DEATH

PROUD be not

with a couple of friends and see two movies, cartoons in between, then a very short news reel.”

During intermission the theater gave out door prizes based on ticket numbers, Lee says, which included parakeets in cages or goldfish in a small glass bowl.

Laurie Kidder recalls her first job as a candy girl at the theater “wearing a red and white striped pinafore.”

“The purple, red and green iconic neon tower is like a beacon representing my home base in Dallas,” she says. “I loved the heavy red curtains, art deco interiors, the big swirling carpets, Disney murals and, of course, the feeling of belonging in this won- derful theater.”

But the momentum from the Facebook page lasted less than a week. We reached out to Chalkley several times but were unable to connect with her. On Nov. 12, five days after the page launched, an administrator commented, “Right now we are focused on the legal work involved, as it needs to be initiated quickly if we are to save the theater at all.”

And that was the final word from the “Save the Lakewood Theater” Facebook page. People continued to “like” the page and ask about the progress of preservation e orts, but questions went unanswered.

District 14 Councilman Philip Kingston says he has received a couple of concerned emails regarding the theater, but no volunteers for the legal legwork needed to halt significant changes to the structure.

“No one is taking the lead on this,” he says. “People are concerned, and rightly so, but no one is taking any real action.”

At any point, the City of Dallas could get involved and slow the process through a moratorium, which could legally prohibit the owners from being able to acquire a building permit for 30 days. Kingston continues to say he’s ready and willing to help in whatever way possible, but he won’t lead the charge.

“It’s going to take a real community effort,” he says.

The Myth Of Historical Protection

Historical buildings are complicated. Perhaps no one in our neighborhood knows this better than Norman Alston, who for the last few years has steered his architecture firm toward addressing such structures. He received several awards in the early 2000s for the restoration of the Sears building, now known as the South Side on Lamar, and his most recent triumph was the circa-1931 U.S. Post O ce and Courthouse building downtown, where he now o ces.

But these types of restorations don’t happen without painstaking e ort, and economic growth can be a threat.

“Downtown Lakewood has been its own little thing for some time now, without a lot of development pressure to do anything else there,” Alston says. “That’s changing.”

Believing that the Lakewood Theater, shopping center and other old neighbor- hood buildings are protected is a “common misunderstanding” and “completely not true,” Alston says.

The truth, he says, is that very little in our neighborhood is protected except some homes and churches. “And East Dallas is much better than the rest of the city,” he says.

It’s not too late for the Lakewood Theater to be designated a historic landmark by the city, which would protect its exterior. But at press time, despite the social media outcry, no one had initiated this process via the Landmark Commission, says Mark Doty, who works with historic preservation in the city.

Plus, the support of the owners would be fairly crucial to achieve such a designation, Doty says, because the process includes not only ensuring the preservation of the structure but also meeting the owner’s needs.

Kinney says Willingham-Rutledge may be open to this, but not yet.

“Until I know what my tenant is, I don’t know where I am,” Kinney says.

As he has stated, however, the owners intend to maintain the theater’s exterior, regardless of landmark designation. This assertation quickly followed the news of the structure’s vulnerability, and may have quelled the urgency in e orts to preserve the theater.

Alston argues, however, that the tower and marquee are not the only parts of the theater that should be protected.

The memories that were made at the Lakewood Theater happened inside the building, Alston says. For some, it was a first job, a first date, a first kiss. In its early years, the theater was host not only to Hollywood films but also to ladies’ book reviews, Woodrow Wilson High School graduation parties and even private birthday parties. After a fire destroyed the Lakewood Methodist Church sanctuary in January 1960, the congregation worshipped at the theater until it could be restored.

“The building is part of the urban fabric,”

Alston says. “If you’re looking at a history of things that happened there, it involved the entire building. If you just save a piece of it, is that any di erent than taking a picture?”

Retaining the exterior but overhauling the interior is not preservation, Alston says it’s a “façade-ectomy.”

“The idea of preserving only the tower is not preserving it at all,” Alston says. “Seeing just the tower would just remind you of what you’ve lost.”

Alston readily admits that he “drinks the purple Kool-Aid of preservation.” He has served two terms as a city landmark com- missioner, spent the last 20-plus years chairing historic-district task forces (currently Peak’s Suburban), and overseen the restoration of several historical homes and buildings, and he sits on the Preservation Dallas preservation issues task force. His views are at the extreme end of the preservation spectrum and also, as it appears in the case of the Lakewood Theater, in the minority.

Alston says he won’t be taking the lead to preserve the theater. He has too many other projects on his plate, plus he wants to give younger generations a chance to take up these kinds of issues. Old buildings are too often seen as a concern of old people, he says.

“If you’re ever going to have a history, you can’t tear it all down,” Alston says. “We’re so entrepreneurial here [in Dallas], and that’s good, but ‘old is bad and new is good’ … I think that way of thinking is dated.”

A Numbers Game

Landmark and historical designations are something of a “stick” for developers, Alston says, but there are “carrots,” too. Major federal and state tax credits that amount to 45 percent of restoration costs incentivize the owners of historical buildings to preserve them, both inside and out.

“There’s a detailed list of things you can and cannot do” to secure these credits, Alston says. For example, the owners most likely would be required to protect any murals left on the walls, as well as windows, doors and other period features.

Alston says it would be di cult to preserve the integrity of the Lakewood Theater enough to qualify for the credits and still repurpose it as anything other than a theatertype use. But, in his opinion, that’s basically the point.

“It’s a physical remnant of another time,” he says. “Some things can be changed, but how do you keep that thread of history running through your community? The Lakewood Theater is the main strand of that thread.”

Limiting the structure to a theater, however, is the very reason Kinney says Willingham -Rutledge wouldn’t be interested in pursuing the tax credits.

“If the theater didn‘t make it in three years, then we’d be in the soup,” Kinney says.

Other single-screen neighborhood the-