A large brick building with a massive arched window once occupied the corner of South High and East Bowery streets in Downtown Akron. For decades, the Akron Armory was the city’s epicenter of entertainment.
In 1918, the Armory opened as a training site for the Ohio National Guard. That same year, it served as an emergency hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic.
The following year, the newly formed Cleveland Orchestra performed under its first director, Nikolai Sokoloff – kicking off five decades of visits by “the best band in the land.”…