70 Years in The Waiting

     An amazing theatrical backdrop is being looked at for the first time in many decades...though it was hidden in plain sight for most of that time.
     The story reads like a detective story. Workers moving back into the Montgomery City Hall after a multi million (Federal) Dollar renovation, came across a series of photos showing a large painting.      
     It shows Dexter Avenue---Montgomery's main downtown street---the way it may have looked in the early 1800's. At the top of the undated, unmarked photo is a fancy wood detail that was recognized: the "frame" around the stage opening in the old City Auditorium that had just last week been reopened for use. The auditorium had been used as a story area for decades...as you can see in the photo below.

But now the auditorium has been refurbished, if not quite restored, and with help from the Montgomery Fire Department, workers climbed up to the top of the stage and sure enough, an old rolled up cloth that was thought to be a plain curtain was in fact, the rolled up painting, thought to be painted about the same time the city hall was built, in the mid 1930's 

Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange, right, talks with Mary
Ann Neeley, Montgomery Historian, about the canvas.

     The city is consulting with the Alabama Department of Archives and History about preserving the old painting...and they're asking anyone who knows about it, including who painted it and when, to call them!