Euclid Beach Park Avenue Theater
15600 Lakeshore Boulevard,
Cleveland,
OH
15600 Lakeshore Boulevard,
Cleveland,
OH
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The Avenue Theater was located in the fondly-remembered Euclid Beach amusement park which closed in 1969. A number of sources, including the book “Euclid Beach Park is Closed for the Season” indicate that the theater, a wood-frame structure, was used to show motion pictures (as well as for other theatrical purposes) in the 1930’s and possibly before. It is not clear what kind of motion pictures were shown, but given the fact that the park was a seasonal operation, my guess would be short features.
In the 1950’s, when I was growing up in Cleveland and going to the park regularly, the building’s sides had been removed and was used as a pavilion to house a large ‘Whip’ ride (called, as I recall, the ‘Dippy Whip’). In the years immediately prior to the park’s closure, some smaller rides were housed in the structure.
However, what I and so many other Clevelanders of my age group can recall, was the large painting of a woman riding a horse that dominated the west end of the building which was clearly covering the proscenium opening; it almost looked like someone had painted the image on a movie screen. The rear of the buiding was clearly a former stagehouse.
Early in the park’s history, another building called the Hippodrome, reportedly also showed movies.
Any information about motion picture operations at Euclid Beach would be appreciated.
Contributed by
Christopher Walczak
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
This is probably, if definitely, not the Euclid Theater in which the organ referenced above was installed. This theater was a wooden structure in Euclid Beach Park, open roughly from late April through September each year. Before having its sides removed and becoming an open air pavilion housing rides, it was called the Avenue Theater, never the Euclid Theater at least as far as I know.
More than likley, the organ was installed in the Euclid Theater that once existed at East 9th Street and Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, built in 1914 (see entry for this theater) or possibly in a theater located at 16359 Euclid Avenue at its intersection with Ivanhoe Road.
According to Mike Rivest’s list of theaters for Cleveland, this theater at Euclid and Ivanhoe was also called the Euclid, although I have not been able to verify this. (The auditorium section of this theater is still visible today, with its roof full of holes). The Euclid Theater that existed at 9th and Euclid was gone by the 1950s and probably well before, so it is possible that the theater at Euclid and Ivanhoe took the name after the one in downtown Cleveland was demolished.
There is a picture of the Avenue Theater in Euclid Beach Park at this site:
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