GPS City GuideColumbusPalace Theatre

Stop 10 of 29 · Columbus audio walking tour

Palace Theatre

Columbus · 1926 · Lavish 1920s Movie Palace

What you'll hear here: about 90 seconds on what happened at Palace Theatre and around Columbus — the audio starts on its own when you walk into range.

Vaudeville mogul Edward Albee personally supervised the construction of the Palace Theatre, the restored 2,695-seat movie palace designed and built in 1926 by American architect Thomas Lamb as part of the American Insurance Union Citadel, now the LeVeque Tower. Lamb dressed the theatre in his signature "Adam" style, recalling the 18th-century neo-classical work of the Scottish architects James and Robert Adam. Originally christened the Keith-Albee Theatre, its construction was personally supervised by vaudeville mogul Edward Albee of the Keith-Albee circuit.

When it opened in 1926 as the Keith-Albee Palace, audiences enjoyed live vaudeville alongside silent feature films, an orchestra, and the theatre pipe organ known as "Miss Buckeye," a Style 260 3/16 Mighty Wurlitzer. Today the Palace functions as a multi-use performing arts venue, owned and operated by The Columbus Association for the Performing Arts. Note how the Palace's "house" is considered separate from the LeVeque Tower, even while the marquee and lobby belong to the LeVeque complex.

Backstage, the dressing room tower was even designed as a small hotel, complete with a "front desk. The marquee and lobby belong to the LeVeque complex, yet the Palace's house stays its own, backstage hotel and all.

Where it is

Coordinates
39.9624, -83.002
Area
Columbus
Era
1926 · Lavish 1920s Movie Palace
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Three stops free. No account needed. The audio plays itself as you walk.