theatres, histories and the demographics of the area where they are located. A booker of a place with 25 or 30 screens can use the booking theory of “throw enough sh*t against a wall and some of it will stick”.
The large national circuits are owned by private equity investment firms as well as many of the regional chains and have purged all the theatre people from their ranks. The financial people are running the show these days, micro-managing everything from the home office. History, tradition and common sense have been thrown in the trash. Nothing matters but the bottom line.
Oh yeah, you’re right! And I commented there too. How did I miss that? I guess the Alzheimer’s is setting in.
I regret to announce that the Walmart of the theatre business from Kansas City has decided the last day of operations for the Loews Tower East 72nd St will be Thursday December 9, 2010, as per CT member astrocks. Unknown at this time if the place will be offered to another tenant for use as a theatre or gutted for retail use.
Is it closed? I went past there the other day and the marquee was lit up and had titles on it, I don’t remember what they were though.
I thought BBKings was part of the E-Walk complex and newly built. Or is it possible that the old Harem porno theatre was incorporated into the new building?
Actually, I’m looking at the picture in the Harcourt book with a magnifying glass and it quite clearly says ‘Thick Cabinets’. It’s a different photo than the one in Boxoffice, it is a photo of the building with signs on the edge of the roof. Is that another term for Frappe? For instance, carbonated soft drinks, i.e. Pepsi, in the midwest is called ‘Pop’, in NYC it’s called ‘Soda’ and my relatives in Worcester MA called it ‘Tonic’. I thought this might be another regional term that goes by other names in other areas.