Knickerbocker Theatre

8315 Euclid Avenue,
Cleveland, OH 44106

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: Ohio Amusement Co.

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Knickerbocker Theatre...Cleveland Ohio

The Knickerbocker Theatre was a fairly large neighborhood theatre. It was located in an area that was apparently not very convenient to a lot of Cleveland moviegoers – being almost midway between the downtown theatre district at Playhouse Square and the East 105th Street/Euclid Avenue theatre district to the east. In it’s earlier years, the Knickerbocker Theatre staged vaudeville shows and by 1924 it had become a movie house operated by the Ohio Amusement Co. It closed in the early 1950’s

Contributed by Roger Stewart

Recent comments (view all 3 comments)

spectrum
spectrum on May 14, 2008 at 11:30 am

This theatre looks to be demolished. Google photos show parking lots and a new housing development.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on March 13, 2012 at 6:16 am

The Knickerbocker Theatre got a few lines in an article about Cleveland movie houses that was published in The Moving Picture World on July 15, 1916:

“The Knickerbocker Theater, 8315 Euclid avenue, boasts of the most exclusive patronage of any Cleveland picture theater. Emery M. Downs, who manages both the Knickerbocker and the Metropolitan Theater, says high class music and the best obtainable pictures have built up this reputation.

“All the ushers in the Knickerbocker, which has 1,100 seats, are college boys, from either Western Reserve University or the Case School of Applied Science.

“Morris Spitalney’s orchestra provides music with the pictures. The Knickerbocker charges 10, 20 and 35 cents for admission.”

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on March 13, 2012 at 6:52 am

Here is a photo of the Knickerbocker Playhouse auditorium from the Cleveland Memory project.

The Knickerbocker Theatre was built in 1913 or earlier. A biographical sketch of several members of the Skeel family in a book published that year says of the Skeel Brothers Company, a large construction and development firm: “The company built and owns the Knickerbocker Theatre and the Mercantile Office Building, Euclid avenue, and in this building their office is located.”

At least two members of the Skeel family were architects, so it’s possible that the Knickerbocker Theatre was designed by one or both of them, but I’ve been unable to confirm this.

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