TA24-J F-Pages - Flipbook - Page 22
Essay
20 Texas Architect
1/2 2024
A historical image from 1948 captures the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne building at the corner of Elgin Street
and Emancipation Avenue across from Emancipation Park.
Bottom Interior of the Eldorado Ballroom, 1953
Top
property to PRH in 1999 before his death in 2001,
as printed in his obituary in the Houston Chronicle.
It would take more than two decades, $10 million, and a reimagined plan to bring the Art Deco
and Streamline Moderne ballroom back to its
original grandeur, complete with its historic 昀椀nishes, 昀椀xtures, and facades. David Bucek, FAIA,
a principal at Stern and Bucek Architects, project
manager Delaney Harris-Finch, and the rest of
the design team led the architectural preservation
e昀昀orts and worked with PRH, Forney Construction, and Hines, which lent their pro-bono project
management services to the restoration e昀昀orts.
The building had survived two fires — one
in 1941 and another in the early 1950s — and
numerous patchwork projects over the decades.
Stern and Bucek could not 昀椀nd any records of the
original drawings, so as-built drawings had to be
created. As they removed non-historic drywall and
chipped back layers of paint to conduct historic
forensics, the team also combed through newspaper photos and clippings, as well as private collections. They learned how the building evolved,
uncovering anomalies and clues along the way: A
TOP IMAGE COURTESY HOUSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY; BOTTOM IMAGE COURTESY PROJECT ROW HOUSES FRIEDA ALLEN COLLECTION
Crow era. To design the building, the Duprees
hired Lenard Gabert Sr., who in 1917 was among
the 昀椀rst to graduate from Rice with a B.S. in architecture and would go on to complete the Temple
Emanu El in Houston with MacKie & Kamrath
in 1949.
“The Eldorado was a 昀椀nishing school for local
talent with the house bands,” explains Roger
Wood, historian and author of the book “Down
in Houston: Bayou City Blues.” “What makes the
Eldorado signi昀椀cantly di昀昀erent than other venues
is that it was created as a community focal point.”
The ballroom was a launcher of music careers
across numerous genres — blues, jazz, R&B, pop,
and zydeco — and was an anchor of what was
once the epicenter of life for African Americans in
the city — a neighborhood that included churches,
restaurants, o昀케ces, barber shops, a pharmacy, a
movie theater, and the nearby Negro Hospital/
Riverside General.
By the 1970s, desegregation, suburban mobility, private car ownership, and parking codes had
changed the neighborhood, and the nightclub
was closed. The building continued to be used for
events by the community, including Texas Southern University fraternities and sororities, but was
eventually shuttered. Hubert “Hub” Finkelstein, a
white Jewish oilman who founded Medallion Oil
Company, bought the property in 1984, saving it
from demolition.
Finkelstein had grown up in nearby Riverside
Terrace, where Jewish families owned mansions
along the banks of Brays Bayou, a major tributary
of Bu昀昀alo Bayou. Architects of Riverside Terrace
residences included John F. Staub, Birdsall P. Briscoe, William Ward Watkin, Lenard Gabert, Joseph
Finger, and John S. Chase Jr.
From the 1930s to the post-war era, the neighborhood was unofficially known as the “Jewish
River Oaks,” and its demographics started shifting
in the 1950s when Black professionals with families
were attracted to the area’s proximity to downtown
and Texas Southern University, the University of
Houston, and the Medical Center.
Wood said Finkelstein used to stroll along Dowling Street, now Emancipation Avenue, where Juneteenth celebrations emanated from the park and
where live jazz music wafted from the Eldorado’s
open ribbon windows. That soulful music and the
human spirit it represented undoubtedly imprinted
upon him, as he grew up to become a prominent
philanthropist supporting various Houston causes,
including medical research at Baylor College of
Medicine, The Methodist Hospital, the Asia Society,
and Project Row Houses. He donated the ballroom