THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 2, 1995 TAG: 9505020001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
Cab Calloway performed at the Attucks Theatre on Church Street. So did Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Dinah Washington and homegrown Gary U.S. Bonds.
Designed by black architect Harvey N. Johnson; built in 1919 on Church Street by a black business group; financed by two black banks; and named for Crispus Attucks, a black man who was the first American patriot killed by the British in the Boston Massacre - the elegant old 500-seat theater is rich in history and soul, but unused and crumbling.
Its renovation and reopening have been discussed and dreamed about nearly 20 years.
Now the citizens group Crispus Attucks Cultural Center Inc. and the city are forging ahead together.
At a Town Point Park festival earlier this month to promote public awareness of the Attucks Theatre campaign, Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim said, ``This really is at a high level of priority at the city.''
The mayor said the citizens group will get much the same deal Virginia Opera got in converting the Center Theater into the Harrison Opera House. The project supporters will raise half the cost, then the city will pay the rest.
A $25,000 state grant has gone to hire a coordinator for the project, Denise Christian. The estimated cost of the renovation is $2 million to $5 million.
According to a fund-raising brochure for the project, ``The renovated theatre will showcase an array of activities. . . . You will enjoy inspiring dramas, hilarious comedies, toe-tapping musicals, provocative visual art displays, historical and educational movies, enlightening workshops.''
The theater is just a block from the Brambleton Avenue site of the proposed 150-foot monument to Martin Luther King Jr.
One suggestion is that the $450,000 needed for the monument be used instead to endow an annual King lecture or arts festival at the Attucks. Music critic Mark Mobley wrote, ``This would keep the dream alive in ways bronze does not.''
A two-year Attucks Theatre fund drive is expected to begin by the end of this year, and it deserves public support. Someone said, ``You can't build old buildings.'' Yes, and you can't buy history. The best we can do is preserve. Certainly the richly historic and marvelously ornate Attucks Theatre deserves preservation. ILLUSTRATION: The Virginian-Pilot/Ledger-Star staff photo
The Attucks Theatre on Church Street
by CNB