The Loew Building 1921-2021 - 100th Anniversary!
The four story Loew Building opened in the spring of 1921. Originally known as the Ohio Theatre Building, and later as the Loew's State Theatre Building, and more recently as simply the Loew Building. The building is overshadowed by larger neighbors, the Bulkley Building and the Allen Theatre on the west, and the 22 story B.F. Keith Building and Palace Theatre to the east. The entrances to the Ohio Theatre and the State Theatre dominate the ground floor, however there have been noteworthy tenants on the floors above. In a lot of ways this little building is the glue that holds the theatre district together.
-------------------------------- Ground Floor ----------------------------------
Marshall's was around until the early 1930's, when it was replaced by....
The Plain Dealer, April 6, 1962.
The Plain Dealer, September 5, 1964.
The Plain Dealer, August 1, 1967. Sid Friedman was a legendary agent, quite a character as well.
The Plain Dealer, August 12, 1967.
The Plain Dealer, March 16, 1968. As near as I can tell, LaMar's remained open until late 1970.
Most of the LaMar's space was used as the kitchen and prep areas for Brel, and the ensuing productions in the Playhouse Square Cabaret. Paul Hom and his crew could turn out 500 meals a night easily. The front section, facing Euclid, was used as a break room for waiters and busboys, and later used for storage. 
From The Plain Dealer Action Tab, October 5, 1973. Paul and his mother were always trying to feed me, they were super nice people.
----------------------------------- Second Floor ---------------------------
The Plain Dealer, September 12, 1920.
The Plain Dealer, February 26, 1921.
The Plain Dealer, February 27, 1921. Unsure of why they're using 1521 Euclid, Loew's State has always been 1515, the Ohio, 1511, and later 1513. 1521 is later a Keith building storefront.
The Plain Dealer, April 4, 1921. Note the erroneous reference to the Bulkley Building which also opened around the same time, with the Allen Theatre opening April 1.
From Variety, March 4, 1921.
The Plain Dealer, March 6, 1921.
From Variety, April 15, 1921. The Carlton was open less than six weeks when they were hit by yeggs.
The Plain Dealer, October 3, 1921.
The Plain Dealer, January 20, 1922.
The Plain Dealer, September 1, 1922.
The Plain Dealer, February 20, 1924. Eventually Sophie Tucker becomes financially involved, often appearing herself. Ole Olsen later becomes half the comedy team of Olsen & Johnson, who were frequent visitors to the neighboring RKO Palace. Legend has it they developed Hellzapoppin' on the Palace stage.
From Variety, October 9, 1924. Miss Tucker's involvement in the Carlton caused her financial distress, and led her to cancel a week at the neighboring Keith's Palace to avoid process servers.
From Variety, January 21, 1925. Note: Garry(sic) Proper(sic) is actually Harry Propper, long time Cleveland area nightclub entrepreneur. Later he is one of the principles of the ill-fated Mayfair Casino in the Ohio Theatre below.
From Variety, March 25, 1925.
The Plain Dealer, February 2, 1931.
The Plain Dealer, October 25, 1931. Otto Wille had run a successful nightclub on Lakeshore Boulevard for years, but like it's predecessors, this version of the Music Box didn't last long. It appears the space was empty for the next ten years.
Cleveland's Stage Door Canteen operated on the second floor from January 14, 1943 until October 26, 1945. This was one of eight canteens in the country operated by the American Theatre Wing and free to servicemen.
The Plain Dealer, December 29, 1942.
More on the Canteen can be found here.
---------------------------------- Third Floor -------------------------------
The Plain Dealer, September 29, 1946. Sergei Popeloff was a famous Russian ballet dancer, who danced with Anna Pavlova, and later founded the original Cleveland Ballet in 1935.
The Plain Dealer, October 23, 1949.
The Ten Thirty Gallery occupied a portion of the third floor from about 1946 to 1952, from The Plain Dealer, April 17, 1949.
The Plain Dealer, October 1, 1950.
The Plain Dealer, January 9, 1955. Gene Carroll was half of Gene & Glenn in the 1930's. Television gave him a second career.
The Plain Dealer, December 12, 1952. Dick Lurie was later at 1706 Euclid for many years.
The Plain Dealer, November 22, 1970.
The Plain Dealer, October 8, 1971.
Kuban Studio, graphic artists were on the third floor from about 1968 until early 1972, from The Plain Dealer, March 2, 1968.
The Plain Dealer, May 31, 1959.
------------------------ Fourth Floor--------------------------
The Plain Dealer, July 7, 1921.
The Plain Dealer, September 4, 1921.
The Plain Dealer, October 9, 1921.
From Variety, February 10, 1922.
The Plain Dealer, March 17, 1922.
The Plain Dealer, February 25, 1923.
The Plain Dealer, May 30, 1924. The Martha Lee Club was, as near as I can tell, operated by Martha Lee, 2432 Euclid Avenue, the club, and dance instructor Roy H. Lewis shared the same address as her residence in 1921. Activities of the Ohio School of Stage Arts/Thimble Theatre and the Martha Lee Club become somewhat intertwined by 1924, and last until the summer of 1926. The Martha Lee Club also sponsors events at other venues through the mid 1920's, Hippodrome Theatre, Masonic Hall, Public Hall etc. References to the Martha Lee Club Ballroom, seen elsewhere (CWRU's site) are most likely the dance studio on the fourth floor operated by Roy H. Lewis. Mr. Lewis was on the staff of the Ohio School, as well as the Martha Lee Club, and later operated a dance school on the forth floor, independently. (Martha Lee seems like an interesting subject for further investigation) 
From the Plain Dealer, November 15, 1925.
From Variety, January 6, 1926.
From the Plain Dealer, September 11, 1927.
The Plain Dealer, May 9, 1928.
From Variety, October 10, 1928. 
The Plain Dealer, December 14, 1930. With the addition of Carlton Brickert to the staff, the Thimble becomes the Brickert.
The Plain Dealer, March 15, 1931.
The Plain Dealer, March 29, 1931. The Ohio School of Stage Arts relocated to 18th Street and closes not long afterwards.
The Plain Dealer, October 1, 1931. The last show in the Thimble, it opened on September 29 and closed three weeks later.
The Plain Dealer, October 21, 1931. The fire department shuts the Thimble/Brickert/Piccadilly down, it never re-opens. I was always surprised the city let something like this operate up there. I am also curious as to how it passed inspection to open, and why they really shut it down ten years later. 
From Variety, Chatter, by Glenn Pullen, October 27, 1931
From the Plain Dealer, September 28, 1932. Lewis is around a little longer, then moves to 2031 Euclid, where he remains until 1941.
Telepix, Productions on Films, and Technical Film Department all occupy a portion of the fourth floor during the late 1940's - 1950's. I suspect some/all of these firms are connected.
----------------------Third-and-a-Half Floor-------------
This floor doesn't face Euclid Avenue, originally occupied by Loew's Ohio Theatres Inc, there was a screening room and several offices. The projection ports are still visible.
Fred Desberg was the original General manager of Loew's Ohio Theatres Inc. From Exhibitor's Trade Review, September 22, 1923.
From the 1927 City Directory.
From Motion Picture Herald, July 9, 1932. The Loew division offices moved to the mezzanine of the State. This was when the music alcove was most likely sealed off for offices. The Loew division offices remain there until closing, February 9, 1969, when they move to Loew's East.
This floor doesn't face Euclid Avenue, originally occupied by Loew's Ohio Theatres Inc, there was a screening room and several offices. The projection ports are still visible.
This area remained vacant until Fred Wolf of Cleveland Recording entered the broadcasting arena.
From Variety, July 13, 1949.
From Broadcasting - Telecasting, May 8, 1950. 5,000 watts doesn't seem like much compared to the 50,000 watts of WTAM and WGAR two of the dominant stations in the market, which could be heard over a third of the country after dark.
From Broadcasting - Telecasting, May 29, 1950.
From Broadcasting - Telecasting, May 29, 1950.
From Broadcasting - Telecasting, August 14, 1950.
From Broadcasting - Telecasting, December 15, 1952.
Candy Lee, left, youngest disc-jockey in the U.S., from Broadcasting - Telecasting, June 15, 1953.
From Broadcasting - Telecasting, January 7, 1957.
From Sponsor, November 21, 1959.
From Sponsor, February 13, 1960.
From Sponsor, December 26, 1960.
From Broadcasting - Telecasting, May 14, 1962.
From The Plain Dealer, June 4, 1965. Westchester Corporation buys the station, WDOK moves to the 3800 block of Euclid Avenue by the end of the year. WDOK - AM becomes WIXY, a hugely successful top 40 station. 
Undated photo of l-r, Norman Wain, Candy Lee, and Howie Lund, from the Cleveland Memory Project. This counter is still there.
The Third-and-A-Half floor has been used for storage the last few years.
Some odds and ends.
From The Plain Dealer, June 3, 1924.
From The Plain Dealer, March 22, 1934.
Millcapp ad from The Plain Dealer, April 1, 1970. Uptown? This isn't 105th & Euclid, odd marketing. These were the guys that wanted to raze the Loew Building, they were incredibly short-sighted. They did no upgrades on this building after they bought it, existing tenants started to leave.
Millcapp ad from The Plain Dealer, October 27, 1970. 
The Plain Dealer, February 2, 1971.
The Plain Dealer, May 25, 1972.
The Plain Dealer, May 25, 1972.
The Plain Dealer, December 23, 1972. I don't think a lot of people realize just how close these two theatres came to being razed.
We officially took possession January 1, 1973. Arthur Murray were the last to leave, just a couple weeks earlier. The back part of the second floor, the Murray space, leaked pretty bad, that had been going on for some time. The couple Arthur Murray people I talked to in late 1972 said that was a good location for them, but lack of maintenance, and the imminent demolition sent them out to the suburbs. We had first been in the upper floors in the summer of 1972. The Cleveland Recording space on the fourth floor was wide open and we salvaged some lumber to build a concession stand in the Allen. Sometime that October, a friend and I skipped school to see Vice-President Agnew speak out front. Actually he spoke in front of Republican headquarters which were directly across the street. The third floor was a mess, the David Lee space had hundreds, maybe thousands of 8X10, b&w photos of models, they were scattered all over the place. The Kuban space also had a lot of debris, Smitty used a roll of colored paper from here to cover the windows of LaMar's early on. Up on The fourth floor the old Cleveland Recording space yielded enough speaker wire for all of us to use for the next decade. There were also ceiling tiles we recycled for Smitty's pad in the Ohio. Smitty and I spent some time breaking into the remaining offices, with the least amount of damage possible, Millcapp gave us no keys. We drilled out most of the locks, replacing the ones on the front door of the Loew Building, LaMar's and the two Loew Theatres. Some of the usual crew, Poe - Ken Plocica, Kevin McAndrew, Chuck Fleming. and Pete Webber cleared out the upper floors at night during the winter of 1973. They pretty much bagged up most of the debris, and tossed it down the freight elevator shaft. I believe Kay's Light Hauling took it from there. The building remained vacant for the rest of the decade, except for the year a couple architects used the front portion of the fourth floor, 1977, I believe.
In 1978 Cuyahoga County converted the building into office space. The second floor is now a private club.
Undoubtedly there's a more than a few missing pieces here, which will lead to updates as more information comes to light.
Frank
ReplyDeleteThank you for a thorough exposition on this topic
Bob