Anyone who has been alive and cognizant for the entire history of ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä’s Municipal Auditorium would be somewhere around 96 years old today. In other words, not many people know the entire history of the facility unless they’re looking at historical documents or relying on stories from older generations, and, even then, that’s probably a limited number of people.
That’s what makes a recent Gazette-Mail report by Ashley Perham on the building’s history and future so fascinating on so many levels.
City officials are debating whether to renovate the 85-year-old facility or build a completely new structure. Both options would cost more than $25 million, although an analysis indicates renovation would entail ongoing maintenance costs and would take longer. Meanwhile, area residents are of differing opinions, with plenty arguing for the preservation of the existing facility because of its historic and nostalgic value.
Turns out, this is a bit of history repeating. As Perham notes, there were disagreements among city officials back in the late 1930s about whether the facility should be built at all. The pros of the project included offering entertainment and cultural enrichment for the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä community and the main strike against it was that it would cost a lot of money to build.
Since construction concluded in 1939, there have been ongoing discussions every few years about the future of the facility. In the 1940s and ’50s, officials argued about investing in upgrading the building after complaints about the lack of heat or air conditioning and grumbling from performers about the lack of showers in the dressing rooms.
Some significant maintenance was deferred until the 1960s, even as the arrival of the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Civic Center in 1958 caused some to question the Municipal Auditorium’s continued use or relevance. City officials also often pondered selling the building or tearing it down. Such discussions really picked up in the late 1990s, when the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences of West Virginia project arrived.
Such discussions are paralleled today in myriad ways, and it makes one wonder how current decisions will be examined by someone 80 years from now. The facility’s history also shows that city officials have consistently decided that keeping the Municipal Auditorium was worth the money and the trouble.
Aside from all of that, there are some other amusing bits of history to examine.
In 1957, when rock ‘n’ roll was in its infancy, a rock show at the Municipal Auditorium so riled the city’s youth that it caused the mayor at the time to say, “I’m not sure at all that rock ‘n’ roll is good for city property.â€
Funny how that sentiment (which could be summed up as “These kids todayâ€) is still largely up for debate, and has been expressed in so many different ways over so many generations.
However, for as many similarities as we can see between the past and the present, there are some stark differences, especially when considering that the 1939 dedication ceremony, attended by 5,000 people, lasted for four hours. There would have to be a lot going on for 5,000 modern attention spans to stay in the same place for that long today.
