I was there the night that the New Regal Theater opened. It was a Friday night, Aug. 14, 1987, and more than 400 people gathered in celebration. There were politicians, writers, actors, business leaders and musicians. There was a red carpet on the East 79th Street sidewalk; beaming attendants in white jackets leading people into the lobby; and neighborhood residents gawking as they stood in front of the rib joint across the street. Oprah was there.
Everyone was impressed by the building’s shimmering dome and its Moorish motif, which included hand-laid mosaic murals and marble columns.
When Osgood and I recently dropped by, there were no crowds. Only one man was on the street, and as he watched Osgood take pictures, he said: “I’ll buy a picture of that dome. That is one of the greatest sights in the city of Chicago.”
And the building itself, with its bright and lively mural of famous entertainers all but jumping off its western wall, is one of the city’s gems.
It is actually the former Avalon Theater. The old Regal stood at 47th Street and South Park Way, now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and was host to every great black entertainer for more than 40 years until it was demolished in 1973. The new Regal was born thanks to the dreams, efforts and bank accounts of Ed and Bettiann Gardner, founders of Soft Sheen. They contributed $3.5 million toward its rebirth and anticipated that it would be the centerpiece of a larger cultural development.
That was then. In the recent “Best of Chicago” edition of New City, the weekly paper that focuses on the city’s cultural/entertainment scene, the Regal was named, sadly, “Best Underused Landmark.”
The paper lamented the fact that the theater “is essentially a rental theater that does the occasional gospel show. . . . There are several reasons why this has happened–economics, competition from dance clubs and larger venues, apathy from audiences. . . . Now [the Regal] is little more than an armory hall and an old-timer’s memories.”
I could be that old-timer. But in my memories and in the continued presence of this remarkable structure, there perhaps rests the seed of future glory.
