Interior Design

The Avenue Ballroom – Before and After

Before:

When I rented space for my dances at the Mandala Folkdance Center, this is what the west wall of the studio looked like – just past the two dancers shown, are the double doors in the center of the wall.

Through those double doors was the coat closet, which extended the length of the dance floor on the other side of that wall. When I remodeled the wall, those doors became the pass through where the counter, a raised, carpeted floor, and the soda fountain chairs were installed.

After:

I started renting space for my Saturday night jitterbug parties at the Mandala Folk Dance Center, some time around 1976. Upstairs, over a furniture warehouse in San Francisco’s Sunset District, it was a 3,000 sq. ft. space – 2,000 of which was a wood dance floor.

You entered at street level, ascended terrazzo stairs and arrived – in the coat closet – which ran about 40 feet, parallel to the dance floor, divided by a wall with four different openings of varying sizes and styles – half door, double door, and no door.

(Near the back corner of the coat closet was the pay phone, which also functioned as the published business phone for the dance center. So, when anyone called, the person nearest the phone – if they were in the mood – might pick it up and say, “Hello?”)

The dance hall, itself, was painted white with red and purple accent walls and black trim. There were embroidered folk-style curtains on the windows, a dusty green Indian carpet on the stage, and, against one wall, an old, green brocade couch.

One of the drawbacks of this particular layout for ballroom dancing was that it was twice as long as it was wide. Ballroom dances are designed to move around the room, with particular steps for “traveling” along each wall; ideally, those walls are of similar lengths and the dance floor is square. Arguably, a square room is also more pleasing to walk into, compared to a long rectangle – I like to think of rooms as “embracing” those who inhabit them, and a square room is generally more up to such a task.

In 1980, the Mandala Folk Dance Center went out of business, and I became the master leaseholder on the space. While working within the confines of the existing structure, I wanted to create the feeling of the dance floor being wider, and also a bit shorter, in order to “square it up.” Toward that end, I installed two 6-ft. long mirrors on the west wall, on either side of the space created by the two double doors in the middle of the wall; this created the illusion of extra width (as well as almost doubling the amount of daylight in the room, as the mirrors were across the floor from the windows along the east wall).

I replaced those double doors with a pass through, where I had built a counter, accompanied by chrome and vinyl soda fountain chairs in a raised platform in the lounge – newly created out of the previously existing closet.

To add additional dimension to the illusion, I designed a mirror for the far west wall of the lounge, with deco-styled beveled corners, the same size and shape as the pass through. Looking from the dance floor into the lounge, one’s eye would be taken through the pass through, and further on into the mirror – which, come to think of it, also reflected the light from the windows on the east wall. I put Art Deco sconces on the left and right sides of the mirror.

I had a coat closet built on the north wall, which was not only needed since we now used the old coat closet for the lounge, but it also brought the north wall forward a bit onto the dance floor, thereby reducing the length of the dance floor and further squaring up the room.

Once finished, one would reach the top of the stairs, find him- or herself on a carpeted landing, and have the choice to turn left into the ballroom itself, or step up into the carpeted lounge, where s/he would be greeted by couches at each end, and a raised, carpeted platform, middle left, decorated by golden Tivoli lights inset into the platform, upon which the soda fountain chairs were installed.

One could sit and chat on either of the couches, or sit at the counter and watch the dancers on the floor. It was exciting to see the counter become an immediate gathering spot for those sitting in the lounge and those standing on the dance floor, chatting with those seated!

Before:

Before:

The tall (6-ft., plus) dancer is a good illustration of one of the inadvertent secrets to the success of my venture in this space – the 8-foot ceiling. While this guy is not as tall as the photo makes him appear, the low ceiling created a cozy atmosphere in a 2,000-sq. ft. dance floor that, with a higher ceiling, would have felt more cavernous.

After:

You can see one of the two large mirrors installed on the west wall of the dance floor (on either side of the pass through), as well as a reflection of the oversize 1940’s tabletop radio on the stage, that holds the sound system. The new coffee-and cream color scheme, though it looks a bit pale in this shot, is also visible.

After:

After:

Just past the dapper guy in the foreground, you can see the Tivoli lights set into the platform on which the chrome and vinyl soda fountain chairs are set; and, at the bottom of the photo, see the step up into the lounge from the landing. To your left, you get a glimpse of the main entrance to the dance floor.

After:

They were from a younger generation than most of our patrons, but apparently had an appreciation for the era equal to, if not exceeding that of, their older brethren.

It’s included here because they’re standing in the lounge, in front of one of the couches that bookended the space. You can glimpse one of the sconces that flanked the mirror on the far west wall of the lounge. (The remodeled wall with the pass-through is on their right, out of frame, through which one would view the dance floor).

I enlarged this photo and hung it where the one of Esther Phillips, hung behind them on the wall of the lounge in this photo. I was waiting for them to come to another of our dances in their costumes, so I could take a picture of them in front of their own photo – shades of Pink Floyd! Unfortunately, I never saw them again. Love those shoes – and matching gloves!

Before:

After:

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