Heilig Theatre

1965 photo added courtesy of John Chiax.

Wow! What a beautiful nighttime photo of downtown Eugene, with all that neon, that Lost Memory has posted. Sad to say, although Eugene is a very cool town, all of what is shown in the photo no longer exists. I was in Eugene week-before-last, and wandered the entire length of Willamette Street, looking for remnants of the theatres which once lined it. Aside from the well-preserved McDonald, nothing else seems to have survived. Eugene was hit hard in the Sixties and Seventies with a crop of Modernist office and commercial buildings. Some have considerable architectural merit in their own right, but there exists a considerable loss to the stock of older downtown buildings. Still, Eugene remains a cool and funky hippie town with charming historic homes, interesting and friendly people, and a thriving arts scene.