Son Mattie‘s time is about to get more precious.
Did I tell you that, in August, I am going to be a grandmother, again? It has been 12 years since we have had a new baby in the family and everybody, including the menfolk, are vying for the new baby’s attention.
For years, as the unpaid executive director of Friends of Dreamland (FOD), Matt has been generous with his time and knowledge of Taborian Hall. If you wanted to meet afterhours for a tour of the Dreamland Ballroom, he was happy to accommodate. And this past weekend, Juneteenth, was no exception.
Learning about Taborian Hall and Dreamland Ballroom
FAB and FOD understand the importance and embrace the responsibility of working in the last building left on the historic Ninth Street corridor in downtown Little Rock. 100 years ago, this area was a thriving business district for black folks. It was a city within a city.
After desegregation, there was black flight from their once patronized stores. Black folks now shopped for cheaper prices in the white-owned stores on Main Street. Their black business district began to falter. By the end of the 20th century, my beautiful old building had a hole in the roof as big as Mount Rushmore. Everyone that saw it knew it would not survive another winter. That’s when I borrowed $20,000 from my father and bought the Taborian Hall.
At the time, it was nothing more to me than a beautiful, stately, old brick building, a preservation project. Later, after moving in, the story of my building and its people began to unravel. Old men would walk by, cup their hands around their eyes as they leaned in and looked through the windows, curious. I, in turn, would run out to greet them on the sidewalk and visit. Their stories were compelling, and I began to make notes of their folklore. It wasn’t too long before the building’s importance to life in the 20th century became clear. Thus started FAB’s 5-year, $15,000 commitment to author Berna Love. Her charge was to collect and document oral histories, and eventually write a book, which she did, the Temple of Dreams.
Tour Times
Son Matthew Savage McCoy has taken up my passion for the building and its history. He has even read Temple of Dreams twice! I haven’t even done that.
Last Saturday, he scheduled, posted, printed, and shared his tour times for Juneteenth at 9:30 and 11:30. But curious patrons didn’t stick to the schedule. They showed up at all times of the day and Matt accommodated everyone into the hot, late afternoon.
With a new baby soon-to-be in the picture, those days may be limited. I suspect new-daddy Matt’s time is about to become more precious, as he divvies it up between accommodating a newborn, a new mother, and the curious visitors of Dreamland.
