French Baroque 1928 vaudeville and movie palace inside Milwaukee's Empire Building, restored in 1984 as a live-performance venue; staff and patrons report ghostly children, a balcony gentleman, and a stage-manager presence.
116 W Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53203
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ticket prices vary by performance. Seasonal Riverside Ghost Tours typically run mid-October at separate ticket pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
ADA-accessible main floor; mezzanine and balcony via stairs. Historic 1928 seating with limited aisle width.
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1928 · 1928 RKO Empire Building Vaudeville and Movie Palace · French Baroque Architecture (Kirchhoff and Rose) · 1966 Fire and Subsequent Rebuilds · 1984 Restoration as Live-Performance Venue
RKO Pictures commissioned the Riverside in the mid-1920s as the anchor for its twelve-story Empire Building, planned to consolidate RKO's Midwest film distribution alongside a flagship vaudeville-and-film venue. Local architects Charles Kirchhoff and Thomas Rose designed the theater in the French Baroque style, with a heavily ornamented proscenium, plaster figural work above the box seats, and a curtain decorated with extensive gilt motifs. The Riverside opened April 29, 1928, with a Wurlitzer organ and a 2,500-seat capacity.
The theater operated continuously through the vaudeville era, the studio-system film years, and the post-war decline of downtown movie palaces. In 1966 a patron's lit cigarette ignited a fire that destroyed much of the original ornamented ceiling and curtains. The theater was rebuilt but never to the original 1928 standard of detail. United Artists held the lease through the 1970s and declined renewal in 1982, vacating the building.
Joseph Zilber, owner of Milwaukee's Towne Realty, agreed to fund a 1.5-million-dollar restoration that included rebuilding the Wurlitzer organ. The Riverside reopened November 2, 1984, as a live-performance venue and has operated since under various management arrangements. The nonprofit Pabst Theater Group assumed operations in the early 2000s and added a seasonal Ghost Tours program in the 2010s that addresses the building's witness history.
Sources
Witness accounts at the Riverside Theater cluster around four areas. OnMilwaukee's reporting and Pabst Theater Group materials describe a gentleman whose disembodied hand has been seen resting on a box-seat railing in the upper-left balcony before disappearing; the figure has never been identified to a specific historical individual. Multiple staff accounts place ghostly children running and laughing on the fourth floor of the backstage area, where the theater's offices and dressing rooms are located.
The lighting booth carries its own folklore. Crew members describe lights flicking on and off during quiet calls and console settings altered between rehearsal sessions. The Stage Manager presence is the most-cited account in TMJ4 and OnMilwaukee coverage: stagehands describe objects launched across the deck during soundchecks, with one witness account specifying a folding chair traveling from stage left to center. Sudden floral perfume drifts and the scent of cigar smoke have been reported in both the orchestra section and backstage corridors.
The 1966 fire and persistent flooding from the Milwaukee River are sometimes cited as historical anchors in the building's witness lore, though no fatalities are documented for the 1966 fire. The Pabst Theater Group's seasonal Riverside Ghost Tours, often led in partnership with Caper Company Ghost Walks and paranormal investigators, fold these accounts into their programming, and the venue itself treats the lore as enduring theater-staff testimony rather than confirmed activity.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
60-minute behind-the-scenes ghost tour led by Pabst Theater Group historians and Caper Company tour guides. Visits the booth, fourth-floor backstage areas, balcony box seats, and stage where witness accounts have clustered since the 1984 restoration.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Milwaukee, WI
The Pabst Theater opened November 9, 1895, replacing the Stadt Theater destroyed by fire that same year. Captain Frederick Pabst commissioned architect Otto Strack to design the German Renaissance Revival opera house, which was completed in just six months. The Pabst is the fourth-oldest continuously operating theater in the United States and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991.
Tucson, AZ
The Fox Tucson Theatre opened on April 11, 1930, as a combined vaudeville and movie house. After closing in 1974 and standing vacant for 25 years, the building was purchased in 1999 by the non-profit Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation for $250,000 and reopened in 2006 following a multi-year, multi-million-dollar restoration.
Ashland, KY
The Paramount Arts Center opened September 5, 1931 in Ashland, Kentucky as one of the first movie palaces purpose-built for sound film. Designed by Rapp and Rapp, the theater closed in 1971 and was rescued from demolition by the Greater Ashland Foundation, reopening as a performing-arts center in 1972.