Shaker Theatre

A September 12, 1942, Boxoffice article about the Fairmount Theatre mentions the Shaker as another of the many theaters designed by the Fairmount’s architect, George H. Burrows.

The Shaker opened in 1936, and the November 11 issue of Boxoffice that year published a photo of the auditorium, but the caption misspelled the architect’s name as Burroughs. Boxoffice described the style of the Shaker as “…predominantly Colonial… though with strong modern notes throughout.” The photo bears out the description.

Though the article does not give the Shaker’s seating capacity, the photo reveals a spacious, four-aisle auditorium that clearly would have accommodated well over 1000 patrons.

The Shaker was extensively remodeled in 1954, after suffering damage from a fire in an adjacent cafe that April. The house reopened on July 3. Architect Jack Alan Bialosky designed the remodeling, on which $125,000 was expended.

Boxoffice of September 4, 1954, devoted four pages to an illustrated article about the Shaker Theatre. It was no longer Colonial in style, but featured a casual modernism with many rustic touches such as exposed masonry, planter boxes, and wood with the grain exposed. This style had recently become popular in the west, where it was often called California Modern. It’s a bit surprising to see it in Cleveland.

Architect Bialosky used a more conventional modernism in his remodeling of the Granada Theatre some time later.

May 6th, 1936 grand opening ad is at
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The original look of the Shaker Theatre’s auditorium can be seen in the photo at upper left of this page of Boxoffice, November 14, 1936.

Here is a 1959 photo showing the Shaker Theatre during a major flood on June 1. The name of the movie featured on the marquee is interesting.

Though I grew up in Garfield Heights, and the Harvard area of Cleveland, my ‘movie oriented’ parents together, and separately, “turned me on” to the Shaker Theater. As a pre-teen I travelled by bus, as a teen/home from college, I drove. I can remember “Dr.Strangelove”, “Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here”, “The Great White Hope” etc….Nice clean place, nice clientele……I also remember,“katty korner” across the street was Mawby’s(?)where originally my mother introduced me to a “Western”, which was a big fat hamburger, mixed with egg and some seasonings, on a nice bun….I believe their fries were good, so too the chocolate milk shake (though any of the Rhoton’s locations had a better shake)…I think my mother especially enjoyed this theater because it was part of ‘Paul Newman’s home turf’….What can I say, them Goy girls were a pushover for the blue eyes…and we also bought sports oriented presents at Newman-Stern, the downtown location near the bridge to the West Side….Cleveland was such a series of ‘tribal villages’ in those days…Jews here, Polaks here, Italians here, Irish here et.al…..Very culturally significant….