Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 04/06/16
Summary
The Lee Theater is an example of a public venue embodying the built environment of segregation that permeated the Jim Crow South prior to the Civil Rights movement. As a public facility, the theater was built from 1939 to 1940 by architects Jack Corgan and William J. Moore of Corgan & Moore of Dallas, Texas, for Robb & Rowley-United, Inc., a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. The theatre operated from 1940 through 1957 with the express intent of serving both white and African American patrons.
The Lee Theater is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, with local significance, as a structure that is closely associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history, specifically the practice of segregation in public theater facilities that was common across the south during the early through mid-20th century. The Lee Theater, built during 1939 to 1940, had a seating capacity of 950 on two floors, including a balcony which included 200 seats that were used entirely for “Negro” patrons.[1]
Elaboration
According to Corgan & Moore, the architects who built the Lee Theater, the design of the Lee Theater was to provide a facility that would accommodate both white and Negro patronage equally. Second, the design was to take up as little space as possible for foyer and rest rooms on the first floor in order to gain a maximum number of seats. Thirdly, the design provided every possible aid to picture presentation and patron comfort within expected income at the location. [2]
“In the design of the Lee, the fundamental aims, according to Corgan and Moore, architects for the Robb & Rowley interests and who are also members of the Architectural Advisory Board of The Modern Theatre Planning Institute, were:
First, to provide for facilities to accommodate both white and Negro patronage equally. Second, to take up as little space as possible for foyer and rest rooms on the first floor in order to gain a maximum number of seats. And, third, to provide every possible aid to picture presentation and patron comfort within expected income at the location.”[3]
Despite the onset of the Great Depression, or perhaps because of it, the movie business and the resulting theatre business boomed. While money was scarce for many Americans during the era, movie tickets remained an affordable, escapist outlet for Americans facing the hardships of everyday life. According to an article entitled “Marquee on Main Street, Jack Liebenberg’s Movie Theaters: 1928-1941” by Herbert Scherer, “movies provided an inexpensive escape from the harsh realities of joblessness and hunger. Movie going was an avenue for African-Americans to socialize, Sound movies came to dominate the American cultural scene as the most popular and accessible form of entertainment. Thirties films represented modernism and change in their most dramatic form.”[4] As a result, between 1930 and 1946, movie theater tickets sales in the United States soared from 40 million per week to more than 90 million according to David Goldfield’s Encyclopedia of American Urban History.[5]
In discussing the history of the property of Lee Theater, it is important to note the segregation practices that prevailed during the twentieth century, specifically during the period of the 1920s through the late 1950s. Research provides a discussion of the context of the deliberate segregation of African-American theater patrons from white patrons as illustrated in the design and construction of the Lee Theater. This segregation of space within the Lee Theatre through its design and use illustrates the widespread practices of segregation seen throughout the South during this time period. From the opening of its earliest vaudeville theaters, the South had grappled with how to present public entertainment in an environment that supported segregation, which had been culturally entrenched for decades before it was legally legitimized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Douglas Gomery points out in his study of the history of the shared experiences of movies in the United States that as early as 1910, Southern theater owners were inquiring of trade publications how systems could be devised to segregate audiences in a theater setting.[6] Douglas Gomery also indicates that African Americans were not welcome in mainstream movie theaters prior to 1965; and in the south, during the early days of public movie presentations southern states deemed separation of race a reasonable regulation well within the powers of the state.[7]
This separation came in the public sphere in Little Rock and throughout the South in three forms: exclusion, duplication and temporal separation.[8] Perhaps the most common of these, exclusion, simply meant straightforward separation, such as a “whites only” sign posted outside a business. Duplication, often fueled by exclusion, meant the creation of two facilities to serve the same purpose for each race separately, manifest in public accommodations such as separate bathrooms and water fountains. Temporal separation, in the absence of exclusion or duplication, meant sharing a facility between races, but at different times. Charlene Regester’s article “From the Buzzard’s Roost” articulates that “although entertainment might have been expected to be one arena in which African Americans could escape such marginalization, African Americans felt the constraints under which all public facilities operated, even in movie theatres [sic] and vaudeville houses.”[9] Despite the egalitarian darkness of the hushed picture show, all three segregation practices were manifest in the theater industry of mid-twentieth century America. As in the case of the Lee Theater, exclusionary practices such as balconies or partitions kept races separated. Duplication was manifest in the wave of exclusively black theaters, often owned by whites, which arose to avoid the common seating restrictions. Temporal separation was practiced with special screening times for black audiences, usually late at night after the white audiences had returned home.
In keeping with the social order of the day, according to the article written in the Box Office, the design of the Lee Theater was arranged so that, after departing from a shared box office, African Americans “[would] not come in contact with white patrons in any way nor at any time,” hailed by contemporary press at the time of its opening as “a wise precaution in the South.”[10] The Lee Theater's various approaches to segregation, with a separate entrance, interior ticket window for African Americans, and confinement of African-American customers to the balcony, were not uncommon for the time. Indeed the balcony seating, or “Buzzard's Roost,” was often considered a more practical solution than erecting a physical barrier between two sets of segregated floor seating, reportedly the arrangement of the theater that preceded the Lee Theater at the same location, the Highland Theater.
According to the article written in the Box Office which touted the newly designed Lee Theatre, by the time of the opening of the Lee Theater in 1940, it was deemed “of necessity” to service both races and “to provide for facilities to accommodate both white and Negro patronage equally.” [11] While such was the letter of the law, the actuality of equality, under exclusionary segregation, was questionable at best. Moreover, according to an article entitled “The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past”, the racial boundary line in theaters was exhibited by a distinctive architectural feature – the balcony.[12] The balcony seating was designated for African Americans in movie theaters which were the least desirable seating as it was furthest from the screen. Robert Weyeneth’s article, The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past”, points out that these spaces were often referred to as the peanut gallery, crow’s nest or the buzzard’s roost.
Notably, the primary purpose of the theater itself was obscured for black patrons as the balcony seating in segregated theaters, including the Lee Theater, offered only a disengaged perspective of the feature playing on screen. That is, films were not seen by black patrons in the way in which they were meant to be seen and were seen by whites. Seats for African Americans were the furthest from the screen and elevated to an angle for which the projection was not ideally calibrated. As Charlene Regester notes in an essay on such practices entitled “From the Buzzard’s Roost,” this “leads one to question how [African Americans] compensated for such reductions in the viewing experience, how they negotiated these distant images, and how they internalized these distortions and responded to such distortions based on the very fact of the physical features of the theater.”[13] Socially, the so-called Buzzard's Roost, a term of derision itself, was a point of cultural stigma and social degradation. The separate entrance and long climb up the stairs into the balcony seating in the Lee Theater and theaters like it underscored the social distance between whites and African Americans in the built environment. Even in the great equalizer of a darkened room, where the individual identity is surrendered to the projected fantasy, the black patron must, by design of the theater, be reminded of their lesser social standing, up to and including the more affluent African American patrons who could afford a night at the movies. The prevalence of such practices is notably hard to fully ascertain, but as reported in the Encyclopedia of American Urban History suggests that 1,200 is a conservative estimate of the number of segregated theaters nationwide during the so-called golden age of Hollywood.[14]
In the Lee Theater, the balcony section also had separate restrooms, which offer a striking contrast when paired with a description of the white-only restrooms at lobby level, as described in the Box Office article. The Box Office article reports that in the Lee Theater, “under the projection room, tiled rest rooms were provided for the comfort of colored patrons.”[15] While the “rest rooms… of colored patrons” were simply denoted as tiled, the other restrooms, for the use of white patrons, were described in great detail.
“Off the foyer were both rest rooms and a ladies' lounge done in tile, sand-finished plaster and acoustical plaster on the ceiling. The ladies' lounge and rest room were finished in pastel shades of blue tile floor and a yellow tile wainscot with blue cap and base. The men's rest room is decorated with warm shades of tan with a tiled floor and wainscot.”[16]
Throughout the World War II years, the norm of segregation would continue unabated in the city of Little Rock until 1957, when the eyes of the nation turned to the integration crisis at Little Rock Central High School. According to the Arkansas Gazette in 1958, it was only months after that incident that the Lee Theater, already closed as a theater, would reopen as All Electric Supply, Inc.[17] John Kirk reports in the article, The History of the Sit–in Movement in Little Rock, it would take until June 1963, following a February ruling by Judge J. Smith Henley, for the city's movie theaters and Robinson Auditorium to admit African Americans on an equal basis, a ruling which was never applied to the already closed Lee Theater.[18] In the wake of the Civil Rights movement and rulings like Henley's, many of the visual reminders of the built environment of segregation were quick to disappear. Indeed, this was largely one of the aims of the movement. “The physical manifestation of segregation was as much a target of the civil rights movement as were racial prejudices, job discrimination, and the denial of voting rights.” [19]
During the mid-20th century, segregation was evident in the Highland Park community where the Lee Theater is located. Located in a predominantly Black community, in Ward 2 of Little Rock where today 71% of the residents are African-American, and the median income of $26,218, the Highland Park community became segregated through segregated housing patterns created by public policy with private sector collusion, according to an article entitled “The Roots of Little Rock’s Segregated Neighborhoods”.[20] This article reports that urban planning divided Little Rock into two halves with east I-30 and south I-630 being predominately black and poor and I-430 west and I-630 North being predominately white and more affluent. The article further explains that the geographical segregation and construction of I-630 draws a hard line across the city and creates demarcation between the more affluent neighborhoods and poorer communities such as Highland Park where the Lee Theater is located.
In fact, the segregation of the Lee Theater is profoundly important on the history of the Highland Park Community and the contribution to the history of segregation and civil rights movement to the younger generation. According to Robert Weyeneth’s article entitled “The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past”, one measure of the success of the civil rights struggle was the “dismantling of segregated space.” [21] For an institution that was so pervasively embodied in the built environment, its preservation is scarce. When evidence of the outdated social order does exist, its presence may well go unrecognized by a modern audience, leaving subsequent generations unable to fully understand it. Thus, it is important that the Lee Theater property be preserved due to its illustration of the historical context of segregation during 1940s and 1950s.
Architectural Style and Design
The opulent movie palaces of earlier silent era, which made the setting as much a part of the show as the night's feature, were rejected in favor of the comparatively minimalist Art Moderne style, an evolution of the Art Deco style of the 1920s and 1930s. The design of this theatre emphasized functionality and used the Art Moderne accents of the front façade as a marker of modernity as well as a way to reduce cost through the use of stucco and tile detailing. According to David Naylor in American Picture Places, under the burden of the Depression, many theaters adopted Art Décor as an economic measure with the intent of maintaining a richness of design without spending a great deal of money. [22] Ornamentation, while still evocative of the modern and mechanical, often had a more austere edge, and non-public spaces were left as little more than an unadorned box in which to house the internally accented auditorium. In the case of the Lee Theatre, the firm of Jack Corgan and William J. Moore of Dallas, Texas, created a theatre design that satisfied the need for internal segregation as well as a façade that would promote the new movie house to the local population.
Jack Corgan became well known across the Midwest and Southern United States for his various movie theatre designs as well as designs for drive-in
theatres. During the late 1930s through the 1950s, Corgan designed theatres in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Louisiana. According to history
provided by the Corgan architectural firm, which still exists in Texas and now has offices in the Middle East and China, Jack Cogan was one of the
first ten individuals to pass the newly implemented state licensing exam for architecture in Texas during the late 1930s.[23] In 1938, he founded the Corgan firm that would go on to design over 350 movie theatres and over 70 drive-in theatres as well as the El Rancho hotel
in Gallup, New Mexico as well as a new terminal for Chicago’s Love Field in 1958. This terminal included the first commercial use of the moving walkway
in an airport. His firm would go on to design schools, aviation projects, government buildings and various other projects. In the late 1960s, Jack
Corgan also worked on the JFK Memorial in Dallas with architect Phillip Glass.
In the design for the Lee Theatre, Jack Corgan created a space that was modern and cost effective, while still maintaining the social boundaries of the era. Naylor indicates the trend was for “smallness and simplicity,” certainly compared to theaters of ages past.[24] In so doing, theaters presented a visual environment that reflected the progress of technology on display to the eyes and, importantly, the ears. This is true for the Lee Theater in its design and construction. As discussed in the article entitled “A Three-Point Objective in Modern Theatre Planning”, in the Modern Theatre Section of the Box Office, “the project in its entirety and particularly in its provision for the comfort and convenience of patrons stands out as a most worthy example of economical theater planning…”[25]
The Art Moderne and Art Deco styles grew out of the European expressionist designs of the immediate post-war period. These new styles focused on the aesthetics of speed and efficiency to represent underlying themes of a new post-world-war I modernity. It was thought by many designers that the best physical expression of this new modern understanding was in the sleek, often curved, streamlined forms of the Moderne style.[26] This Moderne style incorporated new construction techniques and simplified, curvilinear or geometrical forms to represent a future that would benefit from the unifying forces of new technologies and increased commerce.[27] The Modernistic style of Art Deco became a national vogue in 1922 after the Art Deco design proposal for the Chicago Tribune by Eliel Saarinen was widely publicized and applauded by architects across the county. The streamlining of the Art Moderne style followed during the 1930s with the influence of industrial designs, including ships, airplanes and automobiles. The most well-known early practitioner of this style was Norman Bel Geddes, who designed multiple projects in this style, including the Futurama Exhibit at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. This interactive exhibit brought the idea of the modern city, urban planning, streamlining, integration of modern conveniences and new construction techniques to the world stage in dramatic fashion.
The lack of construction of major architectural projects during the Depression years led to this new Moderne style finding expression in consumer products, store fronts, and interior decoration.[28] Movie theatres, however, were an exception to the building downturn during the 1930s. While many industries suffered, the movie industry used various methods of promotion to capitalize on their image as an escape from the day to day turmoil of the Great Depression. Throughout the 1930s, theatres continued to be built and often capitalized on the new Moderne aesthetic to promote their offerings as new and exciting.
The large expanse of decorative tile and stucco on the front façade, patterned tile bands, streamlined awnings, neon lighting, round windows all are characteristics of the Art Moderne designs of the period. On the interior, the aesthetic was continued with “three streamlined bands near the top of the walls in the auditorium which are formed of square sheet metal guttering and painted in a deep maroon.”[29]
Later History
Throughout the 1940s, the Lee Theatre was operated by Paramount Pictures, Inc. through their subsidiary, Ed Rowley. The theatre continued to show movies through the early 1950s. In 1957, the theatre was closed. During that same year, All Electric Supply, Inc. purchased the property and opened a new electrical supply business in the theatre.[30] All Electric Supply, Inc. continued to use the building for many years, until they moved to a new site in West Little Rock. This electric supply company continues to serve the area and is now under the management of a third generation of family ownership. After All Electrical Supply, Inc. vacated the building; the structure has been vacant and neglected for nearly 50 years. This has resulted in significant damage to the roof and interior of the structure.
The Lee Theater was one of eight properties placed on the list of Arkansas endangered properties for 2015 on May 14, 2015 by the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas.[31] According to the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas “the list of most endangered places is updated each year and serves to generate discussion and support for saving the state’s endangered historic places.”[32] Historic Preservation Alliance also adds that “there is a twin challenge to develop a plan that could make use of the Lee Theater structure in the context of the historic 12th Street district of Little Rock; and to find the funds and partnerships to carry the planning into place.” [33] The building is currently owned by BCD, Inc. of Little Rock, who have plans to work on the structure in the coming years and have been formulating a reuse plan for the property.
Statement of Significance
While damaged by neglect and the intrusion of elements due to a roof collapse, the Lee Theater maintains some integrity of its structural features and remains a significant example of segregated theater construction in Arkansas, which “represented an effort to design places that shaped the behavior of individuals and, thereby, managed contact between whites and blacks in general.”[34] Thus, given the fact that the Lee Theater is one of three former theaters remaining in Little Rock and the only theater that was built before WWII, the Lee Theater is being nominated to be placed on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion A for its association with the built environment of segregation that permeated the Jim Crow South prior to the Civil Rights movement.
Bibliography
“About.” corgan.com/about-corgan.
Arkansas Gazette. “New Firm Opens.” 31 May, 1958.
“A Three Point Objective in Modern Theater Planning.” Box Office, March 30, 1940.
Goldfield, David, ed. Encyclopedia of Urban American History. Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
Gomery, Douglas. Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.
Handlin, David. American Architecture. New York: Thames & Hudson. 2004. 210.
Jameson Architects, P.A. Letter to Rhea Roberts, Quapaw Quarter Association, Findings From Site Visit to the Lee Theater, November 4, 2014.
Kirk, John. “The History of the sit-in movement in Little Rock.” Arkansas Times. Feb. 2, 2012.
Kirk, John & Jess Porter, “The Roots of Little Rock’s Segregated Neighborhoods.” Arkansas Times. October, 2015.
McAlester, Virginia, and A. Lee McAlester. A Field Guide to American Houses: The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America's Domestic Architecture. First ed. Knopf, 1984.
Naylor, David. American Picture Palaces: The Architecture of Fantasy. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981.
Preserve Arkansas. (2015). Endangered Eight – Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas’s 2015 list of Arkansas’s Most Endangered Places, Retrieved from http://preservearkansas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2015-MEP-Press-Packet-WEB.pdf.
Regester, Charlene. “From the Buzzard’s Roost: Black Movie-going in Durham and Other North Carolina Cities during the Early Period of American Cinema.” Film History, vol. 17 (2005):113–124.
Scherer, Herbet. “Marquee on Main Street Jack Liebenberg's Movie Theaters: 1928-1941.” The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, vol. 1 (Spring 1986): 62-75.
Weyeneth, Robert R. “The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past.” The Public Historian 27, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 11-44.
[1] A Three Point Objective in Modern Theater Planning.” Box Office, March 30, 1940.Box Office, page 59.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Herbert Scherer, “Marquee on Main Street Jack Liebenberg's Movie Theaters: 1928-1941,” The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 1 (Spring 1986), 72.
[5] David Goldfield, ed., Encyclopedia of American Urban History (Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 499
[6] Gomery, Douglas. Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentations in the United States. University of Wisconsin Press, 1992, 156.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Robert Weyeneth, “The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past,” The Public Historian 27, no. 4 (Fall 2005): page 19.
[9] Charlene Regester, “From the Buzzard's Roost: Black Movie-Going in Durham and Other North Carolina Cities during the Early Period of American Cinema, Film History, Vol 17, No 1, pp 113-124,” page 113.
[10] A Three Point Objective in Modern Theater Planning.” Box Office, March 30, 1940.Box Office, page 59.
[11]A Three Point Objective in Modern Theater Planning.” Box Office, March 30, 1940.Box Office, page 58.
[12]Robert Weyeneth, “The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past,” The Public Historian 27, no. 4 (Fall 2005): page 19.
[13] Charlene B. Regester, “From the Buzzard's Roost: Black Movie-Going in Durham and Other North Carolina Cities during the Early Period of American Cinema”, Film History, Vol 17, No 1, pp 113-124,” page 114.
[14] Goldfield, ed., Encyclopedia of American Urban History, page 499.
[15] A Three Point Objective in Modern Theater Planning.” Box Office, March 30, 1940.Box Office, page 58.
[16] Ibid.
[17] “New Firm to Open,” Arkansas Gazette, May 31, 1958.
[18] John Kirk, “The History of the sit-in movement in Little Rock,” Arkansas Times, Feb. 2, 2012.
[19] Robert Weyeneth, “The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past,” The Public Historian 27, no. 4 (Fall 2005): page 38.
[20] John Kirk & Jess Porter, “The Roots of Little Rock’s Segregated Neighborhoods”, Arkansas Times, October, 2015.
[21] Robert Weyeneth, “The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past,” The Public Historian 27, no. 4 (Fall 2005): page 38.
[22] David Naylor, American Picture Palaces: The Architecture of Fantasy (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981), 172
[23] “About,” corgan.com/about-corgan/. Also see: corgan75.com.
[24] David Naylor, American Picture Palaces: The Architecture of Fantasy (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981), 172
[25] A Three Point Objective in Modern Theater Planning.” Box Office, The Modern Theater Section, March 30, 1940, page 59.
[26] McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses, 465-466.
[27] David Handlin, American Architecture, (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004), 210.
[28] Ibid. 211.
[29] “A Three Point Objective in Modern Theater Planning.” The Modern Theatre Section, Box Office, March 30, 1940, page 58.
[30] “New Firm to Open,” Arkansas Gazette, May 31, 1958.
[31] Preserve Arkansas. (2015). Endangered Eight – Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas’s 2015 list of Arkansas’s Most Endangered Places, Retrieved from http://preservearkansas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2015-MEP-Press-Packet-WEB.pdf.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Robert Weyeneth, “The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past,” The Public Historian 27, no. 4 (Fall 2005): page 13.