The Texas Theatre

The Texas TheaT re 231 W. Jefferson

the texas theatre could totally have ghosts. the basement, where a screening of “Fight club” was once held, could have a whole family of phantoms.

Instead, the theatre is known for something else.

At least once a day, employees of the theater are asked to point out “the seat.” that’s the seat near the back on the right hand side of the theater where police nabbed Lee Harvey Oswald after the JFK assassination.

“He didn’t pay for his ticket,” says Oak cliff entrepreneur Julie Mccullough Kim, who sometimes puts on events at the theater. “So that’s why they called the cops, because they were like, ‘this guy doesn’t have a ticket.’ ”

Kim’s dedication to the theater is profound. She recently had the theater’s famous texas sign tattooed on her right forearm.

Since a group of young filmmakers, Aviation cinemas, took over management of the theater last year, it has become a popular hangout, as well as a place to see classic and independent movies. thetheaterrecently started selling t -shirtsprintedwiththeimageof Oswald’sface,whichgarnerednational media attention. there was some outrage. Why celebrate an accused assassin?

And the theater’s notoriety, or infamy, somehow makes it even more hip.

“I think that’s reading too much into it. It’s really just history,” says eric Steele of Aviation cinemas. “It’s just part of the history, and its not making a statement on anything.”

At $17 a pop, the shirts typically sell out soon after they are printed. the theater also sells a shirt bearing the image of Howard Hughes, who built the theater in 1934, but those don’t sell as well.

“everysingleday,usuallybeforewe open, we get a group of people who come in from out of town, and they want to just look around,” Steele says.

And it is the Oswald connection that leads them there.

“the mystery of the building is what’s intriguing. It’s not that there are ghosts, but there are really interesting pieces of history,” he says. “All the mystery associated with the building is what gives it a spooky feel. It’s just got a lot of historical ghosts, figuratively speaking.”n