The Clyde: one room, two music lives

Opened 1951 — reborn 2018

Movie palace to concert hall: The Quimby family's second great Fort Wayne room opened on April 19, 1951, at 1808 Bluffton Road in Quimby Village: the Clyde Theatre, designed by A. M. Strauss — the Emboyd's architect — commissioned by the family of Clyde Quimby, the operator who had opened the Emboyd in 1928. With 1,782 seats it was the region's premier movie house, drawing patrons from across northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio. It changed names, closed, reopened briefly as a house of worship, and by the early 1990s stood vacant, its interior stripped to a shell. In 2012 Rick Kinney bought the vacant theatre for five hundred dollars at a tax sale and went looking for partners. He found them in Chuck and Lisa Surack of Sweetwater: ground was broken in July 2017 on a renovation of more than $7.5 million (the venue's own history says $9 million), with Sweetwater supplying the technology design and gear and the Russ Berger Design Group the acoustics. The Clyde reopened in May 2018 as a 2,150-capacity general-admission concert hall, its fixed seats gone and its art-deco shell restored — reopening weekend brought a free concert by the Pink Floyd tribute Pink Droyd on May 6, 2018, and a first wave of touring bills that included Ghost, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, and Stone Sour. By 2021 the Clyde had hosted more than 140 shows and events and drawn more than 140,000 people, with its Club Room next door presenting live music six nights a week. The building's fabric is carried in the Architecture and Famous Locations records; its second life as the city's dedicated rock room belongs here.

Sources:

1. Sweetwater Sound press releases, "Sweetwater Renovates Historic Theatre" (May 8, 2018) and "Sweetwater Powers State-of-the-Art Music Venue" (May 23, 2018) — the 1951 opening, 1,782 seats, the 2012 tax-sale purchase for $500, the July 2017 groundbreaking, the $7.5 million-plus renovation, and the 2,150 capacity.
2. The Clyde Theatre, "Our History" (clydetheatre.com) — the 1949 commission and April 19, 1951 opening; gives the renovation at $9 million, the variant noted in the entry.
3. Input Fort Wayne, "It Takes a Village" (November 10, 2021) — more than 140 shows and 140,000 attendees since reopening; the Club Room's six-nights-a-week live music.
4. Front of House magazine (May 2018) — the May 6, 2018 Pink Droyd reopening concert; Onstage Magazine (February 27, 2018) — the first-wave concert announcements.