Travel Photo Thursday

September 2013 - Columbus Ohio

The Palace Theatre is a 2,827-seat restored movie palace in Columbus Ohio. It was designed by Thomas W. Lamb and was built in 1926 as a part of the American Insurance Union (A.I.U.) Citadel (now the Leveque Tower) complex. Today the theater functions as a multi-use performing arts venue. It is owned and operated by CAPA (The Columbus Association for the Performing Arts). The Palace Theater's "house" is considered separate from the Leveque Tower, while the Marquee and lobby are part of the Leveque complex.

The construction of the theater was personally supervised by vaudeville mogul Edward Albee of the Keith-Albee circuit. It opened in 1926 as the Keith-Albee Palace and featured live vaudeville along with silent feature films, an orchestra and a Wurlitzer theater organ.

 You can find some beautiful photos on this link.

These sculptures are actually on the LeVeque Tower attached to the Palace Theatre.

LeVeque Tower is a 47-story Art Deco-style building in Columbus, Ohio. It was the tallest building in Columbus from 1927 until 1974 when the Rhodes State Office Tower was completed. The LeVeque Tower is 555 feet 6 inches (169.32 m) tall, which at the time of its completion made it the tallest building between New York City and Chicago and the fifth tallest building in the world. It was meant to be built exactly one half-foot taller than the Washington Monument in Washington D.C.

Originally, the building's exterior featured a large number of sculptures. However, for legal and safety reasons much of it had to be removed because the terra-cotta began to crumble and fall to the street. Lost sculptures include four 18 feet (5.5 m) eagles at the corners of the building at the 36th floor and four 20 feet (6.1 m) statues of colossus and youth on the sides of the building at the setback of the 40th floor (these were actually removed so Mr. LeVeque could have a view from his office). The spaces left by the departed sculpture serve as the bases for lights used to illuminate the tower.