Christmas photos from Beryl Ford

[PonderInc]

Friday afternoon in December...time to search the Beryl Ford collection for Christmas photos.

First, my favorite...

Christmas display at Wallace & Calhoun Meat Mkt at 1st & Main in 1896.


Santa delivers to the NRA...?


1953 Christmas dance...nice digs.  What building is this?


Christmas parade - 1949


Downtown decor - 1942

[Steve]

The 1953 Christmas dance, could be the old Akdar Temple which later became the Cimarron Ballroom and was destroyed in that disaster know as "urban renewal" which also destroyed all of Tulsa's grand downtown movie houses.  

I have such fond memories of Tulsa's Christmas parades in the 1960s, bundling up for the morning parade, then eating breakfast at a downtown restaurant with my family.  The current nighttime "parade of lights" is just OK, but the Saturday morning parades of the past are a much missed Tulsa tradition, at least from my POV.  

[TheArtist]

Yes, I really miss the downtown Christmas Lights.  When I was a kid we would make a trip downtown just to see the lights. 

Another downtown X-mas... First National Bank Lobby



  And yes, thats the Akdar.



More from the Beryl Ford Collection

Exterior.


Looking towards the stage.


To the back balconies.


Brightened up and enhanced to show the detail.





   Hate to admit it, but I had never been into the Brady Theater until just a couple years ago.  Thought the interior looked very unfinished.  Asked someone about it and they said it had gone through several transformations. The original interior was last changed to have a deco feel, then that was gutted to what we have today. Found an old pic of what must have been the Brady in its deco guise.

[cynical]

I recall that back in the 70s, when the need to replace the Municipal Theater (now the Brady Theatre) was becoming urgent, the city briefly considered converting this building to a new concert hall.  By that time the old movie houses that so many cities converted into concert halls were already gone.  At the time I wondered if the domes would stay.  It turned out that the entire building went.  Too bad. 

[Red Arrow]

"Looking towards the stage" is probably 1955 (possibly 56) judging from the Chevy sedan.

[FOTD]

Actually, the Akdar/Cimmaron fell victim to landlord desire to make a real estate play....they did not have the intent of maintaining the facility as a concert venue as the civic center and Municipal theater controlled most the shows. The state and local dims were allowed to use the building until it went into lock down and was mothballed around 1972 later to become the site for a bus station....

sad but true....