Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 00:52:00

Forty homeless people were living inside when the foundation bought the building for 250,000 dollars - a quarter-century of abandonment had nearly finished what the multiplex era started. The Fox Tucson Theatre at 17 West Congress Street opened on 11 April 1930 as a dual vaudeville and movie house, and it is the only known example of a Southwestern Art Deco - "Pueblo Deco" - movie palace anywhere. Architect M. Eugene Durfee dressed the 1,300-seat house in zig-zag deco fused with Pueblo motifs - sunbursts, stepped geometries and desert colourways executed by Los Angeles decorators Robert E. Powers Studios - over acoustic plaster that gave the room celebrated sound. A 20,000-dollar Wurlitzer and a full fly-loft signalled live-performance ambitions that the Depression and the talkies largely shelved; the Fox settled into decades as downtown Tucson's premier cinema. It closed in 1974 and sat dark for 25 years, absorbing water damage and vandalism, until the non-profit Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation completed its two-year purchase negotiation in 1999. Six years and 14 million dollars later - roof, restoration, chandeliers, rigging and all - the theatre reopened on New Year's Eve 2005, having been listed on the National Register in 2003 for its singular style. The restored 1,164-seat house now runs 150 to 160 events a year for over 75,000 patrons: national touring music and comedy, classic films on the big screen as intended, and rentals that fund the mission. Its scale is the sweet spot - big enough for marquee names, intimate enough that the balcony feels close - and its impact on Congress Street's revival has been profound. Downtown Tucson makes the visit easy: the Sun Link streetcar stops on Congress, garages sit within two blocks, and the surrounding blocks hold the city's best bar and restaurant density. Catch a classic-film night if the schedule allows - the room showing movies again is the whole point of the rescue.