Historic Fort Worth
A movie house relic of a bygone era in south Fort Worth soon will likely have a date with a demolition squad.
Permits have been filed to raze the Berry Theater, which has sat at 3303 Hemphill since opening in 1940 but has been in steady decline for more than 50 years.
The owner of the building is Mission Travis Mercy, founded in 2011 to provide health care to lower socioeconomic and uninsured patients residing in the south Fort Worth zip codes of 76110 and 76104.
Mercy Clinic announced the acquisition of the theater property in the fall of 2021, adding at the time that the acquisition was part of a vision to build a “state-of-the-art” medical and dental clinic on the lot adjacent to the theater. At that time, clinic officials said the theater would be the site for community ministries to those in need for the population at large, not merely those in those zip codes.
The theater site will presumably be a new edifice to house those ministries. Mercy Clinic had yet to respond to a message seeking comment.
The clinic in 2016 purchased three lots adjacent to the theater. One of those will be used for the clinic. The other two for parking for the two buildings.
Hahnfeld Hoffer Stanford was selected to be the architect for the clinic project and Baird, Hampton & Brown was tapped to be the engineer, according to clinic officials in 2021.
The Berry Theater was originally named the White Theater, so called for the name of its owners. It became the Berry Theater in the early 1960s.
The theater was built during time when suburban, neighborhood theaters were a thing. The most famous of these probably was the Texas Theater, which Lee Harvey Oswald ducked into in 1963.
In Fort Worth, the first of its kind was the New Tivoli on Magnolia. Fort Worth historian Richard Selcer wrote in the Star-Telegram that New Tivoli’s success led to construction of others, including the White Theater; the Rosen in Lake Worth in 1941; the Bowie on Camp Bowie and the Tower at Six Points in 1942. The New Isis, which is enjoying a resurgence after renovation, made its debut on North Main in 1944.
At the time of its construction, the Berry had 682 seats and was the anchor of a commercial strip at West Berry and Hemphill streets. The theater had a balcony, and, according to a description by Fort Worth Architecture, “the first-floor exterior was covered with burgundy-colored ceramic tile and a free-standing box office. The upper two floors along the front of the building were painted stucco with neon outlining and highlighting the architectural details on the facade.”
It was a three-story front sloping to a two-story stage house.
“It was a true neighborhood theater with little parking — many walked,” remembered Doug Sutherland, who grew up in the neighborhood in the 1940s and 1950s. “Our family of four would walk in evenings every month or so to see whatever was showing for the A/C and stop at Modern Drugs on the northeast corner Berry and Hemphill for Coke or banana split.”
The neighborhood theaters specialized in B-movies and second-run features, such as “King’s Row,” starring Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan, and Robert Cummings. The movie is set in a small American town called King's Row and follows the lives of several residents, focusing on the personal struggles and relationships within the community.
The rise of television, suburbanization, and the growth of multiplex cinemas led to the decline of many neighborhood theaters in Texas from the 1960s onward, not to mention, specifically here, many more things competing for the entertainment dollar.
By the early 1960s, the theater was showing almost exclusively Spanish-language films. By the 1970s, it was evident that the building had fallen into disrepair. It’s been vacant for years and years.
Preservationists received some hope in 2019 by the City Council’s action to authorize a tax incentive for the building’s rehabilitation. It coincided with Berry Theater LLC’s plans to spend $1.8 million in rehabilitating the old theater for use as an event center.
Not quite two years later, the property was sold and a new purpose for mankind put in place.
