by Stanely Peele (7-2-2010)

Since 1996 the stone-and-shingle building at 523 E Franklin St. Has been used by the Chapel Hill Museum. It has become an integral part Chapel Hill history. The upstairs has two galleries, a retail shop, a directors, office, a volunteer room and a workroom. On the lower level is a meeting room, the museum archives storage space and the offices of the Historical Society.

The school education programs of the Museum have delighted our school teachers. The marvelous programs are far-reaching, covering local, state history and even the Lost Colony. They have never charged a dime for any of this.

Starting in mid 2009, the museum had a series of meetings with the town. The town asked the museum to submit the minimum amount they needed to continue operation of the museum. The museum felt that the town was in the process of taking over the expenses of the museum.

"Don’t ask for a lot of money," said the town, "Just request the very minimum." The Museum followed these instructions to the letter. They submitted a request for $49,250, and clearly stated that this amount was the very minimum needed. They were in a dire situation, right up against the wall.

The Town Council responded by authorizing $20,250 for the next physical year. This was to be paid out at the rate of $3000 per month for the first 3 months, then $1250 per month thereafter. The Town also had the option of cutting off the $1250 monthly payments.

The museum could not survive with these payments. The Museum board faced its darkest hour, and felt it had no choice but to close down. Alas!

Here is condensation of their statement:

In light of Town Council's recent funding decision, it is with great sadness that the Museum's Board announces that the venerable organization that has operated on the Town of Chapel Hill's behalf since 1996 will be closing its doors. While thankful for Council's gesture of support, funding offered does not come close to our very specific request.

The Museum is grateful for the efforts of many people who worked so diligently to allow the Museum to continue.
The Museum's birth had a goal of giving the Town a community resource that would conserve and present the Town's rich and unique history. Elected officials and the Museum planned that the Museum would be made a Town entity.

The Museum has been adversely affected by the recession and became paralyzed by the soaring costs of maintaining the Town's building. Holding ten to twelve fund-raisers per year, sapped staff and board alike, and while they allowed the Museum to stay open, they came at a great cost to regular Museum operations.

As the only organization to actively preserve and display significant historical milestones in Chapel Hill's history, such as the desegregation of the town's schools; the evolution of downtown; and the use of municipal history as a way to study the town's growth, the Museum's closing brings an end to an important community resource. Beyond documentation of the town's past, the Museum's award-winning education programs have served over 75,000 area school children. It is the Museum's desire that these programs will continue to be funded by their dedicated sponsors and all possible scenarios for their continuation are being explored.

The Chapel Hill Museum's Board, staff and hundreds of volunteers, have always shared the belief that you don't know where you are going unless you know where you have been. To this end, we say thank you for allowing us to shed a light on Chapel Hill's future while remembering its past and hope the Museum's efforts to celebrate the character and characters of Chapel Hill not be forgotten.

These elegant words have brought some people to tears. Others are angry. Something has gone dreadfully wrong.

There is some good news. I understand that the Historical Society will continue to use its room downstairs.

My personal hope is that The Town will allow the Museum to occupy the director’s office, the workroom upstairs, and the meeting room downstairs. One eventual possibility may be to allow the Museum to be a part of the new Chapel Hill Library.

The closing date of the Chapel Hill Museum is July 11, 2010, nine days from today.

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by Charly Mann

Tapestry from Ackland Art Museum Chapel Hill

Mending Stockings by Archibald Motley, Jr. (1891 – 1981). Motley was a black painter who did many paintings of upper-middle class black Americans in the early 20th century. This is a painting of his grandmother.

A Roman Couple by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Rubens is one of the best known Flemish Baroque painters and based this painting on a carving of an ancient Roman cameo.

 
St. John the Evangelist by VALENTIN DE BOULOGNE (1591 – 1632), Valentin was an Italian painter. St John has just written the first sentences of his gospel on the scroll in this painting.

Breton Woman and Haystacks by ÉMILE BERNARD (1868 – 1941) Bernard was a French post-impressionist painter and a friend and influence of Paul Gauguin.

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Damocles by RICHARD WESTALL (1765 – 1836) This is a very famous painting that tells Cicero’s famous tale of Damocles. The theme of the story is that for a powerful man, there's always danger, and that happiness is fragile.

Portrait of Mélanie de Forbin-Gardanne, Marquise de Villeneuve-Flayosc by Jean-Louis Le Barbier Le Jeune a relatively obscure 18th century French painter

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by Charly Mann

William Hayes Ackland was born into a wealthy family in 1855. Throughout his life his main pursuits were writing poetry, travel, society, and collecting art. He had no close friends, and had only one brief marriage when he was 40. He died in 1940 and his will started a ten year court battle that ended at the United States Supreme Court. As a , UNC received one of its most important and stately buildings, The Ackland Art Museum.

Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ackland had been a collector of art all of his adult life and wanted to leave his collection and an endowment for a museum to Duke University. Duke was to have received $1,700,000, of which $300,000 would go toward the construction of a museum. (That would be $4,500,000 in today's dollars for the building itself.) The only problem was Duke was not interested in accepting the terms of his will which stated the endowment would be managed by trustees Ackland had appointed, and that his body had to be entombed within the museum.

William Hayes Ackland, poet and art lover

After Duke's rejection Ackland‘s heirs fought in the courts claiming they should receive this money. Within a year the courts determined that the intent of the will was for the "advancement of the cause of art in the South". Because Ackland had mentioned Rollins College in Florida and UNC in an earlier will as possible recipients of the funds, both schools hired lawyers to secure the museum. Both of these schools said they would happily allow Ackland to be buried in the building. The District Court of the United States in Washington, DC ordered the trustees of the estate to determine which of these two schools could best carry out the spirit of the will.

Tomb of William Hayes Ackland in Ackland Art Museum Chapel Hill

After a detailed investigation and heavy lobbying by the state of North Carolina, the trustees stated that UNC was the best location for the Ackland museum. Their primary reason was because as a state institution the museum could receive financial support from the state of North Carolina if needed, and this would ensure its permanence. Also UNC was only eight miles from Duke, the first choice of Ackland, and Chapel Hill was at the center of southern culture. UNC also had a graduate program in art and Rollins did not.

Inscription over tomb of William Hayes Ackland

In spite of the trustees' recommendations, the court ruled that Rollins should get the museum. This time UNC appealed to the Supreme Court which in February of 1949 reversed the decision of the lower court, and gave UNC the Ackland museum and endowment. Finally after years of delays because of material shortages and design controversies the Ackland Art Museum was opened on September 20, 1958 and eighteen years after his death, William Hayes Ackland's body could finally be laid to rest.

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by Charly Mann

This is the original Pickwick that stood on the north side of Franklin Street, and burned down in 1922.

Charlie Chaplin was the biggest movie star in the world in February 1928 when this opened in Chapel Hill. Look at competing entertainment in Durham (see Ziegfield Follies ad below) and the Pickwick (just below the Ziegfield Follies ad) the same week and their price of admission.

1928 marked the last full year of economic prosperity Chapel Hill until 1948. It was also a major turning point in the local theater business. The Pickwick Theater had been the mainstay for entertainment in the village from 1909 to 1927. It was originally located in a modest wood frame building on the north side of Franklin Street. In 1922 a fire destroyed it, and a few years later it moved into an elaborate large brick-framed structure across the street. It was there that the community enjoyed vaudeville style acts, jazz band concerts, and the new medium of silent motion pictures. By 1928 movies popularity far exceeded that of live shows in the village. In 1926 a new theater opened, the Carolina, which was specifically designed and wired for showing movies. It also had exclusives with most of the major Hollywood studios to exhibit their films. By 1928 the Pickwick had gone bankrupt, and was being run by a man with no entertainment background. If you wanted to see a first rate live performance you had to go to Durham. Since few people had cars, this meant hitchhiking to the shows.

Ad for the Pickwick in its heyday, 1916.

Pickwick goes bankrupt soon after Carolina Theater opens.

 
This is for a 1928 vaudeville show in Durham. Note that the ticket prices are ten times more expensive than movie admission in Chapel Hill.

Playing the same week of February 1928 as Ziegfeld Follies in Durham.

The Pickwick Theater closed in 1948. In 1952 the J.B. Robbins Department Store opened in the same location. In the 1970's it was a music club and bar called the Town Hall. Today the building houses a number of merchants including Johnny T- Shirt.

Inside the Pickwick

Announcement of the opening of the Carolina Theater in 1927

Line to get into the Carolina in 1934

This is the Pickwick shortly before it closed for good in 1948.

Broadcast radio also began becoming popular in 1928, and was another cheap alternative to paying for an expensive live show. By 1930, even the  luxurious vaudeville theatre in Durham had become a cinema.

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by Charly Mann

One of the oldest buildings on the UNC campus has for more than a hundred years housed the Playmakers Theater. The building is actually named Smith Hall in honor of former North Carolina Governor Benjamin Smith. Smith was a one-term governor from 1810 to 1811 who gave 20,000 acres of land he owned to the University as an endowment. Smith came from of the state's wealthiest families, yet in his final decades he got in the habit of living beyond his means. He died in poverty in 1826.

Smith Hall, University of North Carolina - now THe Playmaker's Theater, about 1852 when it was still a ballroom

Smith Hall (The Playmakers Theater) and Old East are the only buildings in Chapel Hill that are designated National Historic Landmarks. The building was originally built in 1849 as a ballroom for dances and served that purpose until 1854 when it was converted into the university library. When General Sherman's army occupied Chapel Hill in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, the Michigan Calvary used the library's book stacks as stalls for their horses. In 1890 the building was converted into a bathhouse that contained six large marble tubs. In 1905 the building was turned into the law school.

The most beautiful building on the UNC campus, the home of the Playmakers Theater, Chapel, NC.

The great drama professor, Frederick Koch, convinced the University in 1925 to turn the building into a theater. The Carnegie Foundation paid to renovate the structure into a theater. It soon after became popularly known as The Playmakers Theater for Koch's repertory group that performed there. It has been the official home of that group ever since.

The building's most distinguishing features are the columns and cornice, which are modeled on corn, tobacco, and wheat stalks. A very talented Tarheel prison inmate made these cornices. The building was designed by architect Alexander Davis to resemble a classic Greek temple.

Interior of the Playmakers Theater, University of North Carolina 1936

Some of the notable writers and actors who have been part of the Playmakers include Billy Crudup, Paul Green, Andy Griffith, and Betty Smith.

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by Charly Mann

On May 5th, 1965 Hollywood literally came to Chapel Hill for the World Premiere of movie Joy in the Morning starring Richard Chamberlain and Yvette Mimeux. The reason the premiere was held in Chapel Hill was was that it was based on local writer Betty Smith's novel of the same name. She had been paid $100,000 for the film rights of the novel. This was at a time when few houses in Chapel Hill sold for as much as $50,000.

This is Kemps as the World Premiere Celebrity Headquarters

For weeks leading up to the premiere Chapel Hill was abuzz with preparations for the celebration. Kemp's Record Store became the World Headquarters for the movie's premiere. Mayor Sandy McClamroch temporarily renamed Franklin Street, Betty Smith Boulevard in honor of the occasion. Tickets for the event were hard to come by, but being friends with Kemp Nye helped me secure two coveted tickets. At that time I was in the ninth grade at Durham Academy, a then small private school in Durham that had almost equal numbers of students from Chapel Hill as Durham. I did not have a girlfriend in those days, but was able to convince a very nice and attractive classmate from Durham, named Dianna Brannon, to be my guest at the premiere.

                                Chapel Hill author Betty Smith

At the time of the movie, Richard Chamberlain was one of the top stars in the United States as the lead in the very popular TV series Dr Kildare from 1961-1966. Everyone was excited about seeing him at the premiere, but he did not attend. The "talk" around Chapel Hill was that some of the movie was filmed there, and that it was based on college life at UNC. Unfortunately this was not true. The movie was semiautobiographical, but it was based on Smith's own romance at the University of Michigan. There is nothing in the movie that sounds or looks like a southern college town. This is probably just as well, since the movie was not very good, and failed miserably at the box office. You can listen to the theme song of the movie, sung by Richard Chamberlain, at the bottom of this article. The quality of the song is roughly equivalent to the quality of the movie. The advertising tagline for the movie may be even worse: "Love is more than a goodnight kiss!" I dare you to work that into a romantic conversation someday.

This is the 1965 graduating class from Durham Academy (then located in downtown Durham, and going up only to 9th grade)
Back Row left to right: Arthur Gordon, Charles Mann, David McGowan, Dan Dye, Peter Anlyan
Front Row left to right: Warrena Delano, Connie Hackel, Daria Witt, Sally Satterfield, Jean Ferguson, Diana Brannon

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by Charly Mann

June 25, 2009 was the last day of operation for the iconic Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill. Its last features were The Hangover and The Brothers Bloom. The Varsity stood at the heart of downtown Chapel Hill in the Sorrell building for almost sixty years. For most of its history optometrist Dr Kohn's office was on its left side and Jeff's Confectionary (popular with men for being the only business in town that sold "adult" magazines) was on the right. While the theater in recent years has established a reputation for showing top quality independent and foreign films, during the majority of its operation it was home to low budget B movies. The Carolina Theater across the street, in most cases, showed the major Hollywood releases. The Varsity occasionally got a major movie like A Streetcar Named Desire or Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, but this was because the Carolina passed on them due to their controversial content. The Varsity's typical fare in the 1950s was science fiction, horror, and westerns, and by the late 60's shook things up by showing soft-core porn such as Mamie Van Doren's Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt and Jayne Mansfield's Promises Promises.Throughout most of the 1950's the Varsity also had a children's movie every Saturday morning for an admission of between 10 and 25 cents. Occasionally the admission was six bottle caps from Coke or Pepsi Cola bottles, which often sponsored the shows.

Ad from January 1952

Showing in June 1963 (This movie had been shown at The Carolina Theater a year earlier)

The mid 1970s was the pinnacle of popularity and prosperity for the theater, due primarily to it getting the rights to show the first Star Wars movie in 1977. (At the time of its release it was looked on by theater owners as another low budget science fiction film). From 1978 to 1985 it was home to a highly popular weekly audience participation showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Mickey (Hurysz) Mann, now an accountant in Austin, Texas, worked at the Varsity in 1969. She is a 1971 Chapel Hill High School graduate, and was a regular at the Varsity's showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show before graduating from UNC in 1978.

Lynne (Hursyz) Harmon, Chapel Hill High School Class of 1972, now a retail store manager in Springfield Missouri, worked at the Varsity from 1970 to 1972. She was 15, and a sophomore in high school when she started. Lynne recalls Frank Zappa's 200 Motels and the pornographic cartoon, Fritz the Cat, as being two of most popular movies during her time at the theater. Ticket prices in those days for adults were $1.50 and 50 cents for children. Matinee prices were $1.25 and 25 cents respectively. She reveals that they never actually popped their popcorn, but simply warmed it, since it came in large plastic bags. The Varsity from the 1950s through 1983, when it was converted into two separate theaters, was literally the coolest place in town because its air conditioner was set to literally chill its patrons.

Playing July 3, 1969

Showing July 1972

The Varsity closed because it was losing money. This was caused by a number of factors. First, parking is hard to find and is expensive in downtown Chapel Hill. Second, many of the potential customers for its films felt uncomfotable and unsafe in the downtown area. (Chapel Hill Memories has had at least a dozen recent e-mails complaining about the street life and the odors and graffiti in the alleys downtown). Finally, for economic reasons there are far fewer high caliber independent and foreign films being made, and also far fewer UNC students are interested in these types of films than in past generations.

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