Grace Street Theater
934 West Grace Street, Richmond, Virginia
Seventy Years of Film and Dance
From the Lee Theatre, shown here in 1937, to the Lee Art Theatre, mid-1970s, to today's VCU Grace Street Theater, late 1990s
Virginia Commonwealth University's Grace Street Theater at 934 West Grace Street is a little known but successful example of renovation and adaptive use of a historic property. The building originally opened in 1935 as the Lee Theatre, a neighborhood movie theater showing second-run films. It served for a brief period in the late 1950s/early 1960s as an art house theater. In 1965 it became known as the Lee Art Theatre and began presenting adult films along with burlesque style dancers. VCU purchased the property in 1993 and after extensive renovations the building re-opened in 1996 as VCU's Grace Street Theater. The theater is now the primary performing venue for VCU's Department of Dance and Choreography which operates the building and the box office. VCU's Department of Art History also uses the building for many of its classes. In addition to its University uses, the 225 seat theater is available to the Richmond community to rent for films, lectures, and other events. This online exhibit commemorates the 70th anniversary of the 1935 opening of the theater with a timeline history using numerous resources housed in VCU Libraries' Special Collections and Archives. For questions or comments, email Special Collections and Archives.
Grace Street Theater Timeline
Click on each image for a larger view.
1934: The Owners.
In the October 17, 1934 issue of the Richmond Times-Dispatch a small article appeared entitled Theatre Chain to Build Movie On Grace Street - Wilmer and Vincent Lease Property in 900 Block for Neighborhood House. The theater would be owned and operated jointly by Loew's and by [Sidney T.] Wilmer and [Walter] Vincent."Downtown theatres are profitable and neighborhood theatres are also profitable," said Vincent in the article. Neighborhood theatre patrons "are repeaters, persons who see a movie the second time at reduced prices." The second run movie theater was to have a seating capacity of about 700 which corresponds with the figure cited in the 1940 Film Daily Yearbook. [If that figure is correct, the seating capacity of today's Grace Street Theater at 225 seats has been greatly reduced.] Wilmer and Vincent owned or controlled the bookings of most of the major theaters in Richmond by 1926, including the Lee Theatre (1935); the Colonial Theatre, 714 East Broad Street; the National, 704 East Broad Street; the Bijou, 810 East Broad Street, and the Carillion, 2820 West Cary Street.
The theater was commissioned by Dr. William F. Grigg (1883-1949) whose offices in the 1930s were located on the 900 block of West Grace Street and who lived on the 800 block of West Franklin Street. Dr. Grigg was a 1909 graduate of the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) where he briefly served as an instructor in orthopedic surgery during the World War I era. Born in Jarret, Virginia on November 30, 1883, Dr. Grigg was a member of St. James's Episcopal Church located at 1205 West Franklin Street and served on the Board of the Beaumont School for Boys. He had a son who was also a physician who graduated from MCV in 1942. Dr. Grigg died in Richmond on November 29, 1949 and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery.
1935: The Architect and the Design of the Theater.
The Lee Theatre building was designed in the Art Deco style by Richmond architect Henry Carl Messerschmidt (c.1891-1994). Messerschmidt graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1915 and practiced architecture in Richmond from 1915 through 1958. He designed a large variety of structures, including banks, church buildings, factories, office buildings, residences, and stores. He died in Richmond at the age of 103 on January 10, 1994.
Image of 208 East Grace Street (left and center), and 111 East Grace Street.
Click on each image for a larger view.In addition to the Lee Theatre, several of Messerschmidt's Art Deco style buildings have survived, including 208 East Grace Street, built in 1930. Architectural historian Robert P. Winthrop writes in Architecture in Downtown Richmond (1982) that Messerschmidt, in 208 East Grace Street, "created a jewel of architectural ornamentation. No other small building in the city has such a lavish display of sculpted decoration." 208 East Grace Street is a two story building with elaborate decoration in cut stone. It includes a motif of grape vines over the front central doorway and stylized foliate panels with geometric borders on the buildings's facade. Drawings for the building by Messerschmidt are housed at the Library of Virginia.
The building at 111 East Grace Street, also built in 1930, is attributed by Winthrop to Messerschmidt [most likely because of the building's similarity to 208 East Grace Street]. Built for the Investment Realty Company, 111 East Grace Street is known today as the Perly's Delicatessen restaurant. Its facade has wonderful ornamentation, including a border of "S" scrolls and rosettes.
In addition to the Lee Theatre, Messerschmidt designed at least two other Richmond movie theater buildings: The Bellevue Theatre, 4026 MacCarthur (formerly Rappahannock) Avenue, which opened in 1937 and closed in 1965, and had 622 seats; and the East End Theatre, 418 North 25th Street, which opened in 1938 and closed in 1970, and had 850 seats. As of 2005, both theater buildings were still standing.
The Lee Theatre was a more subtle variation of Art Deco compared to Messerschmidt's work on 208 East Grace Street. The Lee Theatre's dark brick facade and two story height blended well with the surrounding architecture of the 900 block of West Grace Street where most of the residences were made of brick and brownstone but the building still contained strong Art Deco elements. Messerschmidt used vertical bands of glazed brick in alternating shades of red, yellow, and gold to create a soaring facade that makes the two story building look much more imposing. The bands end in a staggered, tiered roof line called a ziggurat -- a terraced pyramid with each story smaller than the one below it. Once capped in aluminum, the Lee Theatre's ziggurat roof line, is a modified version of those found on some of the most famous Art Deco skyscrapers. The building had three window openings located just above the theater marquee, each bordered by a band of dark bricks. The outline of the windows can be seen today.
The ticket booth originally sat in front of the building's entrance. The entrance was composed of four double glass doors -- each had a simple Art Deco design. The lobby and entrance floor (up to the sidewalk) was covered with ceramic mosaic tile.
Inside the building the theater's film screen was surrounded with a plaster zigzag border motif. Other geometrical plaster designs and Art Deco style light sconces adorned the walls.
Published accounts indicated that the Lee Theatre had a seating capacity of 700 seats. The seats were purchased from the Irwin Seating Co., of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The company still exists and its 1930s logo can be seen on the bottom of the theater's seats.
The sconces and the seats were restored in the early 1990s after VCU purchased the building.
The three blueprint images shown here are from the Library of Virginia. See their Richmond, Virginia Bureau of Permits and Inspections Collection.
October 13, 1935: Lee Theatre Opens.
Named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the Lee Theatre opened on Sunday, October 13, 1935. The theater began as a second run movie house showing MGM films that had previously played at the Loew's Richmond Theatre, now the Carpenter Center. The main feature that October night was MGM's "China Seas" starring Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Berry, and Rosalind Russell. It was preceded by three shorts, "Metro Goldwyn News," "Sporting Nuts," and the MGM cartoon "Poor Little Me."The Lee Theatre, 1937, image from the Photograph Collection, VCU Libraries, Special Collections and Archives.
The image can be dated by the film seen in the marquee - "The Plainsman", starring Gary Cooper. The image shows the original ticket booth and a rare view of the house to the east of the theater that was demolished. That space now serves as a walkway to the VCU Bookstore.
The opening night program from the Richard Lee Bland Collection of Richmond Memorabilia, 1880s-1990s, housed in Special Collections and Archives. The program included the following dedication:
For more than twenty years, we have been continuously catering to the amusement-loving public of this community. You have given us generously of your patronage; but for you, we could not have succeeded. Our appreciation goes out to you in full measure. Your LEE THEATRE is built entirely in anticipation of scientific entertainment ... miracles of the present and future ... talking pictures ... and other developments, future generations will know and enjoy.
We believe your Theatre to be the ultimate in luxury, comfort, safety and modernity. We pledge you that we shall, to the utmost of our ability, give you the best there is in entertainment and at moderate family prices.
In your service, we have built this Theatre, and we dedicate it to you. It is yours!
In this spirit, we bid you
in the hope that here you may find happiness, relaxation and joy--
Next Week
Every WeekWilmer and Vincent.
1930s/1940s: Neighborhood Theatre.
Click on each image for a larger view.
Lee Theatre program, July 1939, from the Kathy Fuller-Seeley Collection of
Richmond, Virginia Film Theater History, Special Collections and Archives.Many Americans in the 1930s and 1940s went to the movies more than once a week. Neighborhood second run theaters such as the Lee Theatre offered lower admissions and changed their films three times a week. Weekly programs like the one above were mailed to the Lee's customers informing them of upcoming films.
Lee Theatre program, September 1939, from the Kathy Fuller-Seeley Collection of
Richmond, Virginia Film Theater History, Special Collections and Archives.
The Lee Theatre was a second-run movie theater and showed a variety of films in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s -- comedies, dramas, and musicals all made their way to the theater.
1940s-early 1960s: From Neighborhood Theater to Art House Theater.
Click on each image for a larger view.
This is a portion of "Grace Street from Gladdings," a 1951 oil-on-canvas painting by artist and founder of the VCU School of Arts Theresa Pollak. The view is from Jane B. Gladding's apartment at 925 West Grace Street across the street from the Lee Theatre. Gladding, for whom VCU's Gladding Residence Center is named for, was an instructor in chemistry in 1951 at Richmond Professional Institute (now VCU). In the 1960s she was Dean of Women at the school. The painting is from the collection of VCU's Anderson Gallery.
By the 1920s and 1930a, the 900 block of West Grace Street was becoming a business district with various shops, small grocery stores, and restaurants. The block was originally developed in the 1890s/1900s as a mostly upper middle class neighborhood with many of the buildings built as variations of the Richardsonian style popular at the time. Prominent in the painting by Pollak is the sign for Ray's 5¢ & 10¢ Store at 927 West Grace Street [see the advertisements for the store in the Lee Theatre bulletin images above] -- where Plaza Artists Materials of Richmond is now located.
A rare interior view of the Lee Theatre lobby from the Photograph Collection in Special Collections and Archives. Shown here are Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) students at the Lee Theatre, 1948. Like many movie theaters at the time, the Lee Theatre had doorman and ushers.
Movie theaters in Richmond were segregated by race until 1963. Dr. Ed Peeples, a long time Richmond resident, does remember seeing what he described as one of the first inter-racial audiences at a Richmond movie theater at the Lee Theatre in the late 1950s.
"It was the first public film location in Richmond which I can recall where a racially mixed audience was able to assemble (late 50s) to see a film on the need for racial justice, perhaps the first action of Moral Rearmament in Richmond, which in this day is Hope in the Cities. I remember well J. L. Blair Buck, a courageous moderate force for racial sanity, especially in education. He got us this film to see." -- Dr. Ed Peeples, 2005.In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Lee Theatre was the place in Richmond to view many of the art films (including some foreign films) that came to the city. It must be emphasized that during this time period it was not strictly an art film theater. Popular films still played the theater. It was not until 1963 that the Lee was showing almost exclusively "art" films. From newspaper advertisements we know that films shown at the Lee in April and May of 1963 included "Swan Lake," "Othello," "Hamlet," and "Great Expectations." The last film to play at the Lee Theatre was "Carry On Teacher," an English comedy released in 1959 which played for nearly a week in the middle of May 1963. It was not until September of 1965 that it re-opened as the Lee Art Theatre.
1965 to early 1990s: The Lee Art Theatre
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- Richmond's Adult XXX Movie Theatre
and Burlesque Dancing.
"Top cinematic news this week is the reopening of the Lee as an art film house," wrote Alton Williams, the Amusements Editor for the Richmond News Leader in the September 1, 1965 issue."The building has had a much-needed face lifting with paint and trim, a new projection machine and a larger screen have been installed, and the house opens today for business.
"Just what the eventual booking policy will be most likely will be determined by the box office. If Richmond audiences savor the art and literature films, it is quite likely they'll be booked. If the taste doesn't run quite so high, then the management, of necessity, will be forced to cater to a larger audience with lesser films." [Emphasis added].
Williams went on to praise the two films that were re-opening the new Lee Art Theatre that day. The News-Leader advertisement for the films, shown here on the right, mentioned that the films were "Adult." Apparently the management was "forced to cater to a larger audience with lesser films" because as the months went by the films shown at the new Lee Art Theatre were exclusively all "Adult." By 1968, when the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) instituted its movie rating system, X-rated films at the Lee Art Theatre were its drawing card.
The Lee Art Theatre made history in a U.S. Supreme Court case entitled LEE ART THEATRE v. VIRGINIA, 392 U.S. 636 (1968). The Supreme Court overturned a lower state court decision that had convicted the owners of the theater of "possessing and exhibiting lewd and obscene motion pictures." The Court wrote that the warrant originally issued to seize the films "fell short of constitutional requirements." X-rated films continued at the Lee Art and by 1971 it was billing itself as "Richmond's First Adult Theatre."
By 1975, the Lee Art Theatre was offering burlesque style dancing and stripping to its movie clientele on a stage built in front of the screen. While X-rated films ran almost continuously at the Lee Art, dancers performed three or four times a day. Jerri Carr, shown here on the right in a 1975 image outside the Lee Art Theatre, was one of hundreds of dancers who performed at the theater. A Richmond newspaper account from 1993 mentioned such headliners as "Chesty Morgan, Busty Russell, Candy Samples, Tank Tianna, and Annie Sprinkles" who either danced or made appearances at the theater.
The Lee Art Theatre shown here ca. 1975 in its heyday as Richmond's premier X-rated movie and stripper theater. By 1993, patrons of the Lee Art Theatre paid $10.00 to see films that played continuously for nearly 14 hours. Dancers would perform every few hours.
By the mid-1980s, millions of Americans had VCRs and the porn industry was repositioning itself to the home video market. With audiences dwindling, the days of porn theater like Richmond's Lee Art Theatre were about to end.
May 28, 1993: The Lee Art Closes.
Click on each image for a larger view.
By the end of its run, the Lee Art Theatre was showing VHS video tapes instead of films. The theater would photocopy the x-rated video boxes and tape the copies to colorful boards on either side of the building's entrance. One of the boards was transferred to Special Collections and Archives soon after the theater closed complete with the photocopies from the last two films to play there, "Three's a Crowd" (seen on the left) and "Search for Pink October" (on the right). The Lee Art Theatre closed its doors on May 28, 1993.
A Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper account dated May 29, 1993:
Yesterday was curtains for the Lee Art. Richmond's last porno theater lost its lease and closed after the 11 p.m. show.
The final performance was raucous, with Miss Regan [Misty Regan, the last stripper to dance at the Lee Art] doing pushups over some customers and leaping into the laps of others. The crowd barked Arsenio Hall-style and threw dollar bills.
The newspaper account noted, not altogether accurately, that the owner of the theater, Eli Jackson, was "a showman who says he once had 20 burlesque houses in a dozen states, bought the place 31 years ago and has shown adult fare ever since."
Virginia Commonwealth University began acquiring properties on the 900 block of West Grace Street in the late 1980s. It had already purchased a building next door to the theater which became the headquarters for the campus police. The theater building was purchased in late 1993 by the University ending one phase of the theater's existence and beginning another.
1993-1996: VCU purchases the Lee Art Theatre
- Renovation of the Building
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1994 drawing by the firm of Glave, Newman, Anderson & Associates, Inc., the Richmond architectural firm
that performed much of the re-design and reconstruction, working closely with VCU's Planning and Design office.
These images from 1993/1994 show the interior of the theater as it was the University purchased it. On the left one can see the seats, screen, and the stage built for the dancers. The light from the sconces on the walls can also be seen. This view of the theater along with a 1994 interior architectural drawing puts the number of seats original to the Lee Theatre at about 500 seats. This belies the figure of 700 seats cited in both a 1934 Richmond newspaper article or the 1940 Film Daily Yearbook. Further research may provide the exact number of original seats. Either way, Grace Street Theater's current seating at 225 seats has been greatly reduced from the Lee Theatre's original seating capacity.
On the left is a view of the back of the theater showing a close-up view of the seats manufactured by the Irwin Seating Co., of Grand Rapids, Michigan and first installed in 1935.
Renovations began soon after the theater closed. The Richmond firm of Glave, Newman, Anderson & Associates, Inc. performed much of the re-design and reconstruction working closely with VCU's Planning and Design office. Chris Burnside, then chairman of the VCU dance department, worked closely the Glave Firm. Also consulted were the architects of the Joyce Theater, a 472-seat dance theater in the Chelsea section of New York City.
An article from the August 1, 1995 issue of Style Weekly by Edwin Slipek, Jr., detailed the changes at the theater. Slipek, an adjunct Art History professor at VCU, architectural historian, and columnist wrote that the building was being "reconfigured within its existing brick shell and slightly expanded." Slipek wrote:
The VCU Department of Dance and Choreography's web site notes that the building also includes "versatile repertory light plot, excellent audio and broadcast-quality video equipment, upright piano, adequate storage and two dressing rooms with bathroom, shower, costume supply area and laundry facilities. The stage space is also available upon request to dance majors and faculty for rehearsals, and as a class laboratory for creative work."When the Lee restoration is completed early next year, VCU's dance department will share the 221-seat space with the Art History Department [at VCU], which will hold lectures there. Each department will have its own projection booth to hold lighting and projectors.
As redesigned, the full body of the performers will be visible from every seat in the house. The former gentle slope of the auditorium has been replaced by a steeper rake that sweeps upward to the second floor.
Another priority was creating a cushioned and resilient stage... Other changes include dressing rooms behind the stage and a new box office.
February 1996: Grace Street Theater Opens
The theater at 934 West Grace Street re-opened as the Grace Street Theater in February 1996. The inaugural student and faculty dance program took place the first weekend of March and a Gala Opening of the theater was held in October. Information about the history of the Dance Department's programs is available at the VCU Dance Timeline. For more information about the VCU Department of Dance and Choreography, click here or on the image below
2005: The Past still Present
at Grace Street Theater
Seventy years after it opened in October of 1935, remnants of the theater's past can be seen today in VCU's Grace Street Theater. Click on each image for a larger view.
Images of the "new" seats in Grace Street Theater. These are the restored seats originally acquired in the 1930s from the Irwin Seating Co., of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The company still exists.
The plaster Art Deco moldings at the top of the theater's pilasters (vertical columns) are original.
There are ten original Art Deco light fixtures in the Grace Street Theater -- these sconces once lit the Lee Theatre of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and then the Lee Art Theatre of the 1960s through 1993. The past is still present at the Grace Street Theater.
Resources:
Much of the materials used in this site are from various collections housed in VCU's Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library. The Kathy Fuller-Seeley Collection of Richmond, Virginia Film Theater History was especially helpful in the creation of this online exhibit. This web site created and maintained by Ray Bonis, Special Collections and Archives. Thanks to: Dr. Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley, Department of Communication at Georgia State University, author of The Cinema in Non-Metropolitan America from Its Origins to the Multiplex. Co-edited by Kathryn H. Fuller and George Potamianos (Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming), Celebrate Richmond Theater, with photographs edited and compiled by Elisabeth Dementi and Wayne Dementi (Richmond: Dietz Press, 2002), and At the Picture Show: Small Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture, (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001; originally, Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996). Linda George and Jolene Milot for use of their contemporary images and architectural history skills. Vincent T. Brooks, Senior Archivist for Local Records, Library of Virginia for providing images of drawings for the Lee Theatre, Richmond (Va.), Bureau of Permits and Inspections, Building permit architectural blueprints, 1907-1949. Accession 30150, 30745, 38536, Library of Virginia; Sarah Hand, VCU's Planning and Design Office; Sandra Flores, manager, and Le Lew, technical director, Grace Street Theater, for their valuable information and images; Katrina S. Clemans, Dance Production Specialist, VCU Department of Dance and Choreography, for her support in this project; and thanks to the staff in Special Collections and Archives. [an error occurred while processing this directive]
