The Halloween parade is the high point of the Little Five Points Halloween Festival, which will run noon-11 p.m. Oct. 17. The day's events will include 13 bands performing on two stages, food vendors, an artists market and shopping. The parade will step off at 4 p.m. Little Five Points is at the intersection of Euclid and Moreland avenues. Parking is limited; to travel by MARTA train, get off at the Inman Park-Reynoldstown stop. 404-762-5665, L5PHalloween.com.
Steve Harris is creeping through the labyrinthine sub-basement of the Variety Playhouse, looking for the secret escape hatch once used by bootleggers, tipplers and publicans.
He discovers the door, really a rectangular hole, covered with a triple-bolted narrow wooden lid, high up on the wall of the Green Room.
Once a movie house, then a forum for theatrical shows (and briefly a latter-day speakeasy) the Variety — now one of Atlanta’s favorite small concert venues — has welcomed the likes of Ray Davies, Ghostface Killah, Natasha Bedingfield, Indigo Girls, Adele, Sun Ra and Cracker, most of whom have likely sipped a drink or two near this bolted door. Safe, it might be added, from revenuers.
Harris is celebrating 25 years at the helm of this Little Five Points jewel box. To toast the impresario, the Little Five Points Business Association has chosen him to be grand marshal of their Halloween parade Oct. 17.
It’s a big deal. The Halloween parade is to Little Five Points as Mardi Gras is to New Orleans, and being granted the place of honor is a testament to the impact that Harris and the Variety have had on the city.
“For two and a half decades,” said neighborhood pioneer Kelly Jordan, “he has made that place work.”
Partner Don Bender said of Harris: “He’s an incredibly gifted man. The Variety has raised the quality profile of Little Five Points.”
Built in 1940 as the Euclid Theatre, the movie palace showed first-run releases, but by 1962 the neighborhood was changing, and the theater closed. In 1983, after sitting vacant for many years, it was marked for demolition. A call from former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson helped save the building, which was purchased by the Little Five Points Partnership, including Jordan and Bender.
It went through several incarnations until 1990, when Jordan talked 30-year-old Harris into operating it as a music hall.
Harris, now 55, had begun promoting shows as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, and during the 1980s produced many jazz and folk concerts. He also developed a niche audience for such Windham Hill artists as pianist George Winston and guitarist Michael Hedges.
He brought such acts to his new music hall, and consequently the Variety didn’t rock. Or, not at first. Harris opened the place with a Count Basie concert, followed by Tom Rush.
Things have gotten louder since, with shows by the Meat Puppets, Blues Traveler and Of Montreal.
On a recent afternoon, while offering a guided tour of the 750-seat theater, Harris showed off the 60-ton air conditioning unit that sextupled the facility’s cooling strength. “That’s the size unit you get for a Target,” he said. It is augmented by a 15-foot-diameter fan on the ceiling.
The climate control is critical when crowds start pogoing. Another coming change will affect those dancers. Crews soon will be jackhammering the concrete floor in front of the stage and reinstalling a wooden floor, lowered by a foot or two, so that “standing room only” folks won’t obscure the view of seated patrons.
Toward the front of the building is a curtained room that once held a catering kitchen operated by Harris’ wife, Wendy Weeks, but now serves as an overflow bar during busy nights.
Harris owns the business but has resisted the opportunity to buy the building, though, he added, “I’ve probably paid for it four times over.”
A low-key showman, Harris prefers not to be the center of attention, though in the hall’s early days he regularly took the stage before performances, clad in his usual sandals and socks, to mildly encourage his audience to attend upcoming shows.
At the Halloween parade, he will be the one in the fancy convertible, wearing the prog-rock zombie ghoul costume, eager for the moment when he can go back behind the scenes.
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