CITY BEAT: MEMORIES OF THE ALHAMBRA, VARSITY THEATERS AND MORE

  

       Decades have passed since two of Decatur’s popular theaters disappeared into history, but, among older members of our community and beyond, fond memories remain.
     One of the theaters was called the Alhambra Theater and it was built at 1073 North Water Street in 1919 by Percy Gebhart.
     It had no balcony, and wasn’t as grand as the Lincoln or Empress, but it provided plenty of entertainment for many years to a lot of Decatur area residents.
     The Varsity Theater was located at 1117 West Wood Street and cost $125,000 to build in 1941.
     This week, in our “Scrapbook” feature on pages 4 and 5 of the print and online editions of the Decatur Tribune, I take a look back at two of the many theaters in Decatur in our history.

     • ONE MORE item in the page 4 “Scrapbook” about the Varsity Theater in this week’s edition caused me to search for another photo I remembered having in my collection.
     “Ed Imboden indicated that, up into the early 1950s, he operated the Sinclair Service Station at the corner of Wood and Oakland, close to the theater. (A Sinclair Station sign can be seen next to the theater in the photograph at the top of page 4.)
     Ed wrote: “I remember one time in the promotion of a film playing at the Varsity that Danny Kaye was driven to the Varsity in a convertible and they drove into my station. “It was quite a thrill.” (A photo of Danny Kaye in front of the Varsity is on page 3 of today’s edition.)

     • WHILE I AM on the subject of history, my longtime friend Bob Sampson has an interesting article on page 10 of this week’s edition about “the joy of discovery, the baseball fever that swept Illinois, including Decatur, can be experienced a century and a half later at Rock Springs Conservation Area when the oldest, continuous “vintage” baseball club in the state, the Long Squirrels Club of Springfield and Decatur, welcomes all comers to participate in a game.”
     Of course, the photo on the front page by Christine L. Sipula is connected to Bob’s article.
     Many years ago I would go out to the Rock Springs Conservation Area (that’s such a great asset to the Decatur area) and shoot some photos of the “Rock Springs Ground Squirrels” which was the team’s name for many years before combining the players’ talents with those of the Springfield team.
     Bob has done a tremendous job over the many years of the team’s existence of promoting the games with write-ups for this newspaper and Christine has shot countless photos of the games over the years.
     Anyhooo, Bob and I, and the vintage base ball team (base ball was two words in the early days) have a long history together — just not all the way back to 1866! (smile)

     • ‘STORMING OUT!’ — I had a doctor’s appointment for a routine six month check-up last Thursday morning and getting from my house to the doctor’s office was a challenge because of the bad storm the night before that did a lot of damage in Central Illinois.
     As I was driving across town I encountered traffic signals that weren’t working and lots of tree limbs on the ground in neighborhoods and roads — and thousands of area residents without power!
     I was driving on Lakeshore Drive just east of St. Mary’s Hospital when I saw a barricade ahead completely shutting off traffic on Lakeshore Drive.
     All the drivers were trying to get off of Lakeshore Drive and we all headed through the parking lot of St. Mary’s Hospital. I think I saw parts of the exterior of the hospital that I had never seen before!!!!
     After all of the weaving and turning and ending up out on the street by Eisenhower High School, I drove to Wood Street and then east and even with the added mileage still made it to the doctor’s appointment on time!
     I will have to admit that, whenever I drove up to a traffic signal that wasn’t working, all the drivers in the intersection were polite and waited their turn to drive on through the intersection.
     That was kind of refreshing compared to when the traffic signals are working and many drivers blast through them on red!!!
     Last week’s storm on Wednesday night was more than a little scary with lots of damage done, especially in areas south of Decatur. It hit in about the same area on Sunday as experienced on Wednesday night, but with less damage in our area. As I’m writing this column, it has been revealed that the most recent storm resulted in some fatalities in a county south of us. This has been a crazy storm season in Decatur and Central Illinois where it seems like we’ve been having one bad storm after another.

     • TRANSFER HOUSE — My “Scrapbook” article about Decatur’s Transfer House, drew several comments.

     Milton Scott of Decatur sent comments and a photo of the Transfer House.
     He wrote: “I was recently given this model by my daughter. It is from a local downtown artist. It is HO gauge (1:87 scale)
     “I love it in my layout and, since the latest issue featured it, I wanted to share this photo.”
     Thanks, Milton, for sharing. I really like the layout you have put together.
     For those of you who are reading this column in the online edition, you are seeing Milton’s layout in color and it looks even more impressive.

     • I JOIN Brian Byers on Byers & Co. most Thursday mornings at 7:00 for the “City Hall Insider”.
I always enjoy our conversation about Decatur’s past, present and future.

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