The Return of Time Fishing!

As was prophesied, I am now ready to return to this world after moving to a new place and getting a job where I don't write about history.

So let's talk a little about history. I'm going to do something like what I described in one of my last posts, where I'll blog single photos through most of the week and write longer posts as I come to them, usually for exploration of small towns or whatnot. Since I live in Little Rock now, there's an abundance of unexplored neighborhoods and areas to provide ample snapshot material.

And now for a little bit of movie theater.

More after the jump...

It's pronounced "CAR-my"

A long drive to a country town is always a good way to experience the way highways used to function: passing right through the proper of a variety of little hamlets. Since I've been to Jenna's hometown of Albion so many times, a few of the preceding villages are like old friends of mine. Some of them, like Grayville, Crossville and Mt. Carmel have been mentioned on here before.

In fact, I've spoken of Carmi before in my last batch of movie theaters . Their Showtime Cinema was a favorite quick-glance-from-the-passenger-side sight. Recently, we finally got a chance to explore the town.



We've seen it all before, of course. Rows of grandfatherly business buildings, some populated, some renovated tastelessly, many vacant. Very few people--although I grant it was a very cold day. This NOT being Arkansas, however, there was a bit more to see than usual, and quite a few extraordinarily beautiful buildings.



The folks of Carmi call this fantastic collage of late 19th century styles "The Castle." Like most beautiful buildings in this country, it faced destruction in the latter half of the 20th century, but a group of historic historians saved it. It faces the courthouse just on the edge of downtown. Take a look at the little winged creatures on the rooftops.



The 1883 courthouse is the seat of Illinois' version of White County. Ours, however, is older (1870s) and commands more of a presence in Searcy's square. Carmi's downtown is more a thoroughfare, however, whereas Searcy's is a square.

Oh! There are some ghost signs.



"TIMES" probably stands for "Carmi Times," whose building is close to the river. Take a look at this picture of their amazing streamline modern sign on their current building (from my old favorite Roadside Architecture; good LORD she's been everywhere).


The entire side of this building was once a sign. "GRADE CHEWING" of course stands for the stuff stuck between Babe Ruth's teeth.


Not really a ghost sign, I know. But it is a beautifully sculpted logo on the side of a (I believe) vacant building that was once a Ford showroom. Wow! Back from the days when car showrooms actually fit INSIDE of our towns. "The Universal Car" is apparently what Henry "in the year of our" Ford dubbed his inventions way back in 1908. This sign may be that old.

Here are some more photos from in and around the business district.



A residence (I believe now used as a funeral home) with some serious Ionic columns. The fountain out front tends to freeze in a picturesque fashion in the colder months. Here is a fantastic picture of the latter.



A very 1960s exterior job on one of the downtown buildings. This business no longer exists but the neon work has been preserved.



A radio station now lives in what once was a neoclassical bank.



This is a very old-looking and well-kept house a few streets over from Main. The steel roof is unfortunate, but at least is colored tastefully. I wouldn't be surprised if this were one of the older buildings in town.



Evidence of train industry is still moldering a few blocks away from Main. There are a few abandoned factories and warehouses, including some old ghosts like this one. I couldn't find a depot at all; it may be lurking somewhere back there, but wind burn precluded a more thorough search.

On the way back to Albion, we stopped in a mucky drive to take this final picture:



These are the bones of a drive-in theater screen. The grounds nearby are mostly home now to a selection of rusting vehicles and other trash. I wanted to go farther back and see if any more of the theater remained standing, but there was the aforementioned wind burn and muck, so we retreated.

Until our paths cross again,
Jonesy

Life, Death, Resurrection

Considering the heavy nature of my last post, some of you might think this is a continuation of those sentiments.

But no, it's about theaters. We're back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

I'm going to talk about three theaters; each in a different stage of being. The first fits into the "Life" category.



The Lyric in Harrison (northeast AR) has one of the most beautiful facades I've seen on a theater (it having been built in 1929 will have something to say about that). Like most of the examples on this blog, it has been shut down at some point in its life (in the 70s through the 90s in this case). But it is alive now, though not in its original capacity. They show classic films occasionally, and otherwise the theater is used as a venue for local artists and musicians. When we visited the Lyric, it was celebrating its 80th anniversary. Note the LED display mounted tastefully atop the neon-adorned marquee.

According to my good friend Cinema Treasures, the Lyric's best feature are its intricate wall murals painted by hobos in the depression. I didn't get to see these, sadly.



I don't think I need to insult the reader's intelligence by stating this theater belongs in the "death" category.

The only information I have, besides its seating capacity, about Augusta's Lura Theater is that its name was typoed to "Laura" in 1935's Film Daily. The last thing this poor husk has left to it is its rusting marquee, proudly but dimly declaring the name of "Lura," emphasized by the single, cursive "L," to the pedestrians of Augusta's main street. On the Saturday I took this picture, we were the only ones.

Actually, if the Lura's marquee were to disappear, I probably wouldn't have even picked out this building as a theater at all. There is no visible ticket booth and only the vaguest indication of where previous owners might have hung movie posters. When I peered through the glass front doors, I saw nothing but piles of overturned furniture. Why is it that abandoned buildings tend to fill up with this kind of offal? It's as if, in death, the shell of the built environment becomes a gigantic trash receptacle. But I digress.

The Lura is nothing more than a death-mask.




Our last theater takes us out of Arkansas and into Illinois. I've noticed the Showtime Theater of Carmi every single time I've driven to Jenna's family home in Albion (and that is a lot of times, let me tell you). Showtime Cinemas (formerly the Carmi Theater) is the youngest of our three examples, having been built in 1940. It falls under "resurrection" mainly because I have seen this theater undergo death and rebirth during my lifetime, each observation occurring during that little snapshot of a glance I would get every time we drove through downtown Carmi.

The theater, like most small American theaters, had already died and been reopened at least once since the 1980s, but by 2007 it had closed again. Fading Spider-Man 3 and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince posters hung on its walls under the marquee's simple message: "closed."

But as of this year, Showtime Cinemas is open again! The little three-screen theater shows current-run films. And that's enough to make this little blogger a happier man.

-Jonesy