Lyric Theatre
300 E. Third Street,
Lexington,
KY
40508
300 E. Third Street,
Lexington,
KY
40508
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The Art Deco style of the Lyric Theatre and it’s marquee lit up the corner of E. 3rd Street and DeWeese Street from the early-1940’s.
A leading entertainment center in the African-American community, the Lyric Theatre hosted first-run films, black films and entertainers like The Temptations, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, The Ink Spots, and Redd Foxx.
The Lyric’s decline began with the integration of Lexington’s other theatres and it closed in 1963.
The property became part of a dispute between a private owner and Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, which sought to condemn it in order to bring the property into the public domain and restore it to usefulness in the community.
The Lyric Theatre is not listed in the Film Daily Yearbook, 1941 (main list) but it is listed in the “Negro Theatres” section. It is listed in the FDY, 1950 in both the main list and “Negro Theatres” section.
The Lyric Theatre was reopened as a performing arts center on October 30, 2010.
Contributed by
Lost Memory, KenRoe
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
The Lyric Theater opened on December 10, 1948 built at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. It closed in 1963. It had a single screen.
Court to decide theater’s future………
“LEXINGTON — A Fayette Circuit Court trial this week will determine the fate of the Lyric Theater, a site frequented by blacks when the city was still segregated.
The theater was the center of black culture from the 1940s to the early ‘60s.
For at least five years, the city government has tried to buy the Lyric from a nonprofit group known as God’s Center Foundation. City officials say they would turn the Lyric into an auditorium, classrooms, a workshop and a black history museum.
But God’s Center refuses to sell.
Circuit Judge Gary Payne will decide whether the city has the right to take over the Lyric through eminent domain".
Here is a recent photo of the former Lyric theater.
This is a vintage photo of the Lyric Theater.
Here is a Feb. 15, 2009 article about a possible renovation of the Lyric Theater to be used as a “588 seat theater, a multipurpose space and an African-American history museum”.
The location should be East 3rd Street & Deweese Street.
Here is an anti-renovation viewpoint:
http://tinyurl.com/cw4cw9
The address for the Lyric Theatre is 300 E. Third St. 40508. The theatre still stands all boarded up. There was also another Lyric Theatre located at 125 S. Main St. that has been closed and demolished and on the site is a Wachovia Bank. Any info on that Lyric, it is not listed on CT.
There is no 125 S. Main Street in Lexington, KY. Main Street runs East and West in that city.
The Lyric Theatre officially opens tomorrow: View link
Website for the Lyric Theatre.
http://www.lexingtonlyric.com/