No changes yet for theater

The future of the Carolina Theatre on Franklin Street might depend on who fills the vacant Gap building.

“There’s no doubt that I’ve been trying to lease the Gap for a while,” said Fayetteville developer Joe Riddle in a phone interview.

But Riddle emphasized that he was not necessarily planning to close the theater.

He said the theater could be “vulnerable” should the new tenant want the space. Together, the empty store and theater make up 11,000 square feet of retail space in the heart of downtown.

Riddle said three clothing stores were interested in the property, but he declined to name them.

He added that local competition for Chapel Hill moviegoers is steep due to the construction of new theaters in the area.

“You had a lot of theaters built, like Timberlyne and Southpoint,” he said. “And you can ride the bus for free there.”

But Carolina Theatre owner Bruce Stone said local multiplexes had not greatly impacted the Carolina or his other theaters, the Varsity and the Chelsea.

“Business is pretty much the same,” he said.

Stone said an aide of Riddle’s told him there were no plans as of right now to oust the theater, which has been a unique fixture of downtown history for more than 60 years.

The Carolina Theatre was completed in 1942, said Doug Eyre, a local historian.

One of the new theater’s attractions was a special double seat. It was originally made to fit one man, the town’s first veterinarian, who was an “enormous man — 350 pounds when he died,” Eyre said.

But it was used more often as “favorite, first-priority seating for guys on a date who wanted to snuggle a little bit,” he added.

Another aspect of the theater that since has disappeared is the rowdy audience. Carrboro resident Martha Mandell, a retired art history teacher who studied at the University in the early 1960s, recalled that part of the fun of watching movies was loudly imitating bad acting or hooting at inane plots.

“Sometimes they’d have to turn off the movie for a while until people calmed down,” she said.

Mandell said the audience got especially worked up during “ridiculous” romance movies — especially the kissing scenes.

The desegregation movement descended upon the theater during the 1960s. Walter Dellinger, professor of law at Duke University, participated in the picketing of the Carolina and Varsity theaters in 1961 as a sophomore at UNC.

The idea was to put economic pressure on the theaters.“We agreed to a very orderly protest,” he said. “Only four pickets at a time, 5 feet apart, every day and hour the theater was open.”

Fewer people would cross the picket line as time went by, but it still took months for the theater to desegregate, he said.

Dellinger said the theater showed mainly standard Hollywood fare when he was a student. “The real change came when (Stone) brought much better movies,” he said.

Stone took over the theater in 1993. Stone said he generally shows more independent and international films than mainstream movies.

Dellinger said he now goes to the Carolina more often than any other theater, save the Chelsea.

Others also appreciate the individual offering in movies. “Neither khaki retailer nor restrictive parking shall keep this theater from showing great films,” said the Citysearch Web site in an editorial review. “As many theaters maximize profits with more titles and smaller screens, the Carolina still only offers one gloriously large screen.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.