Play it again: The rise, fall and revival of the iconic Paramount Theatre in Cedar Rapids

Abstract

<p>Less than a year after a beautiful new vaudeville theater opened in downtown Cedar Rapids, the Great Flood of 1929 saw the Cedar River crest to its highest recorded level at the time, bringing water a few feet away from the new venue’s lobby. The building’s famously decorated Hall of Mirrors and auditorium—with marezzo scagliola plaster finish, aluminum-leaf paints and glazes, crystal chandeliers, stained-glass light fixtures and a Wurlitzer organ— remained unharmed, preserving for future generations a majestic example of movie palace design found throughout the country in the 1920s andˇ30s.</p>