Bankhead Theatre

i work at the 1576 bankhead old theater and would like to have more history on this building.it is a two story building and has the original stairway.

I’m researching a property for a client and it includes 819 Bankhead Avenue, now Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. This property is currently vacant and is expected to be renovated for office use. It is listed in the Atlanta R.L. Polk City Directories as the “Bankhead Theatre Motion Pictures” and is listed as such from 1934 through 1944. Earlier directories were not reviewed. This building has been used as an appliance store, Redfern Sausage Warehouse, Dixie Elevators, and as a church. It is a masonry structure with two floors and the rear of the building is open from the bottom floor to the roof. The floors are hardwood and the other interior finishes appear to be newer than the structure of the building, probably 1970ish. Steel beams were apparent but were probably added by the elevator company.

Yes Don, I’m a native Atlantan. I’m glad that I could clarify the confusion about the Bankhead but I don’t know the years it was in operation. I do not recall it being an active movie house in my life time. Therefore, it had to have ceased being a movie house at least before the early 50s.

Bellwod was a tough neighborhood that we passed through on our way to downtown from Grove Park. I remember the building and the old theatre marquee. In the 50s and 60s it was a general merchandise store. In the late 70s and early 80s the area was abandonded and eventually acquired by Ga. Tech.

The Bankhead Theatre was not actually on Bankhead Highway but on Marietta Street at the intersection of Bankhead and Marietta. This is now the site of Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen Schoold of Business. Across the street is the renovated Roxy Hotel with it’s WSB -Welcome South Brother – sign still visible on the south side of the building.

This is the old Bellwood community a tough working class neighborhood bordered by the Exposition Cotton Mill community to the west and the public Techwood Homes project to the east. Just north of the Bankhead were the stockyards where farmers brought in their livestock. Next to the Bankhead was Sunshines Department store and one of the first Big Apple grocery stores.

Yes, the Temple Theatre struck me as being an old structure, as well. These long gone movie theatres, as well as the ones that have survived, give a pretty good idea of the growth patterns of Atlanta. You could probably draw strong parallel between developments in Atlanta and many other parts of the country.

If my dad had not been a movie buff and taken me to the movies in Atlanta beginning in the 1950’s, I never would have known about some of these theaters – or the way people lived in those years, for that matter. This is more than an idle interest in old movie theaters, it’s an interesting aspect of sociology.

The only thing that would have mitigated against the use of a site in College Park as a recording studio in the ‘60’s and '70’s was the noise from the (previous) Atlanta Airport (located on Virginia Avenue in those days). Soundproofing a recording studio in that area would have been tough. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, though. Nevertheless, the airport noise only got worse over the years.

The Bankhead, along with the College Park, the Temple, Sylvan, etc. are vestiges of a generation that is gone with the wind. Unless there has been some major development along what was once known as the (Tallulah) Bankhead Hwy, the remains of the Bankhead should still be as it was a decade or so ago. Next time I am in Atlanta, I hope to have the time to visit the archives of the main library and get some more details on these sites (and possibly photos as well}. I have received one unconfirmed report on the College Park that might have some merit. It allegedly was a recording studio during the 60s and 70s where budding talent such as Lynerd Skynerd supposedly cut a few tracks there prior to their achieving stardom. Possibly someone involved in the Atlanta music scene during this period could offer some insight regarding the validity of this claim.

I have the Bankhead Theatre listed as having 350 seats in the Film Daily Yearbook editions 1941 and 1943. It has disappeared from the listing in the 1950 edition of F.D.Y.