Spring 2000

DCPL Continues Efforts to Save the Tivoli Theatre
by T. David Bell

The DC Preservation League has a long-standing and unwavering commitment to preserve the Tivoli Theatre. DCPL continues to help the Columbia Heights Community in its decades-long effort to save the theater by offering technical assistance and increasing public awareness. In 1999, DCPL named Historic Theaters to its Most Endangered Places List and designated the Tivoli Theatre as the most architecturally significant threatened theater in the city.

The Tivoli Theatre was designed by Thomas W. Lamb, one of the United Stateâs leading theater architects during the 1920s. Among his theaters are The Strand in New York, the Orpheum in Boston, the State in St. Louis, the Fox in San Francisco, and the Ohio in Columbus. Lamb believed the theater to be a palace of the average man, a place where he could be lifted out of his daily drudgery. Lamb also thought that for audiences to be receptive and interested, they needed to be detached from the rest of city life and taken into a rich and self-contained environment where their minds would be freed from customary thoughts.

The Tivoli Theatre, which opened in April 1924, is a four-story Mediterranean Revival building at the corner of 14th Street and Park Road, NW. It was built as a luxury neighborhood theater by Harry Crandall, a major theater circuit owner. At that time, the Columbia Heights neighborhood was considered one of the most fashionable and desirable areas of Washington, with dozens of fine shops and a highly developed theater district.

When built, the Tivoli was dubbed ãthe Temple of the Arts,ä could seat 2,000 people, and was the largest theater in Washington. Ten two-story, ãFrench-styleä shops were on the 14th Street side of the building. The third floor of the theater housed approximately 35 office suites where theater management and other businesses were located. Studio apartments, dressing rooms, and an exercise room were located on the fourth floor. In the basement, lounges, electric hearths, and fireplaces exuded a warmth and charm.

A small, marble-lined foyer gave access to the lobby with its intricate moldings and plasterwork around the marble columns, fountains, and stairways. New York artist A. Battisti decorated the lobby with three pastoral murals. An immense central ceiling dome featuring a large crystal chandelier once dominated the auditorium. A plaster grille with a large oval pastoral painting, also by Battisti, formed a bridge between the dome and the double proscenium arches that framed the stage. According to a Washington Post account of the opening, it was ãan institution of which the entire city of Washington ought to be proud and ought to support.ä In addition to stage and screen, owner Harry Crandall established the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra and the Tivoli Ballet Company.

The Tivoli was the first theater in the entire country to have an orchestra elevator. A Wurlitzer triple manual pipe organ was likewise mounted on an elevator platform and could be raised and lowered independent of the orchestra. In 1926, the Tivoliâs projection system was updated, and the Tivoli became the first Washington theater to offer talking movies.

During the 1968 riots, as the remainder of the neighborhood burned, the Tivoli was spared. The theater was closed in 1976. Despite its vacant status for more than 20 years, most deterioration is cosmetic and not structural. The ãSave the Tivoliä organization was established in 1980 by several local residents in an effort to reopen the theater and revitalize the surrounding neighborhood. Today, the fate of the historic Tivoli Theatre remains uncertain and is possibly threatened by inappropriate development plans.

DCPL has encouraged the mayor and city council to join community leaders in seeking viable preservation options and funding for the Tivoli. The League of Historic American Theaters (LHAT) has become involved and is showing how performing arts buildings in other cities were successfully rehabilitated. DCPL along with Save the Tivoli, the Committee of 100, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, LHAT, the DC Offices of Planning and Economic Development, and other city agencies participated in a public meeting sponsored by Ward 2 Council Member Jim Graham. The purpose of the meeting was to identify funding opportunities to restore the Tivoli for performing arts uses.

DCPL has invested a