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A Tribute to the Lebowsky Center Column for March 18, 2007

<%FloatImg "images/flinn/lebowsky_west_wall.jpg", "Unstable west wall to be carefully demolished to just above the fire escape door shown", "right","flinn.asp" %> During the late night hours of February 13, a fire broke out, gutting the Joseph H. Lebowsky Center, making for a very sad Valentine's Day. It opened on March 4, 1926 as the Capitol Theatre in Owosso. When I saw the live video showing the aftermath with the serrated roof line that morning, I knew that the theater's roof had collapsed as a result of the fire. The west wall of the theater alongside Park Street was tipping inward, on the verge of collapsing which explains why a temporary wall was built along Park Street, The east wall above the Chemical Bank building had partially collapsed. Until the unstable portion of the west wall is removed, only one lane of northbound Park Street is open alongside the Charter One Bank branch office. <%FloatImg "images/flinn/c%5Epost_card.jpg", "1940s vintage post card", "left","" %> The theater was built by local clothier and businessman Joseph Lebowsky (1884-1969), who was born in Kiev when it was part of Russia (now in Ukraine), and immigrated to the United States between 1902 and 1904 settling in Owosso where he opened a tailor shop on the west side of town in June of 1906. By the 1920s, it had developed into "Joseph H. Lebowski Dry Goods" at 816 W. Main St. He apparently spelled his name "Lebowski" in Owosso to make him appear more Polish. Lebowsky was dubbed ‘The Mayor of Westown.' On April 14, 1925, Lebowsky bought the former Owosso city hall and fire station at the corner of Main and Park for $25,000 which would be torn down to build the Capitol Theatre. As his other business interests, including two working farms, took more of his time, his wife Bessie and family including daughter Sylvia and son-in-law David Bowman took over the clothing store which became "Lebowski's Quality Shop, Inc.", downtown at 120 N. Washington St. It closed by 1950 as Joe and Bessie retired. David Bowman founded Bowman Realty and when Joe decided to get out of retirement in the mid-1960s, he served as a broker at Bowman Realty until he died in 1969. Bessie died in 1976 and are both buried at Beth El Memorial Park in Livonia. <%FloatImg "images/flinn/a%5Eas_the_capitol.JPG", "1956 Post Card showing renovated Capitol Theatre. ''Full of Life'' starring Judy Holliday is on the marquee", "left","flinn.asp" %> The 1,200-seat Capitol Theatre featured live vaudeville acts and silent movies accompanied by a theater organ. When talking movies came along, the live acts disappeared as would eventually the theater organ. It was remodeled in 1952 with a new marquee and first floor facade with red enameled panels. Fortunately, the second floor facade was unchanged. The side boxes were removed and the main level seats were replaced. It was operated by W.S. Butterfield Theatres from the day it opened until it sold most of its theaters at the end of 1984 and chose to close the Capitol Theatre after the final 9 p.m. show on January 3, 1985 as the lease with the Lebowsky family was about to expire anyway. The final film shown at the Capitol was Beverly Hills Cop starring Eddie Murphy. A nearby multiplex cinema would soon take its place, but that's a story I already told. <%FloatImg "images/flinn/capitol_owosso_final_ad.jpg", "The final film shown at the Capitol Theatre in Owosso", "right","flinn.asp" %> On March 27, 1985, Pastor James F. Douglas bought the theater and made it the home of his Christian Independent Fellowship Church renaming it the "Joseph H. Lebowski Center" and making the facility available for civic programs and concerts. Unfortunately for the church, it couldn't afford the theater's overhead so the Lebowsky family repossessed it in 1990. In 1991, a $20,000 Arts grant to the Owosso Community Players and a $60,000 donation by the Lebowsky family made it possible for the OCP <%FloatImg "images/flinn/lebowsky1986.jpg", "The 'Lebowski Center' when it housed the Christian Independent Fellowship Church", "left","flinn.asp" %> to buy the theater from the Lebowsky family for $120,000 and correct the family name's spelling by replacing the "I" with a "Y" on the theater's facade. It was said that Joe Lebowsky's dying wish in 1969 was that his treasured theater be returned to live performances and the full name of the facility was renamed the "Joseph H. Lebowsky Center for the Performing Arts." An encore performance of Steel Magnolias to reopen the Lebowsky Center was wildly successful. <%FloatImg "images/flinn/b%5Erecent_pic.jpg", "The Lebowsky Center after the Owosso Community Players took over", "right","flinn.asp" %> The OCP's new home presented the organization with new challenges by adding the responsibility of maintaining and upgrading an aging facility. Restoration would have to come later. The outdated theater had no first floor accessable rest room, but donations and volunteers made a first floor lavatory a reality. The theater got a needed new roof. A $100,000 State of Michigan grant paid for a new heating and cooling system. Other grants brought back the side boxes. Other upgrades were made over time. High heating bills led to new insulation in the attic last year. Just last January, Home Depot donated materials and Home Depot associates volunteered time to make the theater look more like it did during its vaudeville days. <%FloatImg "images/flinn/capitolowosso19482.jpg", "The Capitol Theatre in 1948 before the 1952 renovation. ''Mexican Hayride'' starring Abbott & Costello was showing", "left","flinn.asp" %> This made the February fire all the more tragic. 1920s vintage vaudeville theaters, such as the Lebowsky Center, include fire safety features put in place after such disasters as the 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago which claimed 602 lives. The Capitol Theatre of Owosso was built as three separate adjacent structures. The stage house, with firewalls on all four sides, was built much higher than the theater roof. The stage house roof had smoke louvers in a shed-like structure which were designed to open at a certain temperature to suck smoke and flames upward and away from the audience. A fire curtain was designed to drop when the temperature reached a certain point to close the proscenium arch separating the stage from the auditorium. These safety features functioned perfectly during the fire, but the intense fire caused the fire curtain to eventually fall completely onto the stage floor. The main and upper lobbies also had fire stops and firewalls. So they only suffered water damage. The fire damage begins to appear halfway up the stairs from the upper lobby to the balcony. The OCP's upstairs board room above the main lobby suffered no obvious damage. That room's clock was frozen at 11:08 p.m. when electricity was cut from the fire. <%FloatImg "images/flinn/lebowskyfire030307-cropped.jpg", "The Lebowsky Center front facade after the fire", "right","flinn.asp" %> Unfortunately, the OCP's fire insurance does not cover replacement costs so they will need to raise funds to rebuild the facility. Fire investigators believe the cause was arson. Structual engineers and building inspectors determined that only the unstable portions of the east and west auditorium walls need to be removed and will be carefully demolished so no further damage to the stable portions of the building occur. Because of the aforementioned fire safety features, the front part of the theater building escaped major damage as well as the portion of the theater with 200 seats under the balcony. So the undamaged front facade may be preserved. If you wish to make a donation to help rebuild the theater, their address is: Owosso Community Players P.O. Box 606 Owosso, MI 48867-0606 I've been reporting on the Lebowsky Center fire on the Cinema Treasures web site. Their Lebowsky Center page is here and a collection of Lebowsky Center news stories can be found here. My thanks go to the Flint Public Library, the Owosso Branch of the Shiawassee District Library and 87-year-old Bernice Arnkoff, a daughter of Joseph Lebowsky, for their assistance with this article.

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