By Hillary Simmons
Truck Editor
The Lyric Theater in Historic Overtown is a pinnacle in Miami’s cultural history. By day, it served the people of Overtown as an all-purpose auditorium, holding everything from community meetings to commencement ceremonies. By night, it bloomed into a bustling center of Black culture where icons such as Langston Hughes, Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, and many more headlined. It was built, owned, and operated by Georgia native Geder Walker and lies on N.W. 2nd Avenue, or as it was once known, “Little Broadway.” Little Broadway was a booming, bustling street in Overtown that was known for its rich cultural scene and lively nightlife. The Lyric Theater stood among others such as the Mary Elizabeth Hotel, Knight Beat Club, the Sir John Hotel, and the Harlem Square, where many great Black performers once stayed.
Everything was going great until the 1950s when Overtown took a devastating blow as Interstate 95 was expanded through President Eisenhower’s Federal-Aid Highway Act, a project to establish an interstate highway system. Miami’s officials deemed Overtown to be the perfect place to build a major interchange connecting i95, i395, and State Road 836. Instead of choosing the site of an abandoned railroad corridor, Miami’s officials chose to place this highway expansion in Overtown, thus driving a stake through the heart of the “Harlem of the South.”
Due to segregation and other forms of institutionalized racism, the residents of Overtown had no say. Over 20,000 residents, half of Overtown’s population, were displaced. Many were given short notices of six to eight weeks, thus ordering them, with no compensation, to migrate to neighboring areas such as Allapattah, Liberty City, Brownsville, Richmond Heights, and parts of North Dade. Construction went on for ten years, which contributed to the demise of Overtown’s bustling, colorful cultural scene.
The Lyric Theater’s architecture is as interesting as its history. Constructed using concrete and covered in stucco, the Lyric is reminiscent of other historic buildings in Overtown, such as the Historic Saint Agnes Episcopal Church. The masonry-vernacular-style building has five bays and is topped by an arched parapet. Its flat roof is coupled with a parapet wall and a series of monitors. Three symmetrical portions with classical details embellish the Theater’s facade. Each end is encased with tall pillars that are topped with Corinthian capitals.
The Theater closed in the 1960s, then purchased in 1988 by the Black Archives, a group dedicated to preserving the African American history of South Florida. It was put onto the National Register of Historic Places the same year, then reopened in 2000. Since, it has undergone multiple stages of reconstruction and restoration, with the newest installment being in 2014. Today, I-95 stands directly west of the Lyric, which is the only building from Little Broadway that still stands today. The Lyric Theater serves as a reminder of the richness of Black history.