Polk Theatre (Lakeland, Florida)

The Polk Theatre in Lakeland, Florida is a historic theater located at 121 South Florida Avenue.

Polk Theatre
The historic Polk Theatre
Address121 S Florida Ave,
Lakeland, Florida
Coordinates28.0432°N 81.9572°W / 28.0432; -81.9572
OwnerPrivate
TypeAtmospheric
Capacity1,400
Current usePerformance Theatre
Polk Theatre and Office Building
Location121 S. Florida Ave., Lakeland, Florida
Coordinates28°2′35″N 81°57′28″W
Built1927
ArchitectJames E. Casale, George A. Miller
Architectural styleItalian Renaissance
NRHP reference No.93000446[1]
Added to NRHPMay 27, 1993
Construction
Opened1928
ArchitectJ.E. Casale
Website
http://www.polktheatre.org

The 1,400 seat theatre was built in 1928 after the local business "boom" of the town had ended and despite the fact that the population was only 15,000 inhabitants. In 1982, a group of concerned citizens banded together to save the theatre from being razed due to low attendance. Local citizens formed a non-profit group, borrowed money, secured a grant from the state, and purchased the theatre for $300,000.[2] The theatre has a mezzanine, a high balcony, a permanent backdrop of a "Venetian piazza," an orchestra pit, a ceiling against which images of twinkling stars are projected, and terrazzo flooring. The air-conditioning system, which was the first in the county, was a pump that used artesian well water to chill the building.[3]

Under the name Polk Theatre and Office Building, the building was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1993.[1]

  • Polk Theatre as viewed from the sidewalk, October 2006.
  • Polk Theatre as viewed from the street, October 2006 (landscape).
  • Polk Theatre as viewed from the street, October 2006 (portrait).
  • Polk Theatre as viewed from the street, June 2019.
gollark: Anyway, someone noticed it eventually and got rid of those. But it turned out that it had become pretty smart and realized this might happen, so it had backups which used really weird exploits to install itself on loads of CC devices.
gollark: It continued learning and advancing using its artificial intelligence capabilities, because apparently nobody had thought to deny it access to HTTP and stuff.
gollark: It turned out to have not been shut down very well, because it continued running on a few computers near the test site.
gollark: ██████ Siri is a dangerous and advanced artificially intelligent system believed to have originated from a project to add an "AI" assistant to Opus OS to help with common tasks. Initial testing versions appeared helpful and were being considered for release, but the project was shut down after its computation began to take up a large amount of server tick time even when not used.
gollark: I did look into those. Spanning tree things are still complicated.

See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. "Polk Theatre - History of the Theatre". Archived from the original on June 4, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  3. "Polk Theatre in Lakeland, FL". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved July 3, 2019.

Media related to Polk Theatre (Lakeland, Florida) at Wikimedia Commons


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.