2020.08.06 THROW BACK THURSDAY - THE HEIGHTS THEATER
THROW BACK THURSDAY - THE HEIGHTS THEATER
and Class News
This is a piece on the old Heights Theater. I know several of you have mentioned to me that you worked at the Heights during high school days. I was a Lee Theatre devotee every Saturday for the weekly serials and then the cowboy movie.
A man named George Wells saved the Heights building from demolition. Those still living in the Heights wish he's teach the idea of preservation to the developers who are destroying the history of the Heights and Hillcrest everyday.
The Heights Theater
"the height of childhood entertainment"
Rising above Zaza’s restaurant and Feinstein’s clothing store, and towering over the Heights neighborhood at Kavanaugh and Taylor Street is a tall lighted sign with blue letters spelling “Heights.” It is the symbol of our neighborhood... our St Louis Arch!
...but why do those who have lived here many years refer to this as the “Heights Theater”?
When the huge Forest Park and it’s successor “White City” park and swimming pool were demolished by developers for more Heights housing in 1939, the swath at Kavanaugh and Taylor was left undeveloped. In 1945, architect Edwin B. Cromwell received a call from Ed Rowley, the Dallas owner of a chain of movie theaters. Mr. Cromwell recalled in a 1985 interview, “Rowley said he wanted to build a theater in the Heights. He came to town and after three hours of our driving around, he pointed to the Kavanaugh site and said, ‘That’s it!’ ” Cromwell was hired as designer, and he created a sleek, modern 850 seat theater in the Art Moderne style. He explained that his theater design offered the first “reverse curve” theater floor. Instead of the floor sloping down to the screen to enhance sight lines, the stage and the lobby were at the same level and the floor made a slight decline before rising again toward the stage.
Cromwell convinced Rowley to accept his proposal to make the theater a “geography lesson for theater-goers” by including a huge and dazzling map of Arkansas encompassing the entire terrazzo lobby floor, which showed major cities and symbols of each area of the state - cotton, rice, state capitol, Arkansas River, etc. The theater opened on October 6, 1946, with a performance by actress Gene Tierney in “Leave it to Heaven,” importantly accompanied by the Bugs Bunny cartoon, “The Wild Hare.”
The Heights Theater became a gathering place, a landmark, a home away from home for Little Rock kids. Ralph Patterson, whose family owned the Arkansas Gazette, described the Heights as “the scene of more incredibly nervous elementary school ‘first dates’ than any place in Little Rock.” There were Saturday matinee’s with serials like “The Mark of Zorro” and “The Lone Ranger and Tonto.” Former Governor and Congressman Jim Guy Tucker (Carol Lee Tucker's brother) lived nearby and remembers paying 14 cents for entry and watching John Wayne and cowboy and Indian movies. He sums up the whole experience, by saying, “The Heights was the height of childhood entertainment.”
By the 1980s multi-screen theaters had made venues like the Heights unprofitable and prominent real estate developer George Wells of Flake and Company (Dickson Flake) heard a rumor it was to close. “A light-bulb went off, and I was on a plane the next day to meet with the Dallas owners,” Wells explains. He was armed with a plan to buy, preserve and repurpose the theater as a series of commercial businesses and so it successfully remains today. He was firm in adding, “I never considered tearing it down.”
The final film at the Heights was appropriately “The Last Picture Show” on September 8, 1985. Hats off to George Wells, a visionary, for recognizing the value of preserving the history of the Heights.
CLASS NEWS
And speaking of the Heights, I got to see one of our favorite "Heights people". I think some of you know I am working AGAIN (tried retiring three times, nothing works!) and I work for an elder law attorney. So here comes Sandra McEwen and her wonderful daughter, Shanon. Shanon takes such good care of Sandra, who still ALWAYS has a smile on her face! Ed took our picture and I'll try to paste it here. Bogie, this is for you!
Our sympathy to PAT MULLINS. She lost her sister last week. Her sister was almost 100 years old! I need someone's grandchild here right now to figure out what in the world I have done. Think posting this picture has screwed something up. Oh well! See you next week with the August birthdays that I intended to post today. Just missed Martha Hopkins that was yesterday.
ML