Between the years 1913 and 1933 New York's Palace Theater was "the high temple of low-brow entertainment - the dream goal of all song-and-dance teams, jugglers, and comic monologists" - that is to say, it was a vaudeville theater. When vaudeville slipped on its last banana peel, the Palace closed its doors - and in this short article the glorious past of this theater is recalled.
"There was some dispute over what killed vaudeville. Some said talking movies. Others said radio. A few cruel critics said it committed suicide. But all agreed that with the fall of its last fortress, the Palace Theater, it was dead... Last week, the corpse that wouldn't die got up and went home. Sol A. Schwartz, vice president of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum chain (RKO) announced restoration of vaudeville at the Palace, beginning May 18 [1949]."
I don't think that I have to tell you whether or not the revival was a success - but you might be interested to know that regardless of all previous transgressions, Sol A. Schwartz went on to be president of RKO.
Vaudeville enjoyed a small revival during the mid-Thirties when the Federal Theater Project of the WPA sent touring vaudevillians throughout the country - you can read about that here...
You can read about Chicago Vaudeville here
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