20 C i t I 34 S p r i n g 1 9 9 6 C • I 3 4 S p ' • wn\p \m* M ik % ^ Sww bin k youthful extra imports loke flake; covering the tldewolk in front ol Jonej Hall, jtonding in for Lincoln Ctnler during the filming of lorry McMuitry's ir*mgStm. Y e xe> _ fa fa | The Houston Theater District DREXEL T U R N E R IT IS A STRANGE THINCR THE LIKE OF WHICH, I THINK WILL OCCUR TO ONE N HARDLY ANYWHERE ELSE THAN IN TEXASR TO HEAR TEAMSTERS WITH THEIR CA TTLE STAKED AROUND THEM ON THEPRAIRIER HUMMING AIRS FROM "DON CIOYANNIn. Frederick Law Olmsted, New-York Daily Times, 24 April 1854 21 Mnjeslk Thtol! r Mouron I Russell, architects, 1911. When I redcnck law Olmsted, rhen a 12- Camp Logan d u r i n g the First W o r l d W a r . season in the Music H a l l in 1955), the year-old jonnialisr, visited I louston on In the early 1950s my parents watched I louston Ballet Foundation , and the rIn return leg of his journey through the t o u r i n g c o m p a n y of South Pacific in Society for the Performing Arts (SPA), Texas in spring IK54, he observed that un-air-conditioned c o m f o r t in the a u d i t o - a n o n p r o f i t presenter f o r m e d to fill the the town of not yet 5,000 showed "many rium, w h i c h was also the site of Friday gap left by the death of the impresaria agreeable signs o f . wealth accumulat- night wrestling matches. Edna B. Saunders, w h o for many years ed, in homelike, retired residences, its The symphony next moved to the air- was Houston's answer (telephonically as large and good hotel, its well supplied conditioned M u s i c H a l l (Alfred C. F i n n , well as figuratively) to Sol 1 l u r o k . shops, and its shaded streets." Among its 1937), a Public W o r k s Administratio n The functional characteristics of cultural assets he counted "several neat project w i t h a face only a commissar Jones I lall were determined by the churches, a theatre (within the walls of a could love. Built in tandem w i t h the theater consultant George Iz.enour; its City Auditorium, Mauran, Russell I Crowtll, architects, 1913. steam saw-mill), and a most remarkable Sam Flouston C o l i s e u m , it shared a c o n - design, otherwise the w o r k of Charles E. number of showy bar-rooms and gam- necting proscenium w i t h the Coliseum Lawrence of Caudill R o w l e t t Scott, was 1 bling saloons." Today the prim churches as a concession to theatrical Calvinism. schematically not u n l i k e Le Corhusier's have been reborn as suburban tabernacles The Music H a l l was remodeled in 1955 hall for the Palace of Assembly at umiiii the size of sports arenas; the showy bar- with the addition of a fan-shaped lobby, Chandigarh (1956). T h e exterior also rooms have multiplied and migrated, also wedge-shaped auxiliary seating areas on displayed an inadvertent 19.50s Italian much enlarged, to the outside-the-l.oop either side, and a one-way stage by iinn lass.ii .il : itioualisl finesse, .is com forum of Richmond Avenue; and the I l e r m o n L l o y d and W, B. M o r g a n . So parison w i t h Giuseppe Vacarro's T o w n converted sawmill has given way, on the improved, it persisted as the city's venue Center Savings Bank for the t o w n of Son Houston Coliseum and Music Hall Alfred C Finn, ordiilecl, south side ol the downtown bend in ot choice or default t h r o u g h most of my Lugo (1935) discloses. Like its c o n t e m p o - 1937. Buffalo Bayou, to what is said to be the childhood. My parents eventually took rary, the A s t r o d o m e , Jones H a l l was a second greatest concentration of theater me there to see a road c o m p a n y perfor- variable-configuration novelty, although, that double d in its p r o m o t e r s ' dreams and performing arts seats in the United mance of My Idtr l.itdy complete w i t h unlike the D o m e , variation was achieved as the N a t i o n a l Space H a l l of Fame. States - Mi,Sill In actual count. revolving sets; on other nights, L e o p o l d by " s t o p p i n g d o w n " the size of the Not only was the convention center t o o Stokowski presided over the I louston interior to a mere !,S()() seals tor greater The Theater District is a conspicuous small to be viable the day it opened, it Symphony in his post-Philadelphia d i m i n - uitimao h\ means i 'I an elaborate!* if still somewhat disjointed sign of wealth was sutliciently hemmed in to preclude uendo. N e x t d o o r , the Coliseum served counterweighted, t h o u g h rarely used, accumulated and invested on behalf of an expansion except by spanning Buffalo up rodeos, revivals, wrestling matches, movable celling. audience no longer primarily composed of Bayou, as the farmer's market that once and, on the F o u r th of July 1962 — as cattle. After a false start in 1 K90 when the As .in accessory to Jones ] lall and the occupied part of its sire had managed to Tom W o l f e relates in The Right Stuff— Sweeney and Coombs Opera House (and aesthetically challenged Albert T h o m a s do. Albert T h o m a s was vacated upon 30 barbecued animals to the seven nlhce huildmgl opened on the west side Convention Center one block west completion of the George R. B r o w n Mercury astronauts and a thundering ot Courthouse Square, (he cin \ perform- it .liulill Rowlett Scott, 196S), the city Convention Center on the east side of horde of " 5 , 0 0 0 businessmen, politicians ing arts organizations have tended to also buili a three-level, 1,750-car under- downtown in 1987, only later to become and their belter halves, fresh f r o m the gravitate toward the right angle in the ground p a r k i n g garage lodged beneath the unlikely object of one o f the most horrors of d o w n t o w n in J u l y . " ' Also on bayou, which, at the rum of the century, the convention center and a residual one- costly preservation efforts ever contem- the menu was the I.in dancing ot sexage- also included a farmer's market, a small block " p l a z a " separating Jones H a l l and plated w i t h i n the city limits. i V u hotel w i t h an open c o u r t y a r d (the Brazos ii.u i.m .Sally Rand, then regularly engaged the convention center. Jones 1 lall Plaza The Alley Theatre, a small but accom- Court), and several breweries ( M a g n o l i a , in stretching the envelope ot occupational (also designed by CRS) featured an a w k plished repertory company formed in American) that flourished until Prohibi- age discriminatio n at the Stork C l u b on ward truncated p y r a m i d m o u n t e d on 1947, for years made do in a converted tion intervened. The H o u s t o n Symphony I e\as Avenue. some sides by backward-sloping steps and electric-fan factory on Berry Street across offered its first concert on 11 June 1913 The l.OOO-seat Jesse H. (ones H a l l , topped w i t h lollipop-sized trees in a not from a pink-tableclorhed trattoria called in the original Majestic, later Palace, sin it-homed n a t n i i i e former site of the very c o n v i n c i n g attempt to disguise t w o Portofino, an early and symbiotically Theater on Texas Avenue ( M a u r a n is: C it\ A u d i t o r i u m in travertine-clad splen- double-lane entrance ramps to the p a r k i n g positioned outpost of valet p a r k i n g in the Russell, 191 I ) , a vaudeville house that dor by C a u d i l l Rowleti Scott, replaced below. T h e convention center followe d a City. In I96S the A l i o moved d o w n t o w n was first bridged over, then eventually lire M u s i c I lall as the city's premiere footprint promulgated by the econometri - into striking it i m p r o b a b l y castellated swallowed up by the expansion ot the venue in 1966.