by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman
December 29, 2024
The theater can be taken over by the Hen Bone Seashore Historic Basis.
The legendary Dante Corridor Theater in Atlantic Metropolis, New Jersey, will grow to be a brand new beacon for the realm’s jazz and Black historical past.
The theater can be revitalized right into a cultural arts middle that may contact on Atlantic Metropolis’s jazz presence and racial discrimination at its seashores. Based on NJ.com, an area basis that promotes town’s Black historical past, the Hen Bone Seashore Historic Basis, will launch new programming on the area.
The group just lately obtained a $1.8 million grant from the New Jersey Financial Growth Authority in November. It emerged as certainly one of 12 teams given the financial award. It goals to remodel unused properties within the state to profit the encompassing neighborhood.
With the funding in tow, the muse can now have a good time town’s place in Jazz music. Furthermore, they will additionally doc its Black residents’ struggle for integration. They plan to open a museum detailing this distinctive historical past.
“That is what we needed since 2005 and now it’s materializing,“ mentioned Henrietta Shelton, founding father of the Hen Bone Seashore basis. “It’s unbelievable what we’re going to have the ability to do within the artwork kind, in that constructing.”
Established within the Nineties, the muse’s namesake comes from the shoreline designated for Black beachgoers. Its title stemmed from racist stereotypes of Black households bringing fried rooster for a seashore picnic. Nevertheless, residents have since reclaimed the title and this historical past. The seashore additionally gained recognition as a historic web site on New Jersey’s Black Heritage Path.
The group’s leaders plan to purchase a 250-seat theater. Whereas nonetheless preserving the theater’s seating and integrity, they’ll renovate its higher flooring to lecture rooms for educating music. Moreover, the theater’s unique use will nonetheless shine via live shows and performances.
Hen Bone seashore as soon as hosted artists from Sammy Davis Jr. to Louis Armstrong to entertain Black attendees. Now, the muse hopes to recreate the magic that after delighted Black audiences in the course of the early to mid-Twentieth century.
Shelton added, “Now we will do much more highly effective issues in that constructing — indoor live shows, we will have performs, it’s going to be a Mecca.”
Initially constructed within the Nineteen Twenties, Dante Corridor has remained vacant since 2020. Nevertheless, the group plans to right away use the area for its programming, particularly choir follow, as soon as the acquisition closes.
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