Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 - (Page 61)

and acanthus leaves. All this decoration is in shallow relief with a decided linear emphasis that seems almost soft and malleable, and contrasts nicely with the smooth, crisp brick. A canopy runs the entire length of the building on its railroadfacing side and, as it reaches the arcade entrance, the canopy triangles up in the shape of a shallow pediment. “Bloom’s Arcade” is spelled out in large letters along its edge. Overstreet’s up-to-the-minute design matched Bloom’s innovative retail concept. In many ways, Overstreet’s scheme for Bloom is characteristic of his work during the late 1920s and into the 1930s. While the details differ, the composition of a blocky building with a strongly emphasized central entrance parallels, for example, the schools Overstreet designed a few years later in Mississippi, notably Columbia High School in Columbia and the Edward L. Bailey School in Jackson, both dating to 1937. As a side note, the renowned Louisiana architect A. Hays Town began his career in 1926 in Overstreet’s office and which also occupied the space, offered such amenities as two soda fountains and a luncheonette, and had fixtures of inlaid walnut design. The entrance to the movie theater was marked by a vertical sign indicating it as a Bailey’s theater. But to show that it was an integral part of Bloom’s building, Overstreet decorated its entrance with ornamental panels similar to those at the and the dazzling Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, completed in 1877 — arcades also have a long history in American cities. Architect John Haviland, although better known for his prison designs, created arcades for New York and Philadelphia as early as the mid 1820s. These have been demolished, but the famous arcade in Providence, Rhode Island, was based on Haviland’s schemes. Completed in 1828, the Providence arcade emulated its European precedents with a glass-covered roof covering a pedestrian passage with shops on either side. This was the model for Bloom’s arcade. According to Johann F. Geist in his book, Arcades: the History of a Building Type (1983), arcades came into being in response to the specific needs for a public space protected from traffic and weather and as a new means of marketing the products of a luxury goods industry. Bloom’s Arcade had an added and modern dimension — it was a retail complex that catered to shoppers arriving by automobile. Its model may have been Bloom’s Arcade had an added and modern dimension — it was a retail complex that catered to shoppers arriving by automobile. was made a partner in 1931. Several years ago I asked Town if he had a hand in the design of the arcade, but, although he was principal designer of the schools just mentioned, he said he had no recollection of having worked on Bloom’s Arcade. The arcade, 300 feet long and 18 feet wide, is illuminated by a continuous skylight of translucent glass supported on steel trusses. Brick piers with capitals ornamented with stylized rosettes and volutes disguise the steel supports. The glass roof is supported on a box cornice that steps back in five stages and that runs the entire length of the arcade. The effect is smooth, streamlined, and dynamic. At each end of the arcade, the entrances are highlighted on their inner sides by panels of stylized ornamentation that echoes that of the exterior sculpture. The arcade has a terrazzo floor. According to reports in the Madison Parish Journal newspaper when the building went up, 18 different commercial businesses occupied the arcade when it opened. Two of them — the theater and the filling station — were accessed from the exterior. The businesses included W.A. Dozier’s jewelry shop; a pool room and a barber shop; a restaurant; a grocery; and the Max Levy and Company department store, Madison Parish’s oldest and largest department store. Bloom’s Drug store, arcade’s entrances. The theater was one in a chain of theaters throughout Central and Northeastern Louisiana owned by Robert Lee Bailey, Sr., of Bunkie. Bloom leased the space to Bailey. The theater seated 680 people and was cooled by a Nu-Air Cooling System. Although European arcades are well known — notably London’s classy Burlington Arcade of 1819, for example, Country Club Plaza in Kansas City of 1924 and that was enormously influential in its provisions for “park and shop.” Built to a unified plan and in a single and fashionable architectural style, it helped make the term “shopping center” popular. Country Club was owned and operated by a single entity that leased space to tenants and included a movie theater. Bloom took those successful ingredients to his Tallulah building just a few years later. While the automobile gave rise to shopping centers and made them successful, it also ultimately destroyed many. Small in-town shopping centers like Bloom’s could not compete with the enormous edge-of-town shopping malls or mega-stores. By the late 1990s, only a few of the spaces in Bloom’s Arcade were still occupied and the occupants were different from those of the arcade’s heyday. Bloom’s Arcade is a building that definitely needs a savior, for as well as being fine architecture, the arcade is a monument to one man’s pioneering vision. The Arcade is the only example of its type in the state and an iconic part of early 20th century history. JENNIFER BAUGHN LEE ESTES Karen Kingsley, Ph.D., is professor emerita of architecture at Tulane University, author of Buildings of Louisiana (2003, Oxford University Press), and a free lance writer. Summer 2008/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 61

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities George Rodrigue’s Louisiana: Cajuns, Blue Dogs & Beyond Katrina The Historic New Orleans Collection After The Flood Faubourg Marigny: The Creole “Suburb” Preserving New Orleans Jazz, One Generation at a Time: Conversation & Music with Tom Sancton Louisiana Foodways Louisiana Architecture Baton Rouge Photographs, 1863-1910 Jazz Notes The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Louisiana Association of Museums Nature of the “Beast” Louisiana State Museum Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

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