RKO Albee Theatre
12 E. 5th Street,
Cincinnati,
OH
45202
12 E. 5th Street,
Cincinnati,
OH
45202
5 people
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From The Vault: Grand Albee Theater was a downtown treasure for 50 years (by Greg Noble, Feb 25, 2016) For all of Cincinnati’s architectural treasures – Music Hall and Union Terminal included – the Albee Theater may have been the grandest.
Karl Topie, retired cellist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was on the Albee stage when it opened on Christmas Eve, 1927. And he was there for the liquidation sale 50 years later, before the wrecker’s ball turned it into dust.
“It’s terrible to see it go,” he said. “It’s the most beautiful theater ever built.”
That’s what the original owners called it: the most magnificent theater in the world. It was certainly as opulent as any.
Outside, beckoning visitors through its double brass doors, was a majestic, two-story marble façade. Younger generations don’t have to imagine how that looked. Many see it whenever they come downtown, hanging on the Duke Energy Convention Center, at the side entrance at Fifth and Plum.
The five-story main lobby had lavish white Vermont marble walls, two grand marble staircases, six etched-border mirrors and a two-story stained-glass window. The three-story grand lobby was lit by nine brass and crystal chandeliers.
The ceilings were decorated with lavish rococo plasterwork accented in gold. Bet your home doesn’t have that.
The five-story, 4,000-seat auditorium had a proscenium arch, Corinthian columns and red swag drapery.
It was a theater fit for a king and it cost a king’s ransom - $4 million. Besides being one of the largest moving picture houses in the world, it had a full stage for live entertainment and hosted such greats as Fred Astaire, Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason and Ben Burnie, a renowned jazz violinist and bandleader.
Besides the façade, other theater treasures were also preserved. The Wurlitzer organ was moved to the Emery Theater on Walnut Street, then to the Music Hall Ballroom. Other pieces went to Music Hall, too. The brass doors went to the Ohio Theater in Columbus, along with some ornate, wrought-iron benches with red-velvet seats and even a porcelain drinking fountain. Nostalgic theater lovers took home hundreds of seats for $15 to $20 apiece or bought prisms from the chandeliers for $10 each.
While Columbus preservationists won their battle to save the Ohio Theater from downtown redevelopment, a handful of Cincinnatians who formed a group called Save The Albee could not.
The head of that group, Frances Vitali, operated a laundry in Corryville with her husband. The first threat came in 1972 when a Dallas group announced plans to buy the property at Fifth and Vine and build a 50-story office building and shopping arcade. Fearing that the tower would block out the sun – or at least keep Fountain Square in the dark much of the day – Vitali and others pulled together and rebuffed the threat.
But City Hall, city planners and developers were determined to rebuild the area around Fountain Square into a Central Business District. Other downtown theaters had already closed, unable to compete with the multiplex movie theaters springing up in the suburbs. The Albee’s days were numbered.
Vitali made a final appeal. She proposed a “Theater on the Square” concept open all year for the opera, ballet, touring shows, school graduations and youth programs.
“I see its value for bringing life back to the square,” she said, and at the time, the square needed it. “I’m only working on this because I think of the youth of tomorrow.”
But Vitali couldn’t block progress – or the bulldozers. In 1976, city council voted to tear down Fifth Street between Vine and Walnut for the Westin Hotel and Fountain Square South project.
The Albee was demolished in March, 1977 and that would be the end of the story, except for the marble façade. The city, which bought the building for $2 million so it could tear it down, didn’t have a use for the façade, and nobody else wanted it. So the city took it apart and stuck it away in storage for three years.
When the three-year contract was up, the city moved it to a highway maintenance lot under the Brent Spence Bridge in Queensgate. Six years passed, and the facade was no worse for no wear. It finally found a home at the Convention Center in 1986, soon to be joined by the Union Terminal murals getting evicted from CVG.
Closed by RKO with “Big Bad Mama” on September 17, 1974 and was boarded up. demolition began March 9, 1977 and took more than eight months to complete due to how well constructed the building was.
Here is Melissa Kramer’s March 4, 2010 article on the Albee.
http://melissakramerscincinnati.com/?page_id=151
October 1962 marquee photo added courtesy of Rose Taylor. JFK attended the groundbreaking of the Federal Building at 5th & Walnut.
That roof sign atop this venue only lasted 3 years until RKO took over!!!
December 24th, 1927 grand opening ad in photo section
Removal of the splendid Albee Theatre on fifth street was Cincinnati’s most stupid theater loss.
CORRECTION: the above states that “The facade was also later duplicated on the 5th Street side of the Albert B. Sabin Convention Center — about 3 blocks from where the original theater once stood.” My father worked in Urban Renewal and I clearly remember when the Convention Center was built and the Albee town down. The Albee theatre facade was NOT DUPLICATED, it is the ORIGINAL facade that was saved and placed on one of the Convention Center’s entrances. Yes, the Albee facade was saved!!!
All 8 of our RKO first run houses downtown escaped the water damage from Ohio’s 1937 flood as they were all above the waters peak by 69 feet.
when I would visit relatives in Cincinnati as a youngster from Chicago in the 50’s, there was definitely de facto segregation in public places, like movie theaters and the Coney Island amusement park.
No surprises here. In his autobiography, the comedian Dick Gregory wrote about having to sit in the segregated balcony of a Carbondale Illinois movie theater. Illinois and Ohio did not have Jim Crow laws on the books, but they existed in unofficial practice,nonetheless.
armleder I saw a number of films at the Albee in the early sixties. Gorgeous wonderful palace of a theater, including “The Music Man” in stereo sound. I attended a couple times with a black friend and have no memory of any racial discrimination.
View link
Melissa –
Contact me via PM on this site. If that fails, visit the ‘contact us’ page at http://www.cincyworldcinema.org
I’m working on a post about the Albee for my new website, which will be devoted to Cincinnati’s historic architecture, and I’d appreciate any comments, stories, etc., about the Albee Theater, the Emery Theater, etc.
Thanks
The ALBEE a Stanley-Warner Theatre on August 9 1974 they are showing TOUGH ! about a tough black kid, Rated G. Guess some G rated movies do play in Downtown theatres in those days. It was first run.
That’s all there is.
Here is a November 1974 article from the Hamilton (OH) Journal-News:
CINCINNATI, Ohio (AP) â€" The City Planning Commission on Friday held a public hearing concerning the fate of the Albee movie theater, a landmark in downtown Cincinnati. Several groups asked that the movie house, which has been slated to be torn down along with several other buildings during renovation of the center city, be classified as a listed property by the commission. Such a classification would delay any permits to demolish the old theater for six months while it was under review.
The planning commission said it would announce next Friday whether to endorse the proposal to city council. “The Albee reflects a facet of our culture,” said Tracy Cropp, one of those speaking to save the theater. “It is important for its craftsmanship, its design and because it was a focal point for the community.”
Doris Day may have attended this theatre as a young girl and her cinema dreams came true.
The Albee theatre organ now a done thing to be re-installed in Cincinnati Music Hall Ballroom by 2009.
I was told that the Daytona 500 was shown on closed circuit Television at the Alee Theatre. Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what years did they show it and who was involved in putting on the event. I am in the process of putting together a web site on Motorsports related things that are a part of the Tri State area, and was trying to find out more on the 500 being shown. This had to be before the 500 was shown live in 1979, after the Albee had closed.
If you have info, contact me kewendel@fuse.net or post here.
Thanks
I am a student at the University of Cincinnati and for my historic preservation class, I am writing a paper on the controversy surrounding the Albee’s demolition. If anybody can recommend some sources for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Please e-mail anything you can supply at henryna@email.uc.edu
Thank you!
I considered it a privilege to have worked at the Albee. I was an usher, ticket taker, and barker in the late 40’s. All the ushers were barkers at one time or another. The movies always started with the curtains closed and then slowly but surely, the curtains opened revealing the screen. Their were basements, sub-basements and so forth which had once been dressing rooms for the many acts which played on the stage. The side doors, on Vine, were used to bring in props and costumes. I always thought it was a shame to put the facade on the Convention Center facing away from traffic. Only those walking North on Elm and the drivers who viewed it in their rear view mirrors saw how fantastic it looked.
Just one more correction: the Albee opened December 24, 1927.
allen
Thank you. I agree about the street map. When I was writing the book, it had crossed my mind but it would have meant sacrificing photos of theaters to include one.
I never found a balcony shot of the Albee. That would have been nice, I agree.
I would’ve liked to have seen more or the auditorium and the balcony, but I understand. Also a street map could’ve helped for people not familiar with downtown Cincinnati like me. But overall I thought it was very well done.