Loew's East
631 Richmond Road,
Richmond Heights,
OH
44143
631 Richmond Road,
Richmond Heights,
OH
44143
3 people
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This theater is now demolished.
First operated by Loew’s Inc., then Loews, then Sony Theatres, and finally Loews Cineplex.
Two screens on December 20th, 1972. small ad posted.
Final day of business for the Loews East 8 was January 28, 1999. The final films shown were Patch Adams, Stepmom, Virus, In Dreams, The Faculty, Varsity Blues, A Civic Action, A Bugs Life, and At First Sight.
December 21st, 1990 Ad in photo section.
I worked there when I was 16/17 years old, 1969/1970. Worked as an usher, doorman, fill in cashier. I remember movies such as Easy Rider, Barberella, The Graduate. People lined up to the middle of the Mall on Fri/ Sat nights. Incredible!
Chuck 1231 Where you the manager at this theater in the mid 70’s to sometime in the 80’s
That lavander color scheme (Thanks,I was never sure what it was) was standard stuff for Loew’s in the 60’s.
Loew’s East and West opened on July 13th, 1966
Ad with picture at View link
8-plex opening ad from December 12th, 1990 is at
View link
None of the Boxoffice links at Issuu are working tonight. I think the magazine might have removed its archive from the site.
When I first found the Boxoffice archive on Issuu, I didnt link to any of the articles I cited. This was because I didn’t know who had uploaded them, so I feared they might be removed at any time. But after I found that the publishers of Boxoffice had uploaded the archive there themselves I began linking, thinking they would probably remain available. It looks like I might have been wrong.
I hope it’s just a temporary glitch, but everything else at Issuu appears to be working fine, so it does seem likely that Boxoffice has changed its mind about making its archive available online. That would be too bad. It was a useful resource, and I certainly don’t have anything else to compare with it. Plus, Cinema Treasures will now have another goatload of dead links, a large percentage of which I put there.
Here is a photo of the entrance to Loew’s East on the cover of the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice, January 16, 1967. The description (on the following page) says that the Loew’s West in Cleveland was opened the same day as Loew’s East.
If he’s like alot of old theatre dawgs,he is probably on CT.
A few years before closing Loews remodeled the twin theater. It was alot nicer. They had to do it because people were not coming to see films in these houses. They were run down and nothing done to them since it was twin in 72. It did good bussiness for many years. But then people started to go to other newer houses that were kept up better. I did have many good Sat Nites with Chuck (manager of the theater in the 80’s I believe.) Wonder what happen to him.
Thanks for the info CWalczak.
When the theater first opened, the entry was inside the mall. The face of the theater had one of those murals of black-and-white iconic film images that appeared in a number of Loew’s theaters constructed in that era. There was no projecting marquee; the signboard was flat against the wall above the entry.
Later, when the theater was expanded, the box office for all the screening rooms was situated outside of the mall proper, a part of the new construction, located just outside of the wing of the mall where the original main entry was located. However, you had to enter the mall and use the original entryway if the film you were seeing was in one of the older two screening rooms. The original auditorium and the later twinned version had this bizarre lavender and chartreuse color scheme.
No photos?
This sounds so incredibly close to what happened to the Loews Route 18 theatre in East Brunswick, New Jersey. Opened in 1970, it to was twinned in 1973. It ended up with 2 nice 700 seat auditoriums, and large scope side masking screens, but the 2 Century JJ2 35/70MM projectors were removed, and 2 old Super Simplexes put in their place, along with 2 Christie platters. Sound was mono right up till the day it closed in Dec 1997.
This theater should have never been twin. It never was the same after. When Dolby Stereo came in to theaters, Lowes refused to up grade their Cleveland theaters. After twinning this theater no clean up of the theater was done and it went down hill from there.
A “closed” shopping mall probably means that it is enclosed with a roof, as opposed to an outdoor esplanade or center. I know this is so old, but it seemed a source of confusion.
BTW, the three theaters mentioned above as being divided were the Loew’s East, Loew’s West and Loew’s Yorktown, all split around the same time. The West and Yorktown twinnings were ok, but the East was ruined.
Loew’s East was one of their worst examples of twinning a theatre. It was a orchestra/stadium style auditorium with 1600 seats. The problem was that where the side-walls of the auditorium splayed in towards the 50' screen in the front, they were not false walls, as in most theatres. They were the exterior walls of the six-sided building. This was fine when it was one auditorium, but when it was split it ended up with 2 five-sided 700 seat auditoriums that were extremely narrow in the front with very small screens. It was originally equipped with Norelco 35/70 projectors and mag stereo sound in the single auditorium. When it was being split and the RCA technicians were reconfiguring the the booth they asked Herb Brown, the division manager, which side he wanted the 70mm and stereo on, so they could run new wiring for the speakers. He said it doesn’t matter, and not to bother running any wire, just put 1 speaker behind the screen and set it up for mono only.
Richman Mall is in Richman Hts Oh. The mall never closed and the cinemas did good busness. Peol quite going to the twin part of the cinemas until they were remodled
Loew’s 1973 annual report has a photo of this theatre’s entrance, with this caption:
“A good example of Loews twin theatre concept is Loews East 1 & 2 in the closed Richmond Shopping Mall in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.”
The photo shows a large marquee with 40 CARATS in theatre 1, and PAPER MOON in theatre 2.
(But why was Loew’s operating a theatre in a “closed” shopping mall?)
From the text of the 1973 report:
“The Loews Theatre Division continued to grow in fiscal 1973. Growth was essentially in two directions: new theatres were under construction in rapidly expanding suburban areas, and new auditorla were added to already existing theatres.
In 1973, a major program was directed toward obtaining maximum utilization of existing seating capacity by ‘twinning’ auditoriums so that different films can be shown at the same time to two different audiences. While two theatres are created out of one, economies of scale are sustained by sharing a common lobby and other facilities. The new twin theatres are created at a fraction of the cost of constructing a new theatre.
In Cleveland, Ohio, three theatres with large seating capacities, and large parking areas, were divided into twin auditoriums during the year. "
Both Loew’s East and Loew’s West are mentioned in the company’s 1966 annual report.
The report has an “Architect’s rendering of lovely new 1,650-seat Loew’s East Theatre in the Richmond Mall Shopping Cenler, in Richmond Heights, an eastern suburb of Cleveland, Ohio”, as well as a small picture of the opening ceremony.