Belvedere Theatre
2738 Rozzelles Ferry Road,
Charlotte,
NC
28208
2738 Rozzelles Ferry Road,
Charlotte,
NC
28208
1 person
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The Belvedere Theatre firmly sits on the right hand side of Rozzelles Ferry Road in south Charlotte. This “Negroes Only” theater opened in around 1950, and later on became a theater for all audiences.
The building has a magnifcent prescence about her and looks as though she may have had a plaster job within the past 5-10 years.
It would be quite easy to open her back up but I am afraid the neighborhood has ready dictated that plan. In November 2011, it was converted into dental offices.
Contributed by
UAGirl
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Recent comments (view all 17 comments)
Nice Boxoffice photo Gerald.
Here is my picture from December 2010.
Update…the building will be saved and renovated for office uses. I’ve heard the owners are attempting to retain as many historic elements as possible. Also, in response to Mark in NC above, the neighborhood itself is going through tremendous restoration of both residential and non-residendtial properties. Unfortunately, its reputation will preceed its reality for some time.
I was born in this area in 1953 and clearly recall going to see many movies at the Belvedere through the 60s. I do not recall the theater being a “Negro Only” theater, where did you get this information? To my knowledge during this time the area was predominately white, but that had changed in by the 70s.
This article appeared in today’s Charlotte Observer – wonderful!
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/23/2870128/dental-practice-gives-new-life.html
Here is the new location to the 1951 Boxoffice photo of the Belvedere Theatre that Gerald DeLuca linked to in an earlier comment.
The J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte has a collection of drawings and blueprints of projects built by the Mecklenburg Iron Works, and the Belvedere Theatre is among them. The Mecklenburg collection is not yet among the library’s special collections that are available online. If someone with access to the library could take a look at them, the name of the architect is probably on them. As the drawings are in a special collection, the library might require advance notice from anyone who wants to examine them. Here is the library’s web site.
The Belvedere Theatre was the only theatre during the 1950’s and into the 1960’s that would admit african-americans audiences and other minorities. This “Negroes Only” theatre was home to several exclusive engagement films that played here. It was the only cinema in Charlotte that showed not only “Carmen Jones”,“The Jackie Robinson Story”, “St. Louis Blues”,“The Defiant Ones”,but also “Porgy and Bess” first-run. A lot of black movies played here “Lilies In The Field”,and “Nothing But A Man” also played here to capacity crowds that catered to black audiences during the mid-1950’s and early 1960’s. The theatre closed during the early-1970’s.
Raysson, where does your information come from? I attended movies here in the late 50s and early 60s and remember a lot of Rock Hudson, Doris Day, beach and surf movies and one stand out – PT109 from 1963. I know I was only a child – wow, I was 10 years old in ‘63. I distinctly remember going to this theater to see PT109 with my two younger cousins in tow and no parental supervision, because a boy I didn’t know sat beside me and I was so shy I took my cousins in hand and walked them home without seeing the end of the movie. We are white and I do not recall blacks there, and it certainly was not “Negroes Only” at this time. I’m not being racist or attacking anyone here, I’m just really puzzled and sincerely want to find the source of this information. Was it newspaper ads for movies? Can you tell me more? The opening announcement linked in the message above doesn’t indicate this is a black only theater, or integrated either. My elementry school in Charlotte-Mecklenburg integrated in 1965.
Just added an Ad from the Charlotte Observer – 1965 for the theater.