In 1955, Fort Lauderdale’s third annual boat show was a benefit for underprivileged children. Local dealers provided cabin cruisers and sports fishing craft. There were no yachts, much less any megayachts.
They wouldn’t have fit anyway – this show was indoors, at the War Memorial Auditorium.
The boats were surrounded by nautical equipment, fishing tackle, even motorcycles. Not to mention a stage for contestants to vie for the coveted “Miss Dream Boat” title.
Bit of a contrast to the expanded and reimagined War Memorial Auditorium complex that opened this year, which includes the Florida Panthers practice facility known as the Baptist Health Iceplex. A rousing Melissa Etheridge concert kicked things off in January.
Since its opening in Holiday Park, with a memorial to war heroes, the arena has had a more varied and colorful history than just about any in South Florida. In addition to that not-in-the-water boat show, there have been gun shows, men’s and women’s wrestling matches, and taped programming – even a Hector Camacho title fight.
It was also, importantly, a magnet for major musical acts when venues in Fort Lauderdale were few and far between.
In a story from artscalendar.com, written for the Broward Arts Journalism Alliance, Greg Carannante notes that “it attracted such pop luminaries as Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, Chet Atkins, the Allman Brothers Band, Muddy Waters, Tony Bennett, and as recently as 2017, Steve Earle and the Dukes.”
He adds that it even hosted “the professional pugilistic debut of Mickey Rourke in 1991.”
The venue programming also included community and charity events. In an interview for this column, renowned comedian Woody Woodbury recalled his favorite one, the annual benefit for the Policeman’s Benevolent Association.
“I did all the PBA shows at War Memorial; there was no Parker Playhouse at that time,” he said. “Oh gosh, the shows had so many big stars like Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. The stars loved to do the show. They came from all over the country.” They loved the warm weather, Woodbury said.
“We did the show in February, and it was a knock-down show every year,” he said, recalling the performance of one special young police officer. “When she sang the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ everybody stood up, and you couldn’t hear a pin drop.”
War Memorial also hosted the early days of symphonic music, which was more of a challenge. A classical music critic recalls those times.
“For someone used to covering performances at the Kennedy Center, the first encounter with the War Memorial Auditorium was a bit of a shock,” said Tim Smith, a freelancer in Washington, D.C., before joining the Sun-Sentinel as classical music critic in 1981. “To call it a glorified Quonset hut doesn’t seem quite right. Is there such a thing as an ‘un-glorified’ Quonset hut?
“You had to park on the grass, not a very classy start to a night out. Once you got through a small, cramped foyer, you faced hard metal chairs on the main floor or bleacher-like seating. Either way, not very inviting. The acoustics were clear enough, but very dry; that did the Fort Lauderdale Symphony no favors. And when Greater Miami Opera (now Florida Grand Opera) brought its productions to the auditorium, more than half of the sets had to be left behind because the stage wasn’t big enough.”
There was another side, Smith notes.
“The amazing thing to me was that nobody really seemed to mind. People routinely packed the place. They clearly and justifiably took pride in having a local orchestra and an opera season in Fort Lauderdale, which the War Memorial Auditorium, for all its shortcomings, made possible in the decades before the Broward Center.”
Now, it looks like they’ll keep packing the place for years to come.
