精东影业's home at 1375 Euclid Ave. has hosted many tenants throughout its lifespan.
Designed by the architectural firm Walker and Weeks (think also of the Public Auditorium, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and Cleveland Public Library), the building opened in 1912 as a home furnishings showroom and warehouse for the Kinney & Levan Company.
A year later, the fifth and sixth floors housed the Public Library of the City School District of the City of Cleveland (later, Cleveland Public Library) until its new main branch on Superior Avenue was completed in 1925.
In the 1930s, the building served as the corporate headquarters for Stouffer鈥檚, including its popular Playhouse Square restaurant. Around 1943, WJW remodeled the second floor of the building for its new radio studio.
In 1950, disc jockey Alan Freed came to WJW from WAKR in Akron. It was in that very radio studio that Freed first uttered the words 鈥渞ock 鈥榥鈥� roll,鈥� thus making Cleveland what many consider to be the birthplace of rock 鈥榥鈥� roll.
