Inside the Granada
Cheryl Unruh
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
There’s an auditorium-sized jungle gym inside the Granada Theatre.
Well, some people call it a scaffold. Silver supports rise to the ceiling, filling the dark cove with angled geometry.
On recent a Friday afternoon, as my friend, Janet, and I left the Granada Coffee Co., we peeked through the theater’s open door.
“Would you like to come in and look around?” Doug Ford asked. Ford is the interim director of the Emporia Granada Theatre Alliance.
Bones Ownbey stepped from the shadows and greeted us. He’s the foreman for the restoration project. He and Ford gave us a personal tour of this grand and mysterious theater.
Because of the heat, Ownbey had sent his regular work crew home a little early that afternoon. He was waiting for a welder though, and had time to show us the progress.
The theater is on both the National and State Historic Registries, which keep watch over the project.
The Granada team will return the theater to how it looked when it was dedicated in October, 1929. Modifications to the building need to be approved by those historic registries, the history cops.
Ownbey said, “We have to put it back the way it was.”
One major change is that restrooms are being added to the main floor.
Restrooms were previously only on the balcony level. That alteration met no resistance from the historical groups.
“The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) trumps everything,” Ownbey said.
Another change is the installation of a sprinkler system. “The historical registry requires us to make them as invisible as possible,” he said.
A small area of fresh stenciling brightens the ceiling over the side aisle. It’s a turquoise background with a red, orange and black design.
The few black-and-white photos of the 1929 interior don’t offer any help in determining the original colors of the stencils.
“There was a fire in here in 1959. New Year’s Eve, 1959,” Ownbey said,
“And they came in with paint that hides the smell of the smoke and (the stencils) all got painted over.
“What we had to do was strip off the paint a layer at a time ... peel off a layer of paint and look on the back side of it.”
“For the carpet, we didn’t have any idea (of the color),” Ford said,
“And then a lady came in with a piece of the original carpet.”
“She said, ‘I have a sample of the carpet. Would you be interested?’” Ownbey told us.
Yes, they were interested. And appreciative. Now, carpeting for the building is being made to match that sample.
In the balcony, sheets of plastic covered another welcome gift. Kenyon Hall’s owner, Mitchell-Markowitz Construction, donated about 500 chairs from that historic building — more than enough seating for Granada’s balcony.
“Those would’ve cost us $175-250 apiece,” Ownbey said.
An added bonus is that the curve of the theater inside Kenyon Hall matches the curve in the Granada, so the seating fits perfectly.
“Over and over and over again, we’ve been very lucky,” he said.
The Granada itself has yielded surprises. While removing concrete to add the new restrooms, they discovered a folding chair, lying flat, sealed in the floor.
“Then, on the ductwork, we found a piece where people had signed their names,” Ownbey said.
The restoration workers, too, are thinking far into the future and returning the favor.
“I’ve been sticking business magnets on I-beams, something that won’t be found until this building is torn down,” Ownbey said. “And I’ve glued on coins.”
“Somebody’s going to find this, just like all the stuff we found,” he said. “It’s our own little time capsule.”
“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.
F Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.