Historic Athens venue burns "The whole town's heart's broken"

All that history went up in smoke when fire destroyed the iconic Athens landmark Friday morning.

"It sounds like a cliche, but it's like losing a family member," said Anderson, one of hundreds of onlookers who watched firefighters pour water on the building for three hours after it caught fire.

"When you spend 50 or 60 hours a week, six days a week for 15 years somewhere, that's what it feels like."

Four fire engines, three ladder trucks, two rescue vehicles, a Hazmat unit and about 50 firefighters responded to the 6:50 a.m. fire call, according to Chuck Gulley, emergency management coordinator for the Athens-Clarke County Fire Department.

Gulley said the blaze was under control by 8 a.m. By then, the famous theater at the corner of Lumpkin and Clayton streets in downtown Athens was gutted. No injuries were reported.

Fire officials could not say how the fire started. There had been numerous lightning strikes in the area overnight.

"It may be a while before we know," Gulley said.

Jam band Perpetual Groove was slated to play the Georgia Friday evening, and the band's sound engineer, Patrick Kinkade, arrived at 7:30 a.m. to see the building in flames.

"I've been seeing shows in that place since I was old enough to sneak in," said Kinkade, 30, who grew up in Athens and worked as a sound engineer at the theater for six years.

"The whole town's heart's broken."

Wilmot Greene, 38, the theater's owner, sat on a wall in a bank parking lot, drinking bottled water and smoking cigarettes while firefighters fought the blaze.

He said he bought the theater five years ago for $1.5 million and has been renovating it since then, though it has remained open during the work.

He said he had spent nearly $750,000 on the 1930s-style art deco renovation.

"It was almost completely done," said Greene, his white Oxford shirt covered in soot. "It was really beautiful. It was in better shape than it's ever been in."

Greene said he was insured and intends to rebuild.

"The question is, do I have enough" insurance, Greene said.

"Even if the insurance pays for it and we can rebuild, it'll never be the same," he said. "They don't build them like that anymore."

The structure was originally three stories tall and was built as a YMCA in 1889, said Amy Kissane, executive director of the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation.

Between 1916 and 1920, a movie theater and Masonic Lodge shared the interior, she said. In 1920, the YMCA moved to a new locale, the upper part of the building was demolished, and the space became a hotel.

In 1935, the Elite movie theater was built inside the same footprint, in an art deco/art moderne style. The building remains one of downtown Athens' few examples of that architectural style, she said.

Eleven acts were scheduled to appear in the theater as part of the annual AthFest music festival next weekend.

Jared Bailey, director of AthFest, said the festival will find a place for those bands, possibly in the Morton Theater. The Georgia Theatre is one of the largest of the 17 AthFest venues, accommodating 500 to 600 patrons (and probably more on some evenings).

Bailey owned or managed the rival 40 Watt Club for almost 20 years, but he admired the Georgia.

"It had a great sound system, good line of sight, the stage was tall, it was a very good place to see a show," he said. "There are a lot of memories of a lot of great shows there."

Athens filmmaker Erica McCarthy, who created a documentary on Uga the University of Georgia mascot called "Damn Good Dog," worked at the Georgia Theatre during its "cinema and draft house" period, from 1985 to 1989.

"It had a lot of roaches in it, it was really gross and crusty, and it was a dollar. It was our playhouse," she said.

"There are soldiers in Iraq who heard about this today," said J.R. Green, a former Athens club owner who works as a disc jockey now. "That gives you an idea of how notable that place is. It's an institution."

"It's emotional on a lot of levels," said Winfield Smith, the Georgia Theater's bar manager the past five years, who also played there as a musician. "It's a place of business, a historical landmark, a pillar of the Athens music scene. And it looks like I'm out of a job.

"The best news is nobody was in the building," Smith said.

But a lot of somebodies have been.

Memories up in smoke

Also inside

> Musicians, others express sorrow over theater's destruction. A8