One of the landmarks of African-American filmmaking, music, and theater will be saved—just months after landing on LPCI’s list of the Ten Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois for 2006. The Chicago Plan Commission in May approved a development proposal by De La Salle Institute that includes the reuse of the historic Pickford Theater at 35th & Michigan. The structure, which dates to 1912, includes a clear-span, steel-truss roof, the original movie screen wall, plaster details and proscenium arch.

Plans are to convert the brick structure to a 300-seat auditorium for De La Salle, a
Catholic high school located across the street. The Pickford is the only surviving theater from the famous Bronzeville-Black Metropolis entertainment district, which thrived along 35th Street during the first decades of the 20th century. Many notable musicians conducted the Pickford’s in-house band, including Capt. Walter Dyett, Erskine Tate, and Will Tyler.

It also was the showcase for early silent movies produced by pioneering black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. Most Chicago theaters had banned his movies, which were forthright in tackling racial injustice, such as Within Our Gates (1920). In the late 1960s, the theater (later renamed the Louis) became the home of the South Side Center for the Performing Arts, founded by noted black playwright Theodore Ward.

The theater space recently had been used as a garage and car wash. Several years ago, the theater building and an accompanying L-shaped, terra cotta-clad commercial structure were acquired by the City of Chicago. The vacant two-story office building, which is of wood-frame construction, is scheduled to be demolished for a new 90,000 square-foot classroom building, which will wrap around the historic theater building. Both properties will be purchased by De La Salle.

“We applaud De La Salle—and its architects—for their creativity and willingness to reevaluate their plans and to incorporate this historic structure,” said LPCI President David Bahlman. “This once again demonstrates the value of the Ten Most List in highlighting threatened resources and in finding ways to convert them for new uses.” On behalf of LPCI, Wiss Janney Elstner & Associates has provided pro bono engineering
services to the project.

 

Contributions   Contributions toward the project can be made to De La Salle, 3455 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, IL 60616. (Attention: Brother Michael Quirk, Pickford Theatre Project).