Billed as “The Playhouse Beautiful” in early advertisements, The Loew’s Poli Theatre opened as the Poli’s Palace Theatre on September 4, 1922, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb for theater mogul Sylvester Z. Poli, who also owned the nearby Palace Theatre in Waterbury, Connecticut. When it opened the 3,642 seat Loew’s Poli Theatre was the biggest movie theater in Connecticut and the largest of Bridgeport’s theaters. Its sister theater, the Majestic, which is located directly next to the Palace in the same building, opened two months later. The complex consists of two theaters, a hotel, and a number of storefronts along main street. Both the Palace and the Majestic owe their existence to Matt Saunders. Saunders was the manager of Poli’s Globe Theatre on Main Street in Bridgeport and convinced Sylvester Poli that Bridgeport could support two more downtown theaters. When the Palace opened Saunders transferred to the new theater as manager, a position he held until he retired in early 1960.

Marcus Loew and Alfred Zukor, two of the United States’ most prominent theater magnates, assisted in the opening of Poli’s Palace by helping to assemble a large group of motion picture and stage actors to make an appearance at the theater for the opening celebration. Some of the stars that appeared include Mae Murray, Raymond Hitchcock, Thomas Meighan, Alice Brady, Johnny Hines, Nita Naldi, Ann Pennington, Montagu Love, Virginia Pearson, Lew Cody, Hope Hampton, Lou Tellegen, and Anita Stewart. Vaudeville, and later television, star Eddie Cantor was the Master of Ceremonies at the opening.

The Palace spent the first twelve years as a predominantly vaudeville and silent film theater, but in 1934 the Poli Theatre Chain was sold to the Loew’s Corporation, and Loew’s converted all the Poli Theatres to major motion picture houses. The sale also brought the theater’s first name change, from Poli’s Palace to Loew’s Poli or Loew’s Poli Palace in 1937. The name change didn’t affect the theater’s popularity — in August of 1939, the Loew’s Poli and Majestic Theatres celebrated their combined ten-millionth patron. Loew’s also performed a number of updates on the theaters including replacing the original marquee with a modern one in 1943. 

After its sister theater, the Majestic closed in 1962, the Palace was the last remaining of the Bridgeport theaters once run by Sylvester Poli. Due to declining patronage, the Loew’s Corporation sold the building to David Zimmer, a lawyer from Bridgeport, in 1964. Zimmer changed the Poli’s name to the Palace Theatre and reopened the Majestic. The theaters were then sold to Anthony Debek, who started showing adult films at the Palace and was promptly arrested for it. However, he was able to come to an agreement with the city and showed adult films at the Palace until it closed in 1975. The following year the Bridgeport Center for the Arts, Inc (BCA) was given a $10,000 grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts for a study on the use of the theaters as performing arts centers. BCA proposed that the city of Bridgeport purchase the theaters and restore them with a portion of the $15 million the city recently received for public works projects. Bridgeport did not move forward with that plan, and the theaters remained in private hands for a number of years. In the early 1990s Joy Center Ministries, Inc., (JCM) who had the rights to sell or lease portions of the building at the time, intended to rent out the storefronts and turn the theater into a Christian revival center, but the project was put on hold when it was discovered that the city of Bridgeport had a $1.2 million lien on the property due to unpaid taxes. JCM unsuccessfully sued the city of Bridgeport after they took possession of the building. 

Since its closing, the interior of the Palace has been used as a set in movies, including the recent “All Good Things,” a 2008 film starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst.  The complex is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places; the city of Bridgeport hopes to one day restore the theater to its former glory. In August 2017, the City of Bridgeport announced a $400 million deal with Exact Capital, a New York City-based developer, to turn the Poli/Palace into a conference center and banquet facility. The Majestic Theatre will be restored and reopened during the third phase of the project. The first phase of construction, which does not include the theaters, is estimated to cost $53 million but has not begun as of late 2021.