Comment from Rebus:
In some ways, the Biograph was cooler when it was the single auditorium cinema it was originally designed to be. The one auditorium was a comfortably shaped room, which couldn't be said of either of the two smaller auditoriums that followed. But, aesthetics be damned, the prospects for twin cinemas were seen as better for a list of reasons, all to do with money. Coast-to-coast, downtown theaters were being being twinned, or just abandoned.
For the staff, having two screens meant the lull between showtimes was compressed, which meant more admittance tokens were sold and more popcorn was dished out. That meant the staff frequently did more work for roughly the same level of pay. It meant less time for reading a magazine article, wolfing down a sandwich or shooting the breeze with colleagues and regulars about favorite films.
Having two separate projection booths doubled the work for the projectionists. Likewise, it meant more work for Rea. But since two screens brought in more money that meant the owners were less likely to sell off the business. Consequently, the Fan District continued to have a repertory cinema.
Of course, nobody knows how it would have played out if the Biograph's auditorium hadn't been split into two parts during August/September of 1974. After it was done the change did seem to pay off. The thinking in D.C was that twinning protected against the wipeout disastrous weeks that are simply inevitable with just one screen. And, that was definitely a good thing.
Still, Rea sure missed that manager's movie-viewing window in the office. To build the hallway connecting the two second floor projection booths that window had to be eliminated. The story that follows Rea's note about souvenirs tells about rescuing a Grace Street neighbor's stolen sign.
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| Biograph button (1981) |
A Sign of the Time
One afternoon in the mid-1970s, I was walking alone, some 15-to-20 yards behind a guy heading east on the 800 block of West Grace Street. I think it was summertime. But I don't remember anything in particular about the weather, or what errand I might have been returning from. Anyway, the guy in front of me nonchalantly picked up the Organic Food Store’s hand-painted sandwich board style sign from the sidewalk, put it under his arm and kept walking.
We both kept heading eastward down the red brick sidewalk. I don't remember what I first thought, at the time, but I was curious about it and to close the distance between us, I walked a little faster.
By the time we had both passed the Biograph Theatre, I was getting pretty sure the guy had no honest reason to take the sign with him. He was a big-haired hippie and I suppose he could have been a student. Or, he might have just been a traveling opportunist who steals on impulse. Rather than "stealing" the sign he just snatched, he might have said that he, "liberated it."
Passing by Sally Bell’s Kitchen, in the 700 block, I had closed to within five yards of him when I spoke the lines I had just written for myself. My tone was resolute, but not harsh: “Hey, I saw you take the sign. Just put it down and walk away.”
The thief’s body language announced that he had heard me. He didn’t turn around. Instead he walked faster. I continued following. With slightly more force I said something like: “Put the sign down. The cops are already on the way. Walk away, while you still can” (or words to that effect).
Without further ado, the wooden sign clattered onto the sidewalk. It worked! I was delighted.
The sign thief just kept going without looking back. As I gathered my neighbor’s property, I watched the fleeing hippie cross Grace Street in a hurry. Last I saw him, he turned the next corner heading south toward Monroe Park. By then, it all struck me as funny.
So I carried the recovered property back to the store. Obviously, I don’t really remember exactly what I said in this incident, verbatim, all these years ago. Don't remember whatever conversation I might have had with whoever was tending the counter inside the store. But what you just read was a faithful recounting of the events and the spirit of what I said.
In part, what I did in this story came from a sense of righteous indignation. No stealing! That, together with the spirit of camaraderie that existed among some of the neighborhood’s merchants in that time. There were several of us, then in our mid-to-late-20s, who were operating businesses on that commercial strip with bars, retail shops, etc. We were friends and we watched out for one another.
My tough guy performance had lasted about a minute. Now I’m amazed that I used to do such things. Young people can be so sure of their reading of what they see. As the reader might have guessed, the character I invented for this occasion was drawn somewhat from Humphrey Bogart, with as much Robert Mitchum as I could muster.
Hey, since the thief bought the act, he probably felt lucky to have gotten away. Maybe he’s still telling this same story, too, but from another angle.
This much I know — in those days that quirky neighborhood was a goldmine of offbeat characters and colorful stories. Chelf’s Drug Store was at the corner of Grace and Shafer. With its antique soda fountain, it had been a hangout for magazine-reading art students for decades. It seemed frozen in time. Maybe the late-1940s?
The original Village Restaurant, a block west of Chelf’s, was a legendary beatnik watering hole, going back to the 1950s. Writer Tom Robbins (1932-) and artist William Fletcher “Bill” Jones (1930-‘98) hung out there.
In the '60s and early-'70s the same neighborhood was also home to lots of cartoon-like characters, such as the wandering Flashlight Lady and the Grace Street Midget. By the late-'70s the scene in that neighborhood had evolved. It was meaner and more dangerous.
Bars hired badass bouncers to supervise their front doors. Style-wise, hippies were gradually being replaced by punks. Cocaine was replacing pot as the most popular recreational drug. For whatever reasons, VCU seemed to shrug off how the neighborhood was trending.
In the summer of 1980, or maybe '81, on the 1000 block of West Grace, I remember an angry, red-bearded street beggar with crutches. He was sprawled out on sidewalk and demanding that whitehaired grandmas give him money. In the process, he was deliberately frightening ladies who were coming and going from the Dominion Place old folks apartment building.
As I walked by, I puffed up to say something to him like, "Hey, cut it out, man. Move on!" And, I said it with a bossy tone.
The surly panhandler laughed like a cornball villain in a cheap slasher movie, then he threatened to, “Bite a plug” out of me. And, I'm sure that's exactly what he said.
Wisely, I decided not to press my case any further. Instead, I moved on.
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All rights reserved by the artist/writer, F.T. Rea.
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