Never Before Seen Photos of RKO Palace Theater

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 07, 2012 and can be found here.

   A few weeks after we     discovered the RKO Palace Theater floor    at the site of RGRTA's future transit center, Russ Shaner, president of the     Rochester Theater Organ Society

contacted me. These were the guys who saved the old Wurlitzer pipe organ from the RKO Palace before the building was demolished. And as it turns out, one of their founding members, D.O. Schultz, captured a treasure trove of photographs and left them with the Organ Society before he moved to Florida years ago. Russ asked RochesterSubway.com for help, both archiving the photos, and sharing them with you, the public. Yesterday you saw     part 1    , and now, here is part 2 of this awesome collection...

   Giant scoop moves the rubble into the trucks.

   Exterior north wall of the auditorium.

   South east corner of the front lobby (Clinton Ave. side).

   Looking from southeast corner, at intersection of Clinton and Mortimer St.

   South east corner of the front lobby (Clinton Ave. side).

   Onlookers watching from Clinton Ave.

   Front lobby section.

   Looking at the balcony.

   Looking at the balcony and doors to the auditorium beneath.

   Rubble where the stage was. Looking west toward Saint Paul Street.

   North wall of auditorium. The dressing rooms and stage are on the right.

   Taking down the northern stack of dressing rooms. There were seven levels of them.

   Beneath the balcony looking stage right.

   Taking down the stage wall.

   South wall of auditorium. Mortimer Street side.

   South wall of auditorium. Looking toward front lobby on Clinton.

   Inside of stage with seven levels of dressing rooms on the left.

   Looking from Mortimer Street toward stage and auditorium.

   Front lobby entrance.

   Looking up at balcony.

   All clear. Dump trucks are where the auditorium was. Front lobby was in the lower right of view. Saint Paul St. is in the background.

We are currently making plans to donate this entire collection of photos to the Rochester Municipal Archives and/or the Rochester Public Library.

Now that you're crying in your soup, go check out these     Beautiful Photographs of Decaying and Repurposed Movie Palaces

from around the country.