“It’s ornate, it’s got beautiful tilework,” says Eleanor Truex, who lives in Flossmoor and occasionally, when traffic is bad, gets off the expressway and drives past the old Avalon Regal Theater, which was built in the 1920s as an eclectic entertainment venue.
This theater has had many names and many incarnations. It opened with live performances, but less than a decade later, shifted to mostly showing films.
Later, it became a church — before coming full circle as a live performing space in the 1980s and 1990s, hosting mostly African American artists, including Ray Charles, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Patti LaBelle and Tupac.
The Avalon Regal Theater closed to the public in 2003 for reasons including low attendance and high maintenance costs.
Since then, there have been a few notable events in the theater, like President Barack Obama’s first Election Night presidential victory celebration. And it’s a regular stop on the Chicago Architecture Center’s annual Open House Chicago tours.
Several owners have tried to restore the building to its past grandeur, including its current owner, Jerald Gary of Community Capital Investment. Gary’s dream is to transform the space into a hub of art and culture on 79th Street.
“I’m taken aback every time I enter the building, and I notice something new every time I walk in to the building,” says Gary, who grew up near the theater.
But getting the Avalon Regal to reopen has been a real saga. His ownership of the theater is hanging by a thread.
‘Atmospheric’ design
Built in 1927, the theater was originally called the Avalon Theater. Architect John Eberson, a leader of “atmospheric” theater style, designed the building to make people feel like they were immersed in a magical place. It was inspired by something he found at an antique store.
“He comes across an incense burner from Persia, and he’s looking at this intricate metal work and all of the geometry and detail in this artifact,” says Adam Rubin, director of interpretation at the Chicago Architecture Center. “That was part of the inspiration.”
The floor-to-ceiling mosaics and decorative latticework offer glamorous touches. The ceiling in the main lobby looks like a flying carpet with embedded colorful rocks that sparkle, giving people the impression they are on a movie set.
“It’s kind of something that has a kitsch factor before we use the term kitsch factor,” Rubin says.
The auditorium, where the main stage is, has about 2,300 velvet seats in rows across the first floor and balcony. The awning above the stage evokes a circus tent, giving people the impression they are camped out under the stars.
When Eberson was designing the building, people were moving to big cities like Chicago from the South and Europe. The surrounding area was predominantly German, Swedish and Irish.
Rubin says that Americans who fought in Europe in World War I had seen the destruction of Gothic churches and other historic architecture and that creating theaters like the Avalon was, in part, a way for architects and builders to process trauma from the war.
From animal acts to Westerns (1920s-1960s)
“Because the big theaters were so important, the major companies made them opulent to attract patrons, not simply through the films being shown but through the promise of an exciting moviegoing experience,” Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell write in their book “Film History: An Introduction.”“The architecture of the picture palaces gave working- and middle-class patrons an unaccustomed taste of luxury.”
According to advertisements in the Chicago Daily Tribune, the theater showed films and live performances in its early years. An ad from 1929 announced a screening of the Western film “In Old Arizona,” with stage performances by singer Roy Detrich and vaudeville performer Charlie Crafts.
In 1935, the theater hosted vaudeville entertainer “Little Jackie” Heller, an animal act featuring Proske’s Royal Bengal Tigers and a screening of the film “Imitation of Life” starring Lana Turner, according to an ad.
By the 1940s, the theater shifted almost exclusively to showing movies, from musical comedies to adventure war films.
Regal rebirth (1980s-2000s)
After a brief stint as a church in the early 1980s, the theater took on a new life once again.
That’s when Soft Sheen business owners Edward Gardner and Bettiann Gardner bought it and poured money into the theater to revive it as a cultural gathering space. The neighborhood around 79th Street then was largely African American.
“We spent a lot of money there, but it was to bring art entertainment into the inner city,” Edward Gardner said in a 1993 interview archived by The History Makers website. “It’s certainly not a money-maker.”
The Gardners renamed the venue the New Regal Theater in honor of a popular music spot in Bronzeville that had been torn down. The building was designated a Chicago landmark in 1992.
Robert Howell, who is in his 50s and is the theater’s current caretaker, grew up in this area and remembers the thrill of attending events there, including seeing Tyler Perry and George Clinton perform.
“Every time we came here was a new adventure,” Howell says. “Every time I came here was somebody iconic that I wanted to see.”
After 18 years of live shows, the Gardners closed the theater in 2003. Attendance had been dwindling for years as people moved away from the neighborhood and businesses closed. Since then, the building largely has sat dormant.
Uncertain future
Jerald Gary has been on a mission to reopen the Avalon Regal Theater since he purchased it for $100,000 in 2014. He says he believes the closing of the theater played a big role in the decline of the neighborhood.
“The area was bustling when the theater was open,” he says. “As you can imagine, there were a number of different businesses that rely on the building being in operation. And, at this time on the block, the only business that is open is a liquor store.”
Gary’s vision is to help turn 79th Street into a version of Beale Street, the entertainment district in Memphis known as the home of the blues. He wants the theater to be an arts community center.
But buying the building and dreaming about the possibilities is the easy part.
Gary has been tackling issues including renovations, repairs and meeting building code requirements.
It’s a lot more difficult to restore an old theater than it is to build a new one, says Jerry Mickelson, who runs the Riviera and Vic theaters. Mickelson has been trying for years to reopen the Uptown Theatre, a 1920s jewel.
In general, rehabbing old theaters is complicated, Mickelson says. First, there are all of the costs for electrical, plumbing, elevators, air conditioning and heat. Then comes the city’s permitting process. And then you have to raise all of the money, he says.
“It’s very expensive,” Mickelson says. “I just spent last year $5 million on the Riviera Theatre to do some work, and I’m not done.”
Gary has had a similar experience at the Avalon Regal Theater. He’s been working to raise money for years with some success, including getting about $600,000 from rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. He’s also received federal money under the Payment Protection Program and rental fees from production companies that have filmed there.
But he says that isn’t enough to pay for upkeep or the investments the building requires. Also, he owes about $650,000 to Cook County in back property taxes, with a payment due in March to avoid the possibility of losing the building.
He says funding is difficult to get, especially in predominantly Black neighborhoods.
“I think the stigma is … a negative perception that people have on investing in Black communities, except for Black people themselves,” Gary says. “And even, at times, there are folks who live in the community that, because of the despair they see … and all of the boarded-up businesses, want to give up.”
The corridor on 79th Street that Gary wants to help revitalize has been selected by the city as an area for investment. But that hasn’t proved to be a boon to the theater. The city has turned down several applications from Gary for assistance.
Peter Strazzabosco, deputy commissioner of the city Department of Planning and Development, says, “Priority is given to proposals that demonstrate a high level of project readiness, ownership experience, private financing and other factors.”
Mickelson says there should be more support for old theaters like the Avalon Regal.
“Our buildings are the art that we’re trying to preserve,” Mickelson says. “And it’s not art hanging on a wall. It’s art in a ceiling, it’s art in a floor. It’s art in the way the washrooms are designed. It’s art in any aspect of these beautiful, old movie palaces.”
