Shea's Hippodrome Theatre was a movie house that opened in 1914 in Buffalo, New York. It was renamed the Center Theater, following a renovation in 1951. In 1983, the theater closed and the building was demolished.
Shea's Hippodrome Theatre was designed by architect, Leon H. Lempert Jr. and constructed in 1914. It was located at 580 Main Street in downtown Buffalo now known as " Theatre Historic District ". [1] The theater was entertainment mogul, Michael Shea's first movie house in Buffalo with 2,800 seats and a staff of nearly 100 employees. It was a state-of-the-art facility for its time and was designed and furnished with little concern for expense. Shea's Hippodrome Theatre was praised for the convenience and comfort it provided for its patrons. [2] [3]
A custom pipe organ was designed and installed in 1922 by The Rudolph Wurlitzer Co., model: Opus 585. In 1957, the organ was sold and changed owners several times in the ensuing decades. In 2005, the organ was purchased and restored by the Theater Organ Society of the Delaware Valley, Inc. for installation in the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania and is currently operational. [4]
In 1951, in an effort to modernize the facility, Shea's Hippodrome Theatre underwent a major renovation designed by architect Michael J. DeAngelis. The original marquee was replaced with modern signage and the building was renamed the "Center Theater", after being sold by Shea to Paramount decades earlier. [5] Possibly by design, many of the original architectural details were unable to be seen, due to the darkness of the renovated interior spaces. It remained a movie theater until it closed in 1983. [6]
Shea's Performing Arts Center is located in Buffalo's Theatre Historic District and is comprised 3 theaters in close proximity to each other on Main Street, where Shea's Hippodrome Theatre once stood. The three theatres are: Shea's Buffalo Theatre, Shea's Smith Theatre, and Shea's 710 Theatre. [7]
The Tennessee Theatre is a movie palace in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The theater was built in 1928 in the 1908 Burwell Building, considered Knoxville's first skyscraper. The theater and Burwell Building were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and the theater was extensively restored in the early 2000s. The Tennessee Theatre currently focuses on hosting performing arts events and classic films, and is home to the Knoxville Opera and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. The theater is managed by AC Entertainment.
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the United States. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success, largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military. In 1880, the company began manufacturing pianos and eventually relocated to North Tonawanda, New York. It quickly expanded to make band organs, orchestrions, player pianos and pipe or theatre organs popular in theatres during the days of silent movies.
The Warner Theatre is an Art Deco and French Renaissance-styled theater located in downtown Erie, Pennsylvania in the United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The Warner was designed by Chicago-architects Rapp and Rapp and was opened in 1931. It was used as a movie theater until 1976, when it was sold to the City of Erie. In the early 1980s, Erie converted the theater to a performing arts center, which has become the focus of a downtown revival.
The Paradise Theatre was a movie palace located in Chicago's West Garfield Park neighborhood. Its address was 231 N. Crawford Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. It was near the intersection of West Madison Street and Crawford in the West Garfield Park area of Chicago's West Side.
Shea's Performing Arts Center is a theater for touring Broadway musicals and special events in Buffalo, New York. Originally called Shea's Buffalo, it was opened in 1926 to show silent movies. It took one year to build the entire theatre. Shea's boasts one of the few theater organs in the US that is still in operation in the theater for which it was designed.
The Chicago Theatre, originally known as the Balaban and Katz Chicago Theatre, is a landmark theater located on North State Street in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1921, the Chicago Theatre was the flagship for the Balaban and Katz (B&K) group of theaters run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban and partner Sam Katz. Along with the other B&K theaters, from 1925 to 1945 the Chicago Theatre was a dominant movie theater enterprise. Currently, Madison Square Garden, Inc. owns and operates the Chicago Theatre as a 3600 seat performing arts venue for stage plays, magic shows, comedy, speeches, sporting events and popular music concerts.
The Lafayette Theatre is a nationally acclaimed movie palace located in downtown Suffern, New York, built in 1923. Its primary function is first-run movies, but it also houses special events like its popular weekly Big Screen Classics film shows. It is also notable for housing a Wurlitzer theatre organ, which is played before Big Screen Classics shows.
The Colonial Theatre is located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, at 227 Bridge Street. Built in 1903, the "Colonial Opera House" became a preeminent venue for movies, traveling shows and live entertainment throughout the 20th century. The three-screen venue consists of the original 658-seat ‘vaudeville house’ and two newer additional theatres in the adjacent National Bank of Phoenixville building (c.1925).
The Orpheum Theatre, a 2,308-seat venue listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, on the southwest corner of the intersection of South Main and Beale streets. The Orpheum, along with the Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education, compose the Orpheum Theatre Group, a community-supported nonprofit corporation that operates and maintains the venues and presents education programs.
The Paramount Theatre is a concert venue in Denver, Colorado, located on Glenarm Place, near Denver's famous 16th Street Mall. The venue has a seating capacity of 1,870 but is a popular destination for large acts looking for a smaller concert setting. With spelling as Paramount Theater, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The Riviera Theatre is a historic, 1140 seat entertainment venue in North Tonawanda, New York. The theatre hosts live concerts, theatre, dance shows, and movies. The Riviera's “Mighty Wurlitzer” theatre organ has been restored, is maintained by volunteers, and is famed as being one of two original Wurlitzer demonstrator organs, which the company would use to show off to potential clients in the height of the silent film era.
The Brooklyn Paramount Theater is a concert venue and former movie palace at 1 University Plaza at the intersection of Flatbush and DeKalb Avenues in Downtown Brooklyn, New York City. Opened in 1928, the building has been owned by Long Island University (LIU) since 1954. Converted for use by LIU as classroom space and a gymnasium, the building retains much of the theater's original decorative detail. Until recently the venue operated as a 1200-seat multi-purpose arena, formerly home to the Brooklyn Kings basketball team. From 2017 to 2023, it had undergone a renovation to reopen the theater as a performing arts venue. It reopened on March 27, 2024.
The Hippodrome Theatre is a theater in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Virginia Theatre is a live performance and movie theatre in downtown Champaign, Illinois. It has been providing theatrical and cinematic entertainment to the Champaign-Urbana community since its doors opened in 1921. Each year, the Virginia Theatre is host to movies from film reels, plays from various acting troupes, concerts, and Ebertfest, presented by the UIUC College of Media. It is currently owned by the Champaign Park District.
The Hilbert Circle Theatre, originally called the Circle Theatre, is in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Monument Circle in the Washington Street-Monument Circle Historic District. It was originally built in 1916 as a "deluxe movie palace" and now is the home of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
The Tivoli Theatre, also known as the Tivoli and the "Jewel of the South", is a historic theatre in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that opened on March 19, 1921. Built between 1919 and 1921 at a cost of $750,000, designed by famed Chicago-based architectural firm Rapp and Rapp and well-known Chattanooga architect Reuben H. Hunt, and constructed by the John Parks Company, the theatre was one of the first air-conditioned public buildings in the United States. The theatre was named Tivoli after Tivoli, Italy, has cream tiles and beige terra-cotta bricks, has a large red, black, and white marquee with 1,000 chaser lights, and has a large black neon sign that displays TIVOLI with still more chaser lights.
The Indiana Theatre is a historic theater in Terre Haute, Indiana, United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 13, 1997 and is located in the Wabash Avenue-East Historic District. It opened on January 28, 1922. The theatre was built by Terre Haute resident T. W. Barhydt and was designed by John Eberson. Eberson, who later developed the atmospheric theater style of movie palace, first experimented with atmospheric design elements at the theatre. Eberson stated, "Into this Indiana Theatre I have put my very best efforts and endeavors in the art of designing a modern theatre such as I have often pictured as what I would do were I given a free hand." Through this quote Eberson suggests that the Indiana Theatre embodies the raw beginning of his experiment with a "dream" theater that marked the beginning shift to his atmospheric style.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Parkway, or simply the Parkway, is a movie theater located at 5 West North Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland. The Parkway is open as of May 3, 2017, and is the new permanent home of MdFF. The Maryland Film Festival, a 5-day annual festival created and operated by MdFF, is housed in and around the Parkway and throughout the Station North Arts and Entertainment District.
Shea's Hippodrome was a historic film and play theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Hippodrome was located in downtown Toronto, at the southwest corner of Albert and Bay streets. At its opening in 1914, it was the largest movie palace in Canada, and one of the largest vaudeville theatres in the world. The Hippodrome included 12 opera boxes, a Wurlitzer organ, as well as a full-size orchestra pit. It debuted some of Canada's first non-silent films. It was built by brothers Jerry and Michael Shea and situated directly across from Toronto's City Hall. The Hippodrome was operated by Famous Players and managed for decades by Leonard N. Bishop. It was demolished in 1957 to make way for Toronto's new City Hall.
Henry L. Spann was a church and theater architect in Buffalo, New York. He is credited with designing about a dozen of the city's theaters as well as ones in surrounding areas including Niagara, New York. He built theaters for various owners. He worked with his much younger brother William T. Spann who was also an architect. Spann also designed buildings for Catholic institutions in the area.