Vintage St. Pete: The Coliseum at 100

When the St. Petersburg Coliseum opened nearly 100 years ago, it was touted as the largest and most luxurious dance hall in the South, with a 1,200-square-foot floor of polished white maple. The “Palace of Pleasure,” as Coliseum owners advertised it, had a 40 by 20 foot stage, a 450-seat balcony, a kitchen and a dining area, a public soda fountain, private loges and a childcare nursery.

And a disco ball, maybe the first in Florida. Although a similar contraption had been patented in 1917, the “Rotary Jewel,” designed by W.C. Burgett of Tampa, was described as the only device of its kind in the world. It was a large square made of cedar wood and plaster of Paris, covered with glued-on mirrors and suspended from the ceiling.

The ‘Jewel’ is electrically driven and revolves slowly when in operation. It is to be used during ‘moonlight dances’ and for other occasions where its dazzling effect is desired … eight spot lights are to be played on the Rotary Jewel … the eight spots will be divided around the dance floor, thus playing on the Rotary Jewel from every angle. St. Petersburg Times/Nov. 19, 1924

The Coliseum in 1925. Photo: Burgert Brothers Collection/Hillsborough County Library.

The opening of the Coliseum was a game-changer in the city. It was the first structure built solely for the purpose of entertainment, and for decades – at least until the construction of the Bayfront Center arena and theater in 1965 – it was the only thing that could pass as an actual concert hall.

It was, and still is, what’s known as a multi-use community venue. Over the century gone by there have been conventions, trade shows, banquets, galas, company dinners, company luncheons, company breakfasts, meetings, sock hops, boxing matches, tennis matches, basketball games, proms, graduations, dance marathons, balls, cotillions, fashion shows, flower shows, auto shows, book shows, record shows, charity teas, charity animal races, retirement parties, wedding receptions, political rallies  … and a lot of dancing.

Charles F. Cullen and a group of investors formed the Coliseum Corporation in 1923, when Florida was in the first blush of the great land boom. The construction of grand hotels, and amusing diversions, for the rich Northerners who wintered in the state meant potentially big money.

T.H. Eslick’s plans for the 30,000-square-foot cement block structure, slathered in stucco, used the then-in-vogue “Italianate” design, a fancifully modernized (for the era) variation of Renaissance architecture with Moorish flourishes.

The building is patterned after the famous amusement structure near Los Angeles known as “Somewhere in France.” Similar design to the world-famed Mormon Tabernacle in Salt City, Utah, is also noted. Particularly is this likeness seen in the huge roof, supported by thirteen mammoth trusses and standing at a 45 degree angle. St. Petersburg Times/Nov. 19, 1924

Concert, year unknown (note the people in the balcony). Photo: City of St. Petersburg.

The 130-foot arching ceiling trusses, the newspaper breathlessly continued, were made of “Red Russian” wood to duplicate the acoustic superiority of the “historic building revered by the Latter Day Saints.”

Cullen and his cronies also built a virtually identical Coliseum on Davis Island in Tampa. Little remembered today, it burned down in 1967.

Ironically, on the very day the Coliseum opened its doors (Nov. 20, 1924), the ribbon was cut on Gandy Bridge, the first over-water road between St. Petersburg and Tampa.

St. Petersburg Times, 1933.

Regional dance orchestras rotated in and out to play for the tourists and the locals; Vaudeville legends including Will Rogers and Rudy Vallee performed on the Coliseum stage. Eddie Rickenbacker and Aimee Semple McPherson spoke.

Self-taught banjo player Rex MacDonald, from Springfield, Illinois, performed with several bands at the Coliseum, and was employed as venue manager for a number of years in the pre-war era. In 1944, he bought the place, with business partner Will Kaleel, and ran it until his death 40 years later.

The list of top-shelf bandleaders from the venue’s glory days is impressive: Glenn Miller, Paul Whiteman, Kay Kyser, Les Brown, Sammy Kaye (a record 3,300 attendees in 1945), Harry James, Guy Lombardo and Tommy Dorsey.

St. Petersburg Times., 1937.

“Everybody thought I was going to lose my shirt when I brought in Dorsey for a three-night stand,” MacDonald boasted to columnist Dick Bothwell in 1950. “Full house every night. As I see it, the city is hungry for big name, high class entertainment.”

Said Dorsey: “Being here is like a vacation for the boys.”

Duke Ellington and his band played the Coliseum in 1937, on the jazz legend’s very first tour through Florida, and again in ‘55 and ‘56.

During the segregated Jim Crow era, the Coliseum was off-limits to Black residents.

Louis Armstrong appeared there March 22, 1946; three days earlier, he had performed at the Manhattan Casino, a dance hall on St. Petersburg’s south side, for a predominantly African American audience.

When he returned to the city 11 years later, Armstrong reportedly refused to play the whites-only Coliseum, and opted to appear only at the Manhattan Casino. Photographs show a packed house and a racially-mixed crowd (having a great time).

1954: Dinner dance to celebrate the opening of the first Sunshine Skyway Bridge. File photo.

Change came slowly to the St. Petersburg Coliseum. Over time the soda fountain, the kitchen and the nursery went away. Air conditioning wasn’t installed until the mid 1950s, by the ‘60s the regular Wednesday and Saturday night dances were drawing a mostly elderly clientele, folks who liked to thrill to the old-time sound of big band orchestra music. This was St. Pete’s “God’s Waiting Room” era.

Still, MacDonald tried new things. The Impacs, a local band, played the first rock ‘n’ roll music (for a teen sock hop) at the Coliseum in 1962.

Festival of States 1976 Coronation Ball. Coliseum photo.

1974.

MacDonald put together a house orchestra, the Silver Kings, with himself as bandleader. In 1968, he told the St. Petersburg Times he’d assembled the group because he “couldn’t find a band that would attract enough business to keep the Coliseum in the red.”

The story continued: “MacDonald said he checked statistics and found, at that time (1964), 40 percent of the Tampa Bay people were 50 years old or older, so he organized his band around the music of conventional ballroom dancing.”

And so it went until April, 1984 when the Coliseum was put up for sale by MacDonald’s wife (Rex had been in ill health for a few years, it was reported, and was in a convalescent home) and Kaleel’s widow. The price tag: $995,000.

It was also reported that the Saturday night dances were drawing 1,200-1,500 participants. Rentals paid the bulk of the monthly bills.

But Thelma “Boo” MacDonald said she was “ready for a change.”

Rex MacDonald died on April 26, the very day the story about the sale appeared in the Times.

But there were no takers, and business as usual carried on.

1984: Don Ameche and Gwen Verdon in “Cocoon.” Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Director Ron Howard rented the Coliseum that fall to shoot a scene for the movie Cocoon, which was being made almost entirely in St. Petersburg.

It’s one of the most memorable scenes in the film. Senior stars Don Ameche and Gwen Verdon are on the ballroom floor, doing an elegant and age-appropriate waltz, when Ameche – well, his body double – launches into a riotous break dance, spinning and leaping like a young man possessed.

On June 15, 1989, the City of St. Petersburg paid $824,500 for the Coliseum. The building was immediately closed for extensive renovations, $1 million worth, including air conditioning upgrades, an exterior paint job, interior changes, an upgrade of the electrical system and the installation of a fire sprinkler system. It re-opened in October.

The City replaced the original white maple dance floor with red oak in 1992. Two years later, the Coliseum received Historic Landmark certification.

Changes and upgrades are made as they become necessary, said Facilities Manager Veronica Villano – the stage rigging was completely overhauled in 2018 – and next year, the building will close during the summer for work on the concrete foundation. It’ll get a new dance floor, too, its third.

The look in 2024. Above: The view from the stage. Below: The original private loges. Photos by Bill DeYoung.

Business, meanwhile, is booming. There’s way too much state-of-the-art competition for the Coliseum to function as a concert hall, but as a community multi-use venue, the calendar is one hundred percent full.

“It’s very hard to get into the Coliseum,” Villano said. “Some people have tried for a year or two to get in, but we have re-occurring clients who are booked every year.”

The Coliseum’s 100^th birthday celebration, over several days in November, will include dance events, a performance from The Florida Orchestra, and even a set by the Impacs, that rock ‘n’ roll quintet from 1962.

Rental information is available at the City’s Coliseum web page. Also there is a rundown of the facility’s technical and physical stats – Villano and her crew can provide chairs for up to 1,800 people; they’ve got two sizes of banquet tables, access to 25 catering companies, and a reinforced central wooden truss that can handle extra weight (like rigging for aerialists, which has been done on occasion).

Oh, and there’s a disco ball, too, although the staff doesn’t call it a “Rotary Jewel.”

1956: Tennis demonstration with Pancho Gonzalez, Jack Kramer and Bobby Riggs. Coliseum photo.