Category Archives: Architecture

Explore Robinson Center with SHARP- Arkansas Symphony’s Young Professionals

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Robinson IntermissionThis Wednesday at 5:30pm (November 16), the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s young professionals (also known as SHARP) will be exploring the ASO’s new performance space when they tour Robinson Center.

This sneak-peek party will include a tour, as well as live entertainment, hors d’oeuvres, a cash bar, and the opportunity to sit-in as the orchestra rehearses for their first concert in Robinson in over two years. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door

SHARP is a group of young professionals enjoying contemporary social experiences that provide networking opportunities, enlightening programs, and community connection while promoting audience growth and sustainability for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. SHARP membership includes a free ticket (upon request) to all ASO subscription concerts along with special social events,  and volunteer opportunities.

RobinsoNovember: Ribbon Cuttings at Robinson Center

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In this ARKANSAS GAZETTE photo, Mayor Satterfield looks on as Mrs. Robinson cuts the ribbon to open Robinson Auditorium.

Today (Thursday, November 10) at 10am, the ribbon will be cut on the newly restored Robinson Center.  It seems like a good chance to look back at two prior ribbon cuttings for the building.

The original ribbon cutting was supposed to be outside on the evening of Friday, February 16, 1940.  It was moved indoors due to rain and cold temperatures.  The ribbon was originally to be stretched across the front columns, but instead was stretched across the front curtain.  The white satin ribbon stood out against the royal blue velvet curtains.

Four people participated in the ribbon cutting:  Little Rock Mayor J. V. Satterfield, Mrs. Ewilda Robinson – widow of Senator Robinson, Mrs. Emily Miller – sister-in-law of Senator Robinson and a member of the auditorium commission, and a D. Hodson Lewis of the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce.  Mr. Lewis emceed the brief program, which was was broadcast live on a Little Rock radio station.  It consisted of Mr. Lewis introducing Mayor Satterfield, Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Miller.  Mrs. Robinson chose not to make remarks.  Mayor Satterfield spoke briefly (a whopping twenty-nine words).  Then Mrs. Robinson cut the ribbon.  It took a couple of tries for her to get the scissors through the fabric on the ribbon.

Following that the building was officially opened.

In the late 1960s, City leaders started making plans for a renovation and expansion of Robinson Auditorium into a convention center.  In September 1973, a second ribbon cutting was held to celebrate the opening of the renovated space.  That ribbon was bright red and stretched from Ashley Street along Markham, wrapped into the side doors, and then back outside across the front of the building.  At the ceremony, Advertising and Promotion Commission Chairman Warren “Bud” Baldwin joked that they were having the longest ribbon and the shortest ceremony.

While the ribbon may have been long, the ceremony was not short.  Well, perhaps by ribbon cutting standards it was short, but it was certainly longer than the 1940 edition.  Among those participating in the ribbon cutting were Governor Dale Bumpers, Little Rock Mayor Bill Walters, and Miss Little Rock Risa McLemore.  The ribbon was cut by Miss McLemore and Ken Johnson of the Central States Shrine Association.  Over 14,000 Shriners were the first large convention in the new space.

RobinsoNovember: Election Days in 1937, 1940 and 2013

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Since today is Election Day, it is appropriate to look back at the three different campaigns to build, furnish, and restore Robinson Center Music Hall.  (Note, there have been at least two other General Capital Bond elections which contained money for Robinson, but those were not stand alone elections about the auditorium and have thus been excluded.

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On January 26, 1937, Little Rock voters were asked to approve three bond programs which would build a municipal auditorium, expand the City library, and construct a park for African Americans.  Each issue had its own group of supporters, though they all encouraged “Yes” votes for each question.  The “Forward Little Rock Committee” (sometimes referred to as the “Little Rock Forward Committee) was headed by W. H. Williams and led the charge for the auditorium.   The bonds for the auditorium would be $468,000 in general obligation bonds which would be paid off between 1940 and 1971.  This was toward a total cost of $760,000 for the entire project.

The campaign stressed the economic benefits from all the conventions which would be held in Little Rock after an auditorium was constructed.  The focus was as much, if not more, on the exhibition hall space as it was about the music hall space.   The Municipal Auditorium had the lowest level of support of all three issues, but it still passed overwhelmingly.  It is interesting to note that the design featured in the campaign ad bears little resemblance to the project which was actually constructed.

The final vote total was 1,518 for and 519 against. The project passed in each of the City’s 23 precincts.

 

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Because the project ran out of money, Robinson Auditorium opened in February 1940 with out any landscaping, furnishings in the meeting rooms, and a lack of equipment in various areas throughout the facility.  To remedy this, additional bonds for the auditorium were added to a request put to the voters on April 2, 1940.  The dollar amount was $30,000 for the completion of the project.  The other two issues were additional fire equipment and establishment of an administrative building at the municipal airport.

The campaign for the new bonds used a similar structure and message as the 1937 election to build the auditorium.  There were newspaper ads by the steering committee (this time simply called the Citizen’s Committee and led by Omar Throgmorton) and support from civic organizations.  One thing very different from the 1937 campaign was the presence of an actual building.  On Sunday, March 31, just two days before the election, there was an open house for the public to explore the edifice.  From 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., members of various Little Rock Boy Scout troops led 4,000 visitors on tours of the auditorium.  Visitors were shown all over the building; one scout calculated that the walking tour equated to two miles.  Though most people were from Little Rock, the guest registry indicated visitors from California and Pennsylvania

On election day, the Auditorium bonds passed with a vote of 1,413 to 423.  Every precinct in every ward of the city voted in favor of the new bonds.

 

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In an effort to bring Robinson Center Music Hall into the 21st Century, the Advertising and Promotion Commission (which took over administration of Robinson in 1971) leadership decided to dedicate the renewal of their bonds to the renovation of Robinson.  What had been built as a 1940 civic auditorium did not meet the artistic or convention needs of the 2010s.  The Restore Robinson Committee was led by former LR Mayor Jim Dailey, civic leader Charles Stewart and A&P Commissioner Capi Peck.  In campaign literature Mr. Stewart noted: “An upgraded Robinson will allow thousands of children and residents from Little Rock to enjoy future dance recitals, graduations and community gathering in a spectacular new performance and events center.”

Plans called for taking the historic building down to its exterior walls (except for the front lobby which remained).  The music hall level was to be dropped 30 feet to street level.  A new conference center would wrap around the northern facade of the structure.

The referendum passed with 5,183 For vs. 1,800 Against.

The building closed on July 1, 2014 with a ceremonial breaking of the stage flooring.  On July 1, 2015, the reconstruction “topping out” ceremony took place.  The ribbon cutting for the new structure will take place on November 10, 2016, at 10 a.m.

RobinsoNovember: E. E. “Ned” Beaumont

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e-e-beaumontOnce Mayor J. V. Satterfield was ready to appoint a new Auditorium Commission, he chose longtime banker E. E. “Ned” Beaumont to lead it.

After graduating from Little Rock High School in 1910, Beaumont entered the banking world. His first stop was with State National Bank. In 1914, he moved to Exchange National Bank.  Four years later, he was hired by Bankers Trust Company. After sixteen years there, he joined Commercial National Bank.  He would be with them from 1934 until his death in 1968.

In January 1940, Mayor Satterfield appointed him to be chairman of the reconstituted Auditorium Commission.  As such, he took a leadership role as a spokesman for the facility during its opening in February 1940.  Beaumont served as chairman of the Commission from January 1940 until his death in July 1968.  During his tenure the building saw the touring industry change.  With the rise of Las Vegas and Miami and longterm performance destinations, fewer top name singers were touring by the mid-1950s.  The music scene also changed in content as it went from Big Band to rock and roll.  (No word on his thoughts of Elvis Presley.)

On August 19, 1968, the City Board of Directors adopted a resolution memorializing Beaumont’s contributions to Little Rock civic life.  In addition to his long service on the Auditorium Commission, he had also served as treasurer of the Little Rock School District and of the Pulaski County School District.

Little Rock Look Back: Clinton selects Little Rock as library site

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Refuse littered the future site of the Clinton Presidential Center

On November 7, 1997, President Bill Clinton announced his intentions to locate his presidential library in Little Rock at the end of a warehouse district.

The Little Rock City Board met in a special meeting that day to rename part of Markham Street, which would lead to the site, as President Clinton Avenue.

While the announcement was met with excitement in many quarters, there were still some skeptics who had a hard time envisioning a presidential library and park in the middle of a wasteland worthy of a T. S. Eliot poem.

There would be many hurdles between the November 1997 announcement to the December 2001 groundbreaking. But for the moment, City of Little Rock leaders, celebrated the achievement.  Then Mayor Jim Dailey had appointed City Director Dean Kumpuris and City employee Bruce T. Moore to lead the City’s efforts.  Moore and Kumpuris worked with Skip Rutherford and others to narrow the potential sites.

In September 1997, the Clintons were in town for the 40th anniversary of the integration of Central High School.  They surprised Kumpuris and Moore with a decision for a Sunday afternoon visit to the warehouse district proposed site. Secret Service would not let the limousine drive in part of the property, so the Clintons, Moore, Kumpuris, and Rutherford walked up a path to the roof of the abandoned Arkansas Book Depository.  It was there that the Clintons could see the Little Rock skyline which would be visible from the library.

Of course by the time the library had opened in November 2004, the Little Rock skyline was different. Spurred on by the library, several new highrises had been constructed in downtown.

RobinsoNovember: Grady Manning

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h-grady-manningIn 1938, the first Auditorium Commission was appointed to oversee the administration of Robinson Auditorium.  At the time, it was anticipated that the auditorium would be ready to open by no later than September 1939.  (Actually, the building was originally supposed to have been opened by June 1938 in order to fulfill a funding request.)

The first chairman of the Auditorium Commission was H. Grady Manning.  He was founder and president of Southwest Hotels, which included the Hotel Marion, Ben McGehee, Albert Pike, and Lafayette Hotels in Little Rock as well as the Arlington and Majestic Hotels in Hot Springs.

Manning was a native of Scott County. He moved to Fort Smith to attend a business college. To help defray expenses, he started working at the hotel in which he was staying. Enjoying this, he decided to make hotels his career.  Manning then moved to Hot Springs and worked at the Eastman Hotel before moving to Niagara Falls to work at the Queen Royal Hotel.  He returned to Arkansas in 1917 and became the assistant manager at the Hotel Marion.  In 1919, he became the manager of the Basin Park Hotel in Eureka Springs before moving to Fort Smith and managing the Goldman Hotel.

In the 1920s, he founded Southwest Hotels, Inc. which then started building and acquiring existing properties.  He and his wife, Ruth, resided in the Hotel Marion.  His daughter, Joy, grew up at the hotel.  With the proximity of his hotels to the forthcoming auditorium and his understanding of the convention business, Manning was a natural fit to lead the new auditorium commission.  As construction woes delayed the opening of the building, Manning struggled to keep the commission together.  The commission, by state statute, was not charged to oversee a construction project, but instead to administer a functioning building.

On Labor Day, 1939, Manning and his wife were enjoying the day at Lake Hamilton with some friends.  The boat they were in capsized, and Manning drowned at the age of 47.  The City was in mourning.  A City Council resolution was passed to memorialize his contributions.  In addition to being signed by Mayor J. V. Satterfield, it was signed by three members of the City Council–Aldermen E. W. Gibb, S. Major Dent, and Charles Davis.

Later in September, the remaining four members of the Auditorium Commission resigned. Since they had no building to manage and no leader, they decided it was best to disband.  Mayor Satterfield declined to name their replacements until the building got closer to opening.

A few years after his death, the Ben McGehee was renamed the Grady Manning Hotel.  That hotel, and the Hotel Marion were imploded in February 1980 to make way for the Statehouse Convention Center and the Excelsior Hotel.

RobinsoNovember: Mayor J. V. Satterfield Jr.

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Satterfield AuditUpon taking office as mayor in April 1939, J. V. Satterfield felt he was getting a handle on Little Rock’s precarious financial situation. He would soon discover that it was more unstable than he had imagined.  Included in this was Robinson Auditorium, currently under construction across the street from his office in City Hall.  Mayor Satterfield disclosed that he had voted against the auditorium in 1937 because he felt the finances were not sufficient. But as the mayor, he promised to open the building.

By the summer of 1939, it was becoming apparent that there would not sufficient money to finish the construction.  Even with the issuance of the final round of approved bonds (which had been held back as a reserve), there would not be enough money.  The Mayor and Harvey Couch made plans to go to Washington DC to try to get more money from the federal government.  Mr. Couch was a personal friend of President Roosevelt as well as head of Arkansas Power & Light.  The pair made the trip but returned with no additional money.

At the same time, the Auditorium Commission, which had been appointed by Mayor Overman to oversee the governance of the building, resigned as a group. They said they had been appointed to administer a building, not a construction site. Since it was uncertain as to when the building would open, they stepped down.

Mayor Satterfield was able to negotiate a series of deals to get the necessary work completed for construction of the building to be completed. Part of it involved issuing another round of bonds after the building had been officially opened to finish furnishing the building as well as complete the landscaping.  In January 1940, with a new opening date becoming a stronger possibility, the mayor appointed a new Auditorium Commission.

At the same time, regular events started to take place in the lower level exhibition hall.  There had been a few in November and December, but with a lack of utilities and ongoing construction upstairs in the music hall, those were curtailed.

On February 16, 1940, Joseph Taylor Robinson Memorial Auditorium officially opened. Mayor Satterfield was joined onstage for the ribbon cutting with Senator Robinson’s widow and her sister-in-law, who was a member of the Auditorium Commission.

In April 1940, Little Rock voters approved the final round of bonds which allowed for the building to be finished.

After only two years in office, Mayor Satterfield chose not to seek another term. He left City Hall in April 1941 with finances in order and a new municipal auditorium across the street.