I remember seeing many great movies and “stage shows” at the Palace, back in the 1940’s & 1950’s. That was the big-band era, and many of them played the Palace, where I seen many of them. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the Dorsey Brothers, Charley Spevak, etc.,
etc. And in later years, about 1958 to early 1960’s there was a group of us who hung-out at Rodney-Ann’s, sandwich & coffee shop. We, for the most part, attended the local college (YU/YSU)and some of us had night classes. Rodney Ann’s had great sandwiches, coffee, and ice-cream. Rodney-Ann’s was located to the left of the Palace Theatre (as you entered the theatre), and there were the large glass doors where you could exit from the Palace into Rodney-Ann’s, but not the reverse. The Palace was a very beautifull theatre, with a majestic lobby, and a series of really fine balaconies on the upper levels. To most locals, at that time, they mourned it’s destruction. And it appears that the downtown Youngstown never did recover. And so it was!!
I remember seeing a few great movies (musicals generally) with an older sister, probably back in the early/middle 1940’s. Later the Park starting showing live burlesque. And as fate would have it, as a very young teenager, helped my older brother who had a contract to repair the metal doors in the back, access in through the alleyway. I never remember the Park
having any frontage to East Federal street. In those days, say 1940, 1950 & 1960’s. the three top movie theatres in Youngstown were the Palace, the Warner, and the Paramount. Second line were the State Theatre and the Park. Then there was the Strand, next to the Isaly’s on the Public Square, which was on it’s way out. The Strand showed second rate cowboy movies in those days, and apparently was more in vogue years earlier.
I remember seeing many great movies and “stage shows” at the Palace, back in the 1940’s & 1950’s. That was the big-band era, and many of them played the Palace, where I seen many of them. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the Dorsey Brothers, Charley Spevak, etc., etc. And in later years, about 1958 to early 1960’s there was a group of us who hung-out at Rodney-Ann’s, sandwich & coffee shop. We, for the most part, attended the local college (YU/YSU)and some of us had night classes. Rodney Ann’s had great sandwiches, coffee, and ice-cream. Rodney-Ann’s was located to the left of the Palace Theatre (as you entered the theatre), and there were the large glass doors where you could exit from the Palace into Rodney-Ann’s, but not the reverse. The Palace was a very beautifull theatre, with a majestic lobby, and a series of really fine balaconies on the upper levels. To most locals, at that time, they mourned it’s destruction. And it appears that the downtown Youngstown never did recover. And so it was!!
I remember seeing a few great movies (musicals generally) with an older sister, probably back in the early/middle 1940’s. Later the Park starting showing live burlesque. And as fate would have it, as a very young teenager, helped my older brother who had a contract to repair the metal doors in the back, access in through the alleyway. I never remember the Park having any frontage to East Federal street. In those days, say 1940, 1950 & 1960’s. the three top movie theatres in Youngstown were the Palace, the Warner, and the Paramount. Second line were the State Theatre and the Park. Then there was the Strand, next to the Isaly’s on the Public Square, which was on it’s way out. The Strand showed second rate cowboy movies in those days, and apparently was more in vogue years earlier.