On February 26th, I took a trip to the City of Tampa to partake in a few scavenger hunts with my family. We got to explore and learn about Tampa’s graffiti artists and see a lot of Tampa’s building firsts. I have decided to write about the last location we visited, the Tampa Theatre.
When it first opened in 1926, the theater only charged 25 cents per seat. John Eberson, the architect, designed the theater. It is nothing short of complicated and magnificent, and the box office remains out front like an old cinema. It was also the first air-conditioned commercial structure in Tampa. Classic films, short films, concerts, documentaries, and new movies continue to feature at Tampa Theatre. It didn’t always thrive. Many American movie palaces were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s as the land underneath them had become more desirable than the theater itself. The same tragedy struck the theater in 1973. Citizens, however, came together and created committees to rally against this tragedy. When city officials got involved, they came up with a plan to save the Tampa Theatre by taking over the contracts. By the time it opened in 1978, it had become a worldwide example of how to protect a threatened theater.
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