I enrolled at the University of Texas in 1995… when Tower Records was the SPOT! I was buying Wu-Tang CDs like Ol’ Dirty Bastard was having kids. The building was originally the Varsity Theatre. In recent years it’s been vacant, after a poorly timed retail attempt by a bookstore, Intellectual Property Capital. The ABJ’s Jacob Dirr scoops what’s next for one of the most desirable retail sites in Austin, along with some history of the building. We found some old photos to share with you.
As I get older and appreciate nostalgia (including old Wu-Tang albums), I found a forum with links to historic photos of the property. Tower Records was responsible for the new-urbanist no-no of removing the windows from 24th Street. But the murals they replaced those windows with made it easy to forgive them.
Local photographer Blaine Pennington has some cool images…
Varsity Theatre circa 1989? [link]
Varsity Theatre last day [link]
Varsity Theatre corner, creepy photo showing no people [link]
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I worked at the Varsity Theatre between 1980 and 1983 or ’84. Steve Wilson was the manager then and Carlos Lowry; who designed and worked on the mural, worked alongside me there.
I wish I could find a color photo straight on to the Varsity mural in those days, back when the mural colors were truly bright. It’s in need of love now, I wish it were treated by the city and owner(s) like the landmark that it is. Back in the ’80s the mural made sense due to the integration of the fire escape into the design. Such a photo would almost have to be panoramic.
I also wish I find some photos of the interior, it was a grand old movie palace when I was there, back before Tower Records gutted it inside and threatened to paint over the mural outside. There was a big protest about that, Carlos Lowery and many of the Varity regulars and former employees (like myself) made some noise about Tower’s plans. It worked, the mural is still there.
Can you imagine crawling through a tiny window in the men’s restroom after the theatre closed, climbing out on the roof an an 8 foot ladder and changing the marque while the ladder swayed in the wind? I did it, and so did many others. Closing was always a little scary, you felt you were walking among ghosts of film screenings past.
The black & white photo of ther interior above might have been taking in the 1950’s. The concession stand inside was configured differently then/ I don’t know when the concession stand was reconfigured; just that it had been done before 1980, and at that time there were no glass panels behind it. In fact, there was a smaller mural by Carlos above the concession stand. but I’ve never seen a photo of it, either. Yet another, “I want…”.
I met so many cool people at the Varisty Theatre; John Parkins, Eddie De Leon, where are you?
College classes at the Univ. of TX, working at the Varsity, and the wonderful people that I met there, yep they were good times.
I saw “Earthquake” at the Varsity in Sensurround and sat right next to one of the subwoofers. Because of the age of the building (even in 1974) there was some concern for structural damage from the film’s vibrations. It may have just been a publicity stunt, but MCA-Universal Pictures said they hired a structural engineer to make sure the theater wouldn’t fall down. It didn’t.
The name of the most recent bookstore was actually Intellectual Property, not Intellectual Capital.