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Artist rendering of the redesigned Howard Theatre to open in 2010.
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It has been several decades since the music was last heard at the historic Howard Theatre. But the curtain is about to rise again at the too-long blighted corner of Sixth and T streets NW in Shaw. One of the city’s biggest and oldest live theaters, and one whose stage has welcomed many of the greatest performers of the 20th century, will turn 100 years old next year. To mark the Howard Theatre’s centennial, the Howard Restoration Group, partnering with the District government, is undertaking a complete renovation of the building. The newly redesigned and rebuilt structure is to include a sound stage, a performance hall that would accommodate 650 to 1,000 people for festival-style shows and also a restaurant.
Showtime at the Howard
The original theater, which opened Aug. 22, 1910, seated about 1,200. It featured a large, extravagant balcony, eight boxes and several dressing rooms. At the time, it was the largest and grandest theater built for African-Americans in the nation. The Howard Theatre pre-dates the Apollo Theater on 125th Street in Harlem, NY, by a few years. Washington, DC, was strictly segregated at the time the theater was built and for years to come. The Howard was one of the primary showplaces for blacks (and whites) in Washington for most of the 20th century until it closed, due largely to neglect, in the early 1970s.
While there were other theaters for African-Americans along neighboring U Street, known as “Black Broadway” in the early part of the 20th century, specifically the stretch between 14th Street to the west and Seventh Street to the east, only one theater remains. The Lincoln Theatre, which opened in 1924 as another live performance and movie hall, is located between 13th and 12th streets on U. It was renovated after being shut down for several decades and reopened 70 years after its debut, in 1994. However, the Lincoln’s two sister-theaters, the Republic and the Booker T, also formerly on U Street, were closed in the 1970s, never to reopen. The interior of the Lincoln Theatre is somewhat reminiscent of the original look of the Howard Theatre, according to photographs that remain.
“We have been chipping away at the stucco façade of the Howard to expose the original exterior,” which includes windows that most never knew existed, said Chip Ellis, president of Ellis Development, the organization working on the theater’s redo. His firm has been researching the original façade “so that the restoration can be true to the [J. Edward Storck] 1910 design but with updates to reflect the future of the theater and the neighborhood.”
The Howard Theatre is a big part of Washington’s past, Ellis observed, with such performers as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Pearly Bailey and the great Ella Fitzgerald taking the stage. In later years, James Brown and other R&B performers packed the house for years until it closed.
Bye-Bye Apollo
The challenge, according to Ellis is to mark and celebrate the history of the theater while seeing it as a “continuum.” “We want this place to last another 100 years,” he said, and to do that, it must remain relevant for a new time and a new generation. Though there is no trace of it now, a larger-than-life-sized statue of Apollo, the Greek and Roman god of the sun and the patron god of music, once stood atop the building and could be viewed from afar. In the age of Ragtime, Apollo played his lyre over the Shaw rooftops. But the statue is now long gone, and redesign plans call for a new statue.
Ellis envisions a statue of a jazz player who will light up the night with a blue glow. The statue, to be made of weather-resistant aluminum mesh, is to be illuminated so that it can be seen from miles away. “It is to be a signal that the Howard Theatre is alive and kicking,” according to Ellis. The old cement statue of Apollo could never give the same lively and inviting message, he commented.
Other changes will come to the building’s façade. The 1910 design was a mixture of beaux-arts, neo classical and Italian renaissance design, popular for theaters at the time. While the new design will certainly reflect the original, it, too, will have a more 21st-century look.
Derrick Woody, of the DC government’s Office of Planning, pointed out that the theater will be larger than its original footprint so that it can better encompass features like the soundstage and the restaurant. He also stated that the theater will offer educational programming.
Perhaps most important to the health and rebirth of the neighboring Shaw community is that the Howard Theatre, said Woody, will offer live performances six nights a week, according to current plans. While the Howard Theatre may be at the center of it all, literally, the Office of Planning is working with the redevelopment company to rebuild the entire block. That includes the T Street Flats and the new headquarters of Radio One, a national black-oriented radio conglomerate. Radio One is currently headquarted in Maryland. |
