Chase's Theater and Riggs Building | |
Location | 1426 G Street and 615-627 15th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. |
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Coordinates | 38°53′53.2″N77°1′59.9″W / 38.898111°N 77.033306°W |
Built | 1912 |
Architect | Jules Henri de Sibour |
Architectural style | Beaux-Arts |
NRHP reference No. | 78003053 [1] |
Added to NRHP | September 7, 1978 |
The Chase's Theater and Riggs Building, also known as the Keith-Albee Theater and the Keith-Albee Building, was a historic building located at 1426 G Street and 615-627 15th Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the city's Downtown area.
The Beaux-Arts theater was originally designed by Jules Henri de Sibour, and built in 1912, for Plimpston B. Chase. He sold the theater to B.F. Keith in 1913. [2] It was a part of the B.F. Keith vaudeville circuit, which became a part of the Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain, and then RKO Pictures. William Howard Taft attended the opening in 1912, and Woodrow Wilson regularly attended. Entertainers included: Will Rogers, Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallée, Laurel and Hardy, and ZaSu Pitts.
In 1956, RKO sold the building, to Morris Cafritz for $1.55 million. In 1959, he offered to sell the building to the city as a performing arts center, but the city would not assume the $1.5 million mortgage. The movie theater closed in 1978; it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In March 1978, the United States Commission of Fine Arts recommended saving the facade of the Keith-Albee Theater and National Metropolitan Bank. [3] [4] [5]
In 1979, the D.C. Superior Court halted demolition of the Keith Albee building, [6] but then allowed demolition of the interior. [7] The developer said he would preserve the historic facade of the Keith-Albee theater building, if he could demolish Rhodes' Tavern. [8]
It is now the Metropolitan Square office building. [9]
The Palace Theatre is a Broadway theater at 1564 Broadway, facing Times Square, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Milwaukee architects Kirchhoff & Rose, the theater was funded by Martin Beck and opened in 1913. From its opening to about 1929, the Palace was considered among vaudeville performers as the flagship of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II's organization. The theater had 1,743 seats across three levels as of 2018.
State Theatre New Jersey is a nonprofit theater, located in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It has seating for 1,850 people. Designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb in 1921, it is one of the oldest theaters in the State of New Jersey.
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The Keith Building is a skyscraper in downtown Cleveland, Ohio's Playhouse Square theater district. The Keith is 272 feet tall and 21 stories, and houses the Palace Theater, a former flagship theater of the Keith vaudeville circuit. As of 2017, the renovated building is in use as an office tower.
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The RKO Keith's Theater was an RKO Pictures movie theater at 129-43 Northern Boulevard in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens in New York City. It was designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb and built in 1928. While the RKO Keith's had a plain three-story facade, its interior was elaborately designed in a Spanish Baroque Revival style. The theater had a square ticket lobby and an oval grand foyer, which led to the double-level auditorium. The auditorium was designed as an atmospheric theater with a blue ceiling and gilded-plaster decorations; it contained 2,974 seats across two levels. There were also four lounges and a mezzanine promenade.
Vlastimil Koubek was a Czech American architect who designed more than 100 buildings, most of them in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. When he died, he had designed buildings worth more than $2 billion. Most of his work is Modernist in style, although he developed a few structures in other vernaculars. He created the site plan for the redevelopment of Rosslyn, Virginia, and his Ames Center anchored the area's economic recovery. He also designed the World Building in Silver Spring, Maryland, which sparked redevelopment of that town's downtown and the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C., amongst many other buildings. In 1985, Washingtonian magazine considered him to be one of 20 people "who in the past 20 years had the greatest impact on the way we live and who forever altered the look of Washington." In 1988, The Washington Post newspaper said his Willard Hotel renovation was one of 28 projects in the area which made a signal contribution to the "feel" and look of Washington, D.C.
The Albemarle–Kenmore Terraces Historic District is a small historic district located in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. It consists of two short cul-de-sacs, Albemarle Terrace and Kenmore Terrace, off of East 21st Street, and the 32 houses on the two streets, as well as a four-family apartment building at the end of Albemarle Terrace. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which designated the district as a landmark in 1978, noted that the "terraces are distinguished by the uniform use of materials, height and color producing a harmonious effect".
The Utah Theatre was a historic theater in Salt Lake City, Utah in the United States. It opened in 1918 as the Pantages Theater, after the name of its owner, Alexander Pantages. The theatre was located at 148 South Main Street, Salt Lake City.
Rhodes Tavern is the site of a historic tavern in the early history of Washington, D.C. It was located at 15th Street and F Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C.
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