This Just In! Ultra Rare Photos Of The Colonial Theater Marquee

Thanks to Tom Gauer, here are two rare photos of The Colonial with “The Price Is Right” on the marquee. These are the first, and only two images I have ever seen of the outside during the NBC/RCA color years which began in early 1952.

Before this, the only outside shot we had of The Colonial was this 1936 photo when it was an RKO movie theater. Here’s the history of the building that housed NBC’s first ever commercial color television facility.

The Charleston (dance) was born here…at 1887 Broadway.

The theater was built in 1905 as the Colonial Music Hall by Fred Thompson and Elmer Dundy, the same duo behind the Hippodrome Theater and Luna Park at Coney Island, as a venue for musicals and vaudeville acts.

Designed by architect George Keister, the Colonial Theater was designed in the style of a Victorian London music hall. The interior had a wide yet not very deep auditorium, which brought the balcony much closer to the stage than many other theaters and could seat nearly 1,300.

In 1912, B.F. Keith took over the Colonial Theater, altering its name to Keith’s Colonial Theater, and when E.F. Albee took over from Keith five years later, it became the New Colonial Theater.

In the early-1920’s, black-themed musical comedies came to the New Colonial Theater, with such now-racist sounding names as “Little Sambo” and “Chocolate Dandies”. It was during this time that a 1923 show, “Runnin’ Wild” introduced the dance craze called the Charleston to America from the stage or The New Colonial.

In 1932, RKO took over, and, as the RKO Colonial Theater, began showing movies. After years of second-run and double features, RKO sold the theater to NBC in early 1952.

RCA and NBC remodeled the theater, added 4 live TK40 color prototypes and a color film chain. By November of ’52, the theater was ready to go live and did so with an experimental broadcast of “Your Show Of Shows” with the color burst removed for the network audience. Color testing continued until the FCC approved the RCA Dot Sequential System and commercial colorcasts began from here.

A decade later, ABC took over, and used the Colonial Theater mainly for taping game shows until 1971. Today, it’s all gone, but not forgotten. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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