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THEATER
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ro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Centry-Fox, Warner Brothers and First National.
There were separate ticket offices for whites and blacks. Whites used the main entrance. Blacks used a State Street entrance and were con-sij-v'^d to half of the\/allerv area.
In its early days, an organist provide interpretative background music for the movies.
At its opening, the owners assured movie-goers that the theater was lighted with electricity in steel conduits, making it impossible for a fire to occur.
Less than five months Inter, a raging fire that had started elsewhere destroyed four buildings and damaged nine before the high wall of the A&G prevented it from s\^ ^ping through
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the city's business section.
The A&G sustained from $15,000 to $20,000 in damage, but in the traditional fashion of the show must go on. it opened for a movie the next evening.
For several years after the movies quit grinding, the building housed the Purple I?ickle, a hangout for teenagers, Havden said.
Hayden bought the building in 1974. She said she will not sell it to anyone who plans to d^vnolish it.
"That?s why I bought it, when I got wind someone was going to tear it down,? she said.
Contractor Charles Rhodes of Pass Christian said some of the repair work is to make the building structurally safe and some is "basically cosmetic."
The first task, he said, was to evict the building?s tenants.
?There were about 10 million pigeons living there,? said Rhodes, with perhaps a tad of Hollywood-style exaggeration.	v	)
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