Cleveland Public Theatre

Joe Vogel on February 2, 2013 at 6:41 am

Despite the name on the marquee, this house still goes by the name Gordon Square Theatre, to differentiate it from the adjacent James Levin Theatre, also part of the Cleveland Public Theatre complex. The Gordon Square Theatre in its current configuration has 300 seats, and the Levin has 150.

The Cleveland Landmarks Commission attributes the design of the Gordon Square Theatre to architect George Allen Grieble, who also designed the Alhambra Theatre, the Olympia Theatre, and (possibly) the Penn Square Theatre, all between 1911 and 1913. However, an item in the November 3, 1917, issue of The Moving Picture World attributes the house to Arthur C. Yost. The item says:

“Arthur C. Yost, of the firm of Richardson and Yost, Cleveland theater architects, is enjoying a few weeks' rest after his strenuous six years building theaters in Ohio. Mr. Yost planned the Liberty, Mall, Gordon Square, Knickerbocker, Olympic, and other large theaters of Cleveland, and the Pastime, Akron and the Alhambra, Cuyahoga Falls.”

The Landmarks Commission attributes only one theater to the firm of Richardson & Yost, that being a 1914 house at 15511 Waterloo Road. The Landmarks Commission page doesn’t give the theater’s name, but it is the house that opened as the Keystone Theatre and later became the Abbey Theatre.

I’m not sure what to make of these conflicting claims. Very little information is available on the Internet about either Grieble or Yost, and the landmarks commission doesn’t cite sources for its attribution of the Gordon Square Theatre to Grieble. Clearing this up will likely require research in publications not available on the Internet, which means somebody with access to the Cleveland Public Library will probably have to do it.