LEXINGTON, KY - What was considered "the hub of activities in terms of the arts" by those who frequented The Lyric on the corner of Third and Elm Tree from 1948 until its closing in 1963 will be buzzing again with its rebirth as the Lyric Theater and Cultural Arts Center in 14 months.
"The community is going to be benefited by the fact that individuals who have functioned at the highest level in opera and so forth are from this community and this community is not aware of them," said Julian Jackson, Jr., who along with others has pushed since 1990 to bring the Lyric back into existence. "And so the social fabric, the tapestry is going to be more complete when we weave in the rest of our fabric, and that will benefit the whole community, not just the African American community."
The vision of Jackson and his friend and partner in the Lyric push, former councilman Robert Jefferson, became a reality last week when Mayor Jim Newberry signed a city ordinance clearing the way for a $6 million bond to expand and reopen the Lyric next September.
"I can only begin to imagine the feelings you all have todayÖ and it's been way too long," Newberry told more than a dozen Lyric activists who have worked on the project on various boards and task forces over the last two decades.
The most recent effort led by the Lyric Theater Task Force and its chairwoman Juanita Betz Peterson started their work in September 2005 when appointed by former Mayor Teresa Isaac.
"It took everybody," Betz Peterson said of the process. "No one person can do it."
The effort finally came to fruition in a time when the East End neighborhood and Third Street in particular near downtown has been targeted for improvement through public and donated dollars. "That Third Street Corridor is going to be wonderful, but the cornerstone of that corridor is going to be the Lyric Theater," Betz Peterson said.
Though ground will be broken on the project July 16, this most recent effort hit major bumps in the road as members of council balked at the Lyric's business model and reliance on city funds for annual operations.
To help straighten out the plan, head of the UK Opera Everett McCorvey came aboard to assist in making the Lyric viable for the long run.
"Once it's built it is going to be a totally different look. You'll still have the sense of the shell of the Lyric outside, but inside it's going to be state-of-the-art, really top drawer," McCorvey said after the mayor's ceremony.
"It gives the community - and I'm not going to say just the African American community, but the entire community - a place and a venue to celebrate different cultures in a more significant way," he said. "While the Lyric will celebrate the African American culture, it will celebrate all cultures, so I think that one of the exciting things for me is (for) the community to have a facility like this where they can celebrateÖ some of Lexington's own artists who have had national and international careers and successes, but then we'll also be able to have a venue where we can bring in nationally known arts groups, nationally known artists and internationally known artists and have a venue where they can have a concert or presentation or art exhibit, and it's in the African American community."
Jackson agreed with McCorvey, saying the benefit to the city as a whole may mean more in the long run than just the benefit to the community it is located in. "If you hope to be a world-class city and you want to draw big corporations, they look for that kind of viability and to know that all of its citizens are productive and we're going to be able to produce evidence of that," Jackson said.
But the effect on Third Street and the nearby neighborhood is what former Lyric "unpaid supervisor" and renown former basketball coach Sanford T. Roach is looking forward to.
"I've seen a number of things happen here in Lexington, and this I think is the crowning achievement right now," said Roach, who used to work inside as well as operating a business next to the Lyric. "It's going to be a boon to Third Street Ö the East End is going to be booming along with this."