I've written before about the grand old Warner Theater. Erected on Main Street in 1921, and originally called the Pantages Theatre, this 1,900-seat showplace was one of the largest and most popular movie palaces in town. If you think (with good reason) that the interior of The Orpheum is spectacular, from what I understand, the Warner was even more more lavish.
It was demolished in 1968 to make way for Commerce Square, which for years was the downtown home to the National Bank of Commerce, and later SunTrust.
This nighttime view of South Main Street — taken by an unknown photographer and discovered in a box of Kodachrome slides tucked away in the Lauderdale Library — shows the Warner Theatre in 1961. I know the date because that's when the movie Parrish, promoted on the theatre's stunning marquee, was showing. The drama starred Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, and Claudette Colbert, and lobby cards proclaimed that it depicted "More Than a Boy ... But Not Yet a Man!"
Oh, how many times that same phrase has been used to describe ME — usually by my team of psychiatrists. The pills they gave me just do no good at all.
There's wasn't much traffic on Main Street on this evening. Though the Warner is long gone, the old Lawrence Furniture building next door (originally constructed in the late 1800s as the Lemmon & Gale Building) is still standing on Main Street, as are many of the other structures dimly visible in the old photograph.
