Loew's Ames Theatre
4115 N. Main Street,
Dayton,
OH
45415
4115 N. Main Street,
Dayton,
OH
45415
5 people
favorited this theater
Showing 16 comments
This building in 2021 is being renovated to be leased in late fall. The new owners talked about possibly a furniture store or yikes a Casino! Any investors out there interested in restoring it as a cinema again??? It would be awesome as a classic theatre possibly a playhouse!
Loew’s Ames Theatre closed on May 26, 1988 with “The Seventh Sign” and “Three Men and a Baby.”
This opened on December 7th, 1946. Ad in photo section.
It was my first theatre job, in a tuxedo as an usher on April 25, 1969 and the movie playing was ROMEO AND JULIET. I also worked Loews Downtown at the same time. Theatre business was such much better than.
After Loews purchased the theatre, a remodel took place with new seats, curtains and carpet. The color scheme was green, purple and blue. It was pretty jazzed.
Pretty plain,dull looking theatre to me .No jazz.Thanks for the pictures.
They most likely bought a lot of those colors paint and had to use them somewhere.Just a joke!Maybe.“MOD MOTIF”.
“Green, purple, and blue motif” ? Apparently then Loew’s used this bilious color scheme for more than one of their theaters then. Loew’s East in the Cleveland suburb of Richmond Heights had the same decor, and if memory serves, the green was more like chartreuse and purple more like lavender. I guess it was “mod” when these color scheme was used, but boy, did it quickly look dated and dumb.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyum/4999246073/
View link
View link
I think this is the theater:
http://tinyurl.com/yk5xn5l
Nice 1986 photo,I do not know how it looked inside, but outside it wasn’t very attractive.
The Northtown Shopping Center is located at 4215 North Main Street in Dayton, Ohio. If you go to MapQuest and enter that address and then magnify the results to the largest image before running out of images you will see the Ames Theater Building as the light blue roofed rectangular building with a triangular front just south of the Northtown Shopping Center and “across the driveway” that separates the Ames' parking from the shopping centers. Also it is the large building just north of Melford Ave. My grandfather was manager of the Ames in the early 1950’s and I worked there taking tickets and selling popcorn, etc. My dad also modified the theater to demonstrate a single camera method for 3D movies to Arch Oboler, producer of Bwana Devil, the first 3D movie in color.
That may be true about there being a Loews at 125 N. Main Street but the original description of this theater is that it was across a driveway from Northtown Shopping Center — very far from downtown!
So the address could never have been 125. This location is quite a bit north of Siebenthaler Avenue and up very close to Forest Park Shopping Center, the site of a former amusement park.
There was a Loew’s Theater in downtown Dayton at 125 N. Main. The theater was very big complete with a balcony and as I recall, the projection booth was located BENEATH the balcony. I remember seeing films such as The Ten Commandments and other epics there. The theater was closed and demolished in the 60’s to make way for a parking lot but a building was erected later I think. The only theater left open after the closing of the Loew’s was the Victory which was across the street.
Loew’s bought this theatre in October 1966, according to the company’s 1966 annual report.
Jerry Young from Dayton moved to Florida? Owned to Middletown Theatre and went to UATC Movies at Clearwater ?? If so please email me it is very important!!!!