BY JANELLE GELFAND
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[albee]](/editions/1998/10/08/albee_150x185.jpg)
A classic Roman facade ordorned the Albee Theatre on Fifth Street downtown.
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The Albee Theater was on Fifth Street from 1927 until 1977, when it was demolished to make way for the Westin Hotel. It belonged to the golden era of movie palaces -- elegant, exotic, gaudy entertainment houses that showed movies but also served as theaters.
"The Albee was top-drawer," says Pierson DeJager of Fairfield, who played trumpet in the theater's pit band. "Benny Goodman played there. Mickey Rooney came onstage doing cartwheels."
In 1977, when the Albee's furnishings were liquidated, Pat and Joe Perin, then owners of Perin Interiors in Springdale, spent $200,000 on Albee relics -- some traceable to John Jacob Astor's town house in New York City. They incorporated the items into the showrooms of their store.
In 1995, the Perins announced their retirement and their desire to donate some of the collection to a civic institution. Architect Don Beck contacted them about the Music Hall Ballroom project, then in the discussion stage. The Perins kept some of their collection and donated the rest to the project.
Other artifacts, such as columns and decorative railings, were donated by the Carl Lindner family. They had been displayed at the College Football Hall of Fame (near Kings Island until 1990; now in South Bend, Ind.).
![[albee]](/editions/1998/10/08/albee_445x550.jpg)