PORTLAND FOX THEATER HISTORY UP IN THE AIR ON A RAINY DAY

For Portland history, or any history, like the Fox Theater history, the events remain the same.

It’s the interpretation that changes.

This is why you trust your sources in regard to what you hear and believe, and what to reject. Primary sources make the difference.

But what is a primary source? Take this, for instance:

The history museum I worked for got a call one day. The Fox Theater on SW Broadway was coming down and it had a few historical objects up for grabs.

At the time I was the main history grabber for an aging staff. It was a time of change, a time of reinterpretation.

New hires had decided the most important thing for the future of history was building a nice career for themselves.

Administration became more important moving forward, so the new crew hired people more inclined to administer to history instead of collecting history. They were out of town professionals doing their professional best until they moved on to their next job.

It was a normal progression for the climbers of the world. They worked on a five year plan, moving to the next rung on the career ladder just ahead of the bridges they burned behind them.

The Fox Theater Phone Call

The Fox Theater call came into a busy office, got transferred, re-routed, and I was off to the races.

The theater was a few blocks down from the museum on the west side of Broadway, a shuttered dump, an eyesore of poor urban planning awaiting its fate.

My business card got me past the front door and into the stinking lobby of the dank space. I was looking for the racial signs designating who could drink from which water fountain.

The signs were already gone, so Plan B was finding more material to gather. Always have a Plan B for real history.

Two shitty popcorn machines stood behind the snack counter full of aged popcorn. I added them to my new list.

Inside the auditorium people moved in the dim light, stooping between the rows of red velvet seats to unbolt them from the floor. I marked a row for history.

One wall had a gilt sunburst frame around a clock. I found a ladder, a shaky ladder, and pulled it for history.

Since the entire building was up for grabs, I walked it from top to bottom, side to side, and discovered why it was getting demolished. During the remodel in the fifties the place was retrofitted for air conditioning.

Huge fans in the basement pushed cool air through new duct work which was installed by chipping holes in important walls.

Once earthquake awareness rose around town, Fox Theater was deemed too expensive to save. The wall used for AC ducts were weight bearing and needed extensive supports.

I walked the perimeter, crossed the beautiful stage in front of a torn screen, and headed up to the balcony. The place had started out as an opera house and had the sort of trappings opera calls for. It also had a side staircase in the balcony.

A shabby door hung on a broken frame at the top of the stairway. Like any good history adventurer, I walked up and opened the door.

The third balcony was full of wooden benches with straw-stuffed canvas padding down the center. Bad seats above rows of red velvet rockers, a door in the wall near the balcony stairway? I asked myself the history question:

What Happened In The Fox Theater

While I was in a questioning frame of mind, I asked the writer question:

What’s This All About

I pulled in a Portland expert for answers.

Oregon was a Jim Crow state with a goal of racial discrimination.

That dubious past was inside the Fox Theater. If theater fans and movie fans weren’t white enough for the front door, they were directed to the side door. They climbed an outside stairway to the side door in the wall and sat on wooden benches in the third balcony.

A false ceiling was built when the third balcony was shut down, but through cracks I could see the stage. It was about two inches wide from way up there.

With this exciting find of Jim Crow seating, I called a reporter at the Oregonian who showed up with a photographer. While I dismantled the benches for history, I also found playbills from the Twenties that had been dropped and lost.

The reporter got excited, wrote her story, and it was picked up by the New York Times. For the first and only time, I was quoted in The NY Times.

With the Fox Tower replacing the Fox Theater, nothing is the same. The only theater building left intact on Broadway is the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, a beautiful venue connecting one era to another.

The next time you drive up Broadway, try and feel the buzz of opening night, the sound of the curtains opening, and how the show went on.