Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts

The Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts is a historic theatre located in downtown Hammond, Louisiana.

History

The theatre opened on September 1, 1928, the same year that Hammond Junior College became Southeastern Louisiana College. Originally designed for the presentation of motion pictures, vaudeville acts, and local theatrical productions, the Columbia was the largest theater in Hammond. It featured the first theatre organ and the first talking pictures.

The Columbia became the center for entertainment during the depression and war years of the 1930s and 1940s. By the 1950s and 1960s the theater needed to be renovated. This was an era in which downtown businesses were suffering due to the development of regional malls and subdivisions. Although a sincere effort to remodel and reopen the theater was made in the late 1970s by businessman Wiley Sharp, it proved to be too challenging for one individual. By the early 1980s, the Columbia was vacant, leaking, and infested with termites. In the early 1990s, a delegation of local citizens proposed leveling the Columbia and replacing it with a parking lot.

Columbia Theatre

Columbia Theatre may refer to:

See also

Columbia Theatre (New York City)

The Columbia Theatre was an American burlesque theatre on Seventh Avenue in New York, adjacent to Times Square, operated by the Columbia Amusement Company between 1910 and 1927. It specialized in "clean", family-oriented burlesque, similar to vaudeville. Many stars of the legitimate theater or of films were discovered at the Columbia. With loss of audiences to cinema and stock burlesque, the owners began to offer slightly more risqué material from 1925. The theater was closed in 1927, renovated and reopened in 1930 as a cinema. It went through various subsequent changes and was later renamed the DeMille Theatre. Nothing is left of the interior.

Building

What would be called the "Home of Burlesque De Luxe" was built on the northeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 47th Street in Manhattan. A photograph from May 1909 before construction began shows the site was occupied by typical four- and five-story brownstone buildings. Construction by the Thompson–Starrett Co. took seven months from the start of demolition to completion of the job. The building had ten stories above ground and was 39 metres (128 ft) high. It held the headquarters of the Columbia Amusement Company, or Columbia Circuit, one of the largest of the burlesque circuits.