City - Chicago IL - Nightlife at the Regal Theater 1941

by Mike Savad

Title

City - Chicago IL - Nightlife at the Regal Theater 1941

Artist

Mike Savad

Medium

Photograph - Colorized Photo

Description

Colorized photo from 1941
Original Title: Movie theater, South side Chicago
Photographer: Russell Lee
Location: 4719 South Parkway (now Martin Luther King Drive, Chicago, IL

This is the famous Regal Theater, it was in the Bronzeville area of Chicago, on the South Side. It was built in 1928, and it was huge and fancy. The main attraction was a movie theater, but if you should ever get bored, they also had a ballroom, bowling alley's, a department store, drug store, billiard rooms, and as many as 50 smaller stores, along with offices. Next door was the Savoy Theaters.

The building was stunning from the inside out. People visited to see the live orchestra's, and movies nightly. It became a sort of social hub for the area. It was known as the Harlem of Chicago.

One interesting thing they did that was not at all common in those days, they didn't discriminate on color. In those days, if you were black, you got a lower class job, a doorman, or a janitor. But possibly because it was in a black neighborhood, they hired them for every position.

When the great depression hit, this place was also hit hard, it almost went out of business. There was an outcry for support, and it almost closed, a lot of jobs would have been lost. But they managed to save the building.

Sadly they demolished the building in 1973.

Uploaded

November 14th, 2018

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