Month: October 2018

Sorg Opera House – Middletown, Ohio

/ Matt / 4 Comments
Auditorium, Sorg Opera House - Middletown, Ohio.
View of the auditorium from the balcony in 2018.

The Sorg Opera House in Middletown, Ohio originally opened on September 12, 1891. Paul J. Sorg, an esteemed entrepreneur and Middletown’s first multi-millionaire, commissioned the opera house as a gift to the city. To bring his vision to life, Sorg engaged the services of Samuel Hannaford, the  architect responsible for designing the Cincinnati Music Hall. Hannaford designed a 1,200-seat opera house, characterized by its opulent interior and exquisite details.

Balcony of the Sorg Opera House in 2023.

View from the balcony in 2023.

On its opening day, the Sorg Opera House treated attendees to a performance of the opera “The Little Tycoon,” composed by Willard Spenser. The event was made even more memorable by a speech delivered by the Ohio Governor James E. Campbell.

View of the auditorium from the stage.

In 1901, the Sorg Opera House expanded its repertoire to include early forms of motion pictures, such as photo plays, alongside its opera performances. Vaudeville acts also became a regular feature, entertaining the audience before the operas took the stage. Over the years, the opera house hosted numerous talented vaudeville performers who would later achieve fame, including Marie Dressler, Will Rogers, Al Jolson, Bob Hope, and Sophie Tucker. 

The ballroom in the building next to the Sorg will eventually become an event space for the Opera House.

As time went on, the popularity of live shows began to wane, leading to their discontinuation in the late 1920s. However, recognizing the emerging trend in the film industry, the Sorg Opera House underwent a transformation. In the summer of 1929, a sound system was installed, marking a pivotal turning point as the opera house transitioned into a full-time movie theater. This adaptation allowed the venue to continue entertaining the community while embracing the evolving medium of cinema.


The orchestra and mezzanine levels have been restored, but the upper balcony and ceiling remain in a state of disrepair. 

On January 17, 1935, a fire broke out in the backstage area of the Sorg Opera House, resulting in substantial damage amounting to $10,000 at the time (equivalent to approximately $185,298 in today’s currency, adjusted for inflation). The severity of the fire forced the opera house to close its doors for several months. However, in April 1935, the Gordon Theatre Company stepped in and secured a long-term lease on the theater, taking charge of the necessary repairs.

The orchestra level in 2023.

After undergoing extensive renovations, the Sorg Opera House triumphantly reopened its doors on September 22, 1935, showcasing a combination of films and stage shows. In the late 1940s, the Sorg Opera House temporarily closed once again, this time for a remodeling project. One notable change during this period was the addition of a false ceiling, which effectively separated the upper balcony from the rest of the theater. This modification was implemented to enhance the acoustics and improve the overall sound quality, ensuring an enhanced auditory experience for the audience.

The original walls of the lobby were covered up during the remodel in the 1940s.

After operating as a movie theater for several decades, the Sorg Opera House closed in the late 1970s. However, the formation of the Friends of the Sorg group brought new hope and a renewed purpose for the historic venue. Their vision was to reopen the theater as a live performance venue, and their efforts were successful. The Friends of the Sorg ran the theater until 2010 when a water main break forced its closure once again.

In 2012, a new group called the Sorg Opera Revitalization Group (SORG) was established with the goal of purchasing and reopening the building. Their dedication and determination led to the acquisition of the theater in August 2012, with a purchase price of $32,000. Since then, SORG has made significant improvements to the building, gradually restoring its grandeur. Some notable changes include the removal of the partition between the upper balcony and the main auditorium, the replacement of seats with those donated from the Cincinnati Music Hall, repairs to the public restrooms, and the re-hanging of the house curtains.

A hallway in the building next to the Sorg, which is planned to become part of the opera house after renovations.

While substantial progress has been made, a full restoration of the Sorg Opera House is estimated to require an investment ranging from $9 million to $11 million. Despite the ongoing restoration efforts, the theater reopened its doors in late 2017 with a special performance titled “Celebrate the Sorg,” featuring the Butler Philharmonic Orchestra. This reopening marked a significant milestone in the theater’s journey toward revival, reaffirming its role as a cultural hub for the community.

Like many theaters at the time, the Sorg was segregated. It had a separate entrance, ticket booth and balcony for its non-white patrons.

The much of the proscenium arch was covered up during the remodel in the late 1940s.
View of the auditorium from the main level.

United Palace (Loew’s 175th Street Theatre)

/ Matt / 3 Comments

This theater is not abandoned, but I had the chance to shoot it a few years ago, and I wanted to share the images with everyone.

View of the auditorium from the side of the balcony

The United Palace originally opened on February 22, 1930 as the Loew’s 175th Street Theatre. Located in the the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, the building takes up an entire city block and was designed by famed theater architect Thomas W. Lamb. (Lamb’s work can also be seen in my posts on the RKO Hamilton Theatre also in Washington Heights, and the RKO Keith’s Theatre in Flushing, Queens.) The interior decor was designed by Harold Rambusch of the Rambusch Company, who did some of the interior work on the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, the Boyd Theatre in Philadelphia and many others across the country. The theater was estimated to cost $1.25M to build in 1928 or $18.4M when adjusted for inflation. It was the first theater in Washington Heights designed specifically for talking pictures.

David W. Dunlap of the New York Times described the theater’s architectural style as “Byzantine-Romanesque-Indo-Hindu-Sino-Moorish-Persian-Eclectic-Rococo-Deco”

The 3,000 seat United Palace was the fifth and last of the theaters that became known as the “Loew’s Wonder Theatres.”  The wonder theater concept was originally developed by the Balaban and Katz Theater Corporation of Chicago to bring large movie palaces to smaller urban neighborhoods. Loew’s acquired three of Paramount’s planned wonder theaters (the Kings and Pitkin in Brooklyn and the Valencia in Queens) in a deal with the company in 1927. Each of the Loew’s Wonder Theatres originally had identical Robert Morton “Wonder” organs built specifically for them.

View of the lobby from the lobby mezzanine.

The opening day program consisted of a showing of “Their Own Desire” starring Norma Shearer and a stage show from the Capitol Theatre on Broadway.  Over the years many stars made appearances at the theater, including Judy Garland, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Joan Crawford. Loew’s closed the theater in March 1969, and later that year sold it to Rev. Frederick J. Eikerenkotter II, a television evangelist, for $600,000. Rev. Ike, as he was known, turned the theater into the headquarters of his church, now called the United Palace of Spiritual Arts, often hosting his television program from the stage, and renamed the theater the United Palace.

The United Palace was the only one of the Wonder Theatres that retained its original organ. The console can be seen at the lower right side of this photo.

In 2007, the theater became a concert venue and hosted acts such as Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Beck and Neil Young. Xavier Eikerenkotter, Rev. Ike’s son, created a non-profit called the United Palace of Cultural Arts to turn the theater into a performing and community arts center in 2012. One year later, the United Palace held a crowdfunding campaign to purchase a 50-foot screen. The campaign was a success, and the first movie screened in the theater in over 40 years was “Casablanca” on November 17, 2013. In 2016, Lin-Manuel Miranda donated $100,000 for a new state-of-the-art digital projector that launched the campaign “Reawaken Wonder at a Timeless Movie Palace,” to raise funds for cinema-quality audio. The United Palace has also been used as a filming location for television and motion pictures in recent years. Upcoming events and more information can be found on the theater’s website at: UnitedPalace.org

The organ was removed from the building by the New York Theatre Organ Society to undergo repairs in 2017.

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