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The wall next to the shaft “just wasn’t shored up properly. It
might not have been necessary if it was hard ground, but because
it’s basically loam,” said Rivenbark, voice trailing off. “So
there was a wind that came through, and the whole north wall
collapsed, which knocked out a huge chunk of what is now the
mayor’s office.”
“All of a sudden,” Rivenbark continued, “people who were inter-ested
in having a new library or a new theater or a new city hall
said, ‘Well, it’s a wonderful old building and all that, but it really
doesn’t meet our purposes as a new city.’”
One issue was safety. The fear was that the building was not
structurally sound.
“It was really the first major debate on preservation,” Rivenbark
said. After engineering studies proved the structure of the build-ing
to be perfectly sound, the WPA secured the additional funds
to do the necessary repairs, and the building remained.
Designed as a hybrid structure, Thalian Hall originally housed
an armory for the Wilmington Light Infantry, two rooms for
the Wilmington Library Association and, as it does today, city
offices, a meeting room for public assemblies and receptions, and
a theater. According to Rivenbark, “It was almost like they were
trying to come up with enough uses for the building so they could
make it really impressive.
Which it is.”
Indeed, the conjoined
nature of city offices and
theater has frequently
proved providential.
When it was an appro-priate
time for a new
theater, the city hall
didn’t need work and
vice versa.
“Being joined at
the hip is, to me, why
the building is still
here,” Rivenbark said.
“It’s what caused the
building to be built,
and that’s why, time
after time, the building
somehow wins out.”
The authors, Dorothy
Rankin and Lee Lowrimore,
relied on the research
and scholarship found
in the Thalian Hall
Archives, especially that of
Isabel M.Williams and
D. Anthony Rivenbark.
JARRETT DONMOYER
Tony Rivenbark received the Thomas & Elizabeth Wright Award
for Lifetime Achievement from the Historic Wilmington
Foundation in May 2022. The award recognizes lifelong dedica-tion
to historic preservation in Wilmington and the Lower Cape
Fear Region.