Loew's Theater: Rochester's Other Lost Movie Palace

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published October 11, 2012 and can be found here.

Loew's Rochester Theatre, Rochester. On the marquee: Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, Maria Dressler in

Earlier this week a collection of photos of Rochester's RKO Palace Theater was discovered thanks to the Rochester Theater Organ Society. Mixed in with those RKO Palace photos were a few interior shots of Rochester's other lost movie palace... Loew's Theater. So I thought it only fair to shine the spotlight on this one too. Loew's Theater also happened to be on Clinton Avenue, just four or five blocks south of the RKO. Xerox Tower

now occupies the spot. Take a look...

Loew's Theatre, 120 South Clinton Avenue, on the east side of the street north of Court Street. A car parking lot is next to the theater. May 5, 1941. [PHOTO: Rochester Municipal Archives]

Loew's Theatre, 120 South Clinton Avenue, on the east side of the street north of Court Street. A car parking lot is next to the theater. May 5, 1941. According to CinemaTreasures.org

the theater opened in 1927 as part of the Schine's chain, but soon became part of the Loew's Inc. empire.

Ticket Booth in outer Lobby. 1940. [PHOTO: Ossie Wieggel / George Eastman House]

Ticket Booth in outer Lobby. This and all photos below are from 1940.

Stairway to main lobby.

Main Lobby.

Not sure what this was. Anybody? [PHOTO: D.O. Schultz / Rochester Theater Organ Society]

Not sure what this was (above). Anybody?

Main Floor & Stage. 1940. With over 3,500 seats it was advertised as the largest theater in America between New York and Chicago. The auditorium featured bronze light fixtures, murals, leather upholstery for the box seats, and an enormous Marr & Colton organ. [PHOTO: Ossie Wieggel / George Eastman House]

With over 3,500 seats it was advertised as the largest theater in America between New York and Chicago. The auditorium featured bronze light fixtures, murals, leather upholstery for the box seats, and an enormous Marr & Colton organ.

Balcony.

Entry to balcony.

Men or women's Lounge. 1940. [PHOTO: Ossie Wieggel / George Eastman House]

Men's or women's lounge?

The Loew's Theater was to be renovated as part of a downtown redevelopment, but a local firm bought it and demolished it in 1964 to make way for the new Xerox headquarters.

Oh movie palace gods... can we PLEASE have just ONE of these back!?!

For anyone interested in pinpointing the exact location, here's the 1935 plat map

. Zoom in to the northeast corner of Court St. and Clinton, across from Washington Square Park.

Chris Gemignani