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Essay
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Project Row Houses preserves
Houston’s historic Eldorado
Ballroom for future generations.
PHOTO COURTESY STERN AND BUCEK ARCHITECTS
by Florence Tang, Assoc. AIA, NOMA
Before Anita Webber Smith left Houston for college at Texas Tech University, she was an Army
brat whose family lived in a three-bedroom ranchstyle house on Rosedale Street in the heart of Third
Ward. She attended Turner Elementary (now shuttered) down the street and recalled nights when her
mother dressed up in beautiful dresses with pumps
to go dancing with her aunt and uncle at the Eldorado Ballroom, located at the historic crossroads of
Elgin Street and Emancipation Avenue (formerly
Dowling Street), just minutes from downtown.
The building fronts Emancipation Park, a
10-acre city park dating back to the time of Reverend Jack Yates, a minister and founder of Freedmen’s Town (now Houston’s Fourth Ward). Until
the 1950s, it was the only public park and swimming pool in Houston open to African Americans,
and, later, civil rights rallies packed the green space.
While Smith was too young to go to Eldorado
— she stayed home with her brother and the babysitter — those childhood memories growing up
in Third Ward fueled her community work with
Project Row Houses (PRH) to resurrect the ballroom where music legends like B.B. King, Ella
Fitzgerald, James Brown, Ray Charles, Nat King
Cole, and Jewel Brown (who sang with Louis Armstrong) once performed.
Project Row Houses is a nonprofit organization whose model for art and social engagement
includes 昀椀ve city blocks and 39 structures that o昀昀er
The restoration of the Eldorado Ballroom in Houston’s Third Ward won a 2023 Modernism in America Award from
Docomomo US.
culturally enriching programmatic initiatives and
community development activities. Smith, along
with Hasty Johnson and Chris Williams, co-chaired
the fundraising e昀昀orts and joined forces with former
PRH Board President Bert Brown III and a host
of supporters like the Kinder Foundation, Houston Endowment, and Brown Foundation, as well
as other foundations and private donors. “There
were foundations who didn’t know the building
existed,” says Smith, who now serves as the PRH
vice president. “Houston is a diverse city, so it was
great to get the word out and see the support and
collaboration.”
More than a music venue, the Eldorado was a
“white-tablecloth” social club established by husband and wife Clarence Dupree and Anna Johnson
Dupree in 1939 to provide prominent Black professionals and residents a place to belong, to enjoy
live music, to host social events, and to celebrate
milestones without discrimination during the Jim
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