Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Wareham Hall on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 298
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We talk with Wareham Hall executive director Blade Magis about turning a beloved downtown Manhattan landmark into a modern, accessible venue while still honoring what made it historic. Along the way we dig into the weird little artifacts found under the floors and the final fundraising push tied to Grow Green Match Day.
• Wareham Hall’s multi-year transition from idea to full-scale restoration
• Artifacts uncovered during demolition including a handwritten 1896 Bachelor’s Ball invitation
• Why most interior elements people remember were later remodels rather than original features
• How historic tax credits shape what can be built and what must be approved
• The new basement, structural work, and what remains of the original theater
• Expansion into the adjacent tower building and what it unlocks for storage and operations
• Elevator shafts and major accessibility improvements across both buildings
• Seat naming campaign details and how it connects to Grow Green Match Day
• Current timeline targeting late 2027 and what to expect next
You can always follow along with what's happening with the Wareham on their Facebook page. Wharumhall.org.
Sponsor And Segment Setup
SPEAKER_00Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode, we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour, as heard on News Radio KMAN. Back from the GMCF Community Hour here at News Radio KMAN. We are two days away from Grow Green Match Day. And I tell you what also is growing a growing interest in the work that's being done down on Points Avenue at uh what used to be known as the Wareham Opera House, used to be known as the Wareham. Now it's Wareham Hall. That is correct. And the guy that's had the vision and uh has applied his vision into creating something special out of an iconic landmark in downtown Manhattan is the executive director of Wareham Hall Blade Mages. Good morning, Dave. You've had quite a transition the last few years, haven't you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's been uh it's been an exciting time when we when we kind of started this thing uh four or five years ago. Yeah uh I sort of thought this was just gonna be something that I kind of helped get going, and lo and behold, it it grew into something that uh really kind of became my baby and yeah and uh uh You look like a proud father right now.
Hidden Finds From 1896
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you. Did you notice that, Jayna? Yeah, I mean he's just like grinning and just like, wow, this is cool. What's happening?
SPEAKER_01We're crossing some major milestones, you know, making progress.
SPEAKER_00I remember when you talked to me about, you know, you you were a cli you know what was down underneath the floor.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, we've uh You found some real treasures. We found all kinds of stuff. Um, you know, so the place has been a gathering place uh for, you know, well over 140 years. So we have uh coincidentally or ironically, most of the treasures we have found have been pieces of trash over the decades. But we have every candy bar wrapper from every era that Hershey's was made back to the 20s and 30s, old movie tickets, uh all kinds of stuff. But there was this uh it happened recently, um maybe November, December, when they were working on starting demolition. And I uh I actually brought you something to read, Dave. Oh. Uh there was there was this event that was held in 1896. I wasn't there. You weren't there. Uh so uh in 1896, Harry Wareham had been in control of the theater for about three years at this point. Uh he didn't build the building, it went, it predated him by by quite a while. Uh they threw this big party and it was called The Bachelor's Ball. And uh the way that they uh described this in the newspaper is it was like the Met Gala. But uh I thought it'd be kind of fun. The bottom right uh circled down there talks about the account of of Mr. Wareham.
SPEAKER_00Frank Emmons wore a suit of some soft, clinging material which clung to him during the entire evening. It was tailor-made and was paid for by the same month it was built. Harry Warham shone as a star of the first magnitude. His dark brunette type of beauty was relieved by a black dress suit and a diamond, which he borrowed from E. Walton Cooper's hardware store. Rory Eakin wore an ordinary dress suit, except that the fullness of the sides of the trousers. And that's where it stops. Dot dot dot. You know, I tell you, they don't write like that in they don't. So I go ahead. There there's a book that I have, and it and it and it it is a collective of news stories from various uh newspapers in the eighteen eighties about how people died. Oh poetic. And it is it is entertaining as all get out. Seriously, it is.
SPEAKER_01So I had read this Bachelor's Ball account probably three years ago, because I became a newspapers.com fanatic, and that's how we've been able to pull the history of this place together. One day the superintendent called me and he showed me this. He said they found this down when they were doing the excavation. Is that an invitation? That is a handwritten invitation to the 1896 Bachelor's Ball to Mr. Frank uh starts with an L. Yeah. I don't know if he he wasn't in the account. But uh so yeah, again, a normal scrap of trash, I suppose. Uh that's you know, well over 130 years old at this point. Uh so yeah, it has been pretty exciting. We've we've found uh we've found all sorts of things like that that really kind of chronicle this building's history.
SPEAKER_00When you open, are you going to have a bachelor's ball?
Deconstruction And Historic Tax Credits
SPEAKER_01Will you be there? Well, not as a bachelor, but you know, I I have skills. Uh yeah, we we haven't uh we haven't thought quite that far just yet, but but uh there have been lots of little treasures coming out of that thing. So a lot of folks talked about uh back in the day you used to be able to take um the the milk tops from Chapel's Creamery, which was a uh dairy, I I think it was about where the Manhattan Mercury is, if I understand correct. Some some townies out there will probably correct me, but uh on weekends you could take the the caps off your milk carton, and if you took them to the the theater, you could watch movies for free or cartoons. We found a handful of pint lids of Chapel's Creamery, ice cream, and milk cartons and uh all kinds of that stuff. So it's been a uh, you know, we when we the building has really been this this piece of Manhattan's history since it was built, and so we've we have found kind of these vestiges of Manhattan's history throughout the decades.
SPEAKER_00Well, we could probably talk for really an entirety of a program about all these different things that you found, but we are on limited time, and we're gonna jump into a lot of the things because I see earth movers and all kinds of things on the floor, on a dirt floor, and there's a lot of uh a lot of support.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of work there that is happening. So um, you know, the the the building, again, as a as a reminder, uh hugely funded by historic tax credits. So everything that we're doing uh has to be approved not only at the state level but at the federal level by the National Park Service. So uh a lot of folks, you know, kind of are concerned that we're getting rid of history. Uh the the thing is is that what you have grown accustomed to seeing inside the building, none of that has been historic for for quite a while. All the through various remodels over the years, that was all kind of updates, modern updates. So the first part of the project was really deconstructing uh probably 90% of the building. When you go into the theater today, uh it is essentially the the exterior walls, the stage, and the roof. The balcony is fully removed, and there is actually a full basement that now spans from points all the way back to the alley. Uh in order to do that, they had to essentially you know not just remove the dirt, but they had to extend those those walls of the building. So three feet at a time, they poured new concrete under these 120-year-old limestone walls. Uh it was a really, really fascinating process. Uh next building over, the uh tower building, which was uh formerly where Barry's drugstore was at. A lot of folks know it from that. That was actually Manhattan's first four-story building.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_01That building has been opened up. Uh they're in the process of putting elevator shafts in in both buildings. Uh that will serve all levels of not just that building, but the theater as well. So huge improvements from an accessibility standpoint. Um, but here in the next couple weeks, they're really gonna be uh starting pretty heavy in on on all new foundations and steel that's gonna support everything we're talking about. So uh it's gonna be an exciting time moving ahead.
Accessibility Upgrades And Bigger Plans
SPEAKER_00In order to move ahead, you you wear an awful lot of hats in your role because you know, you are doing you're preserving history, you're building something special out of something that used to be special, and then there's operational, but there's also fundraising. You know, and there's probably more, obviously. But it is this anywhere close to what you had imagined four or five years ago when you start first started digging around inside the worm.
SPEAKER_01You know, um my my my best skill is probably that I'm a jack of all, master of none. Uh and so I think the I think sort of the ambiguity and and chaos of of this whole thing is probably what ultimately attracted me to it. But uh I don't think any of us were dreaming as big as it possibly could be. Uh, you know, there were several milestones along the way that really changed the traje trajectory of this project. The first major one was was having the opportunity to acquire that other building. You know, the theater itself, by all theater standpoints, is relatively small. Um, you know, there's not a lot of supporting space, there's not a lot of even just storage space, you know, for tables and chairs for a party, what you know, there's nowhere to put them. Uh so that that really changed things. And when the community came out to support that, when our donors started to support that, when the state of Kansas revised the state historic tax credit, adding 15%, like there were so many things that just kept going right for this project to come uh to come to life to get us here. So it's definitely not what uh I think we imagined it would be in the beginning, but uh we're along for the ride. And and I do wear a lot of hats today, but but we have an awesome team that that handles every one of those things that that uh you talked about.
SPEAKER_00So uh I want I want to kind of draw a little bit of a parallel in the movie Titanic, you know, they're going down with this is the what the cameras are the largest metaphor. Okay, so like they're going down with the cameras and they see what used to be this ballroom, and then you know, the the during the filming, you know, they transform that ballroom covered with sea urchins and and all kinds of other things into the grandeur of what the ballroom likely would have looked like in its in its day before it sank.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that that's similar to what you're kind of doing.
SPEAKER_01You know what's been it's actually I'm getting goosebumps here talking about it. We we have kind of just let instinct and muse guide us on making some of these interior decisions. It's been really fascinating as we peel layers back of the building that we're finding all of these things that validated the decisions we've been making. Uh the the inside of the theater uh back in the 38 remodel had a ton of green that we happened to choose a ton of green for, you know, kind of the direction we're taking. So there's just been a lot of these weird coincidences. I don't know if it's just kind of the magic of the, you know, that's it's pretty, pretty hollowed ground that's back in the 30s.
Grow Green Match Day Fundraising
SPEAKER_00You know, green was very prevalent in, you know, think about Wizard of Oz. Absolutely. There's a lot of things. And here we got Grow Green Match Day. Exactly. What a great transition here. There you go. Let's talk about Grow Green Match Day because you are one of the funds. You know, there's 102 funds altogether. Um, what Grow Green Match Day um what do you hope to accomplish?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, match day is a great, uh, a great opportunity to get involved with all the nonprofits at Manhattan. It's a it's a phenomenal event that that GMCF and the donors that that provide that match really create. Uh, for us specifically this year, you know, we are in that home stretch of fundraising. We've got less than 10% to go to close out uh to close out our project. Um a couple about about a year ago, we we started talking about this idea of like a seat naming campaign. And so um we have launched that. We're we're making good headway on it. There's different levels of giving that allows you to name a seat in honor of your family or a loved one or put a funny riddle on it.
SPEAKER_00Uh just don't put my seat next to Vern's.
SPEAKER_01Fair enough.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01But uh on match day, uh, for anybody that that wants to participate in the seat naming campaign, we're we're uh even though the the donation is made you know to GMCF, we're honoring that. So um that's a way you can get involved if you like. But uh match day is a a great event for us. So yeah we're honored to be able to participate again this year.
SPEAKER_00Do you still shoot for sometime in 2027?
SPEAKER_01We're looking at probably November or December 27. Okay. So so far everything is staying on track. Um nothing nothing major in the construction has has upset the Apple cart too much.
Timeline And How To Follow
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, uh, you know, there's a little temporary hiccup, you know, in traffic out on Points Avenue, but uh this is gonna be um a tremendous, tremendous uh contribution to the community to have the worm standing proudly again. So absolutely. I I I I love your enthusiasm. Uh thanks for doing all this work and uh continued good wishes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you again.
SPEAKER_00Blade Magis here. And uh by the way, you can always follow along with what's happening uh with uh the wearem on their uh Facebook page. And uh the website's got a lot of information on there that you can get to uh to learn more about the project because it is uh transformative. Wharumhall.org. Jaina Ukraschenko has the next segment. It may be about five minutes long, but we're gonna be talking about some things that are two minutes long? Or is that was just peace time because you know you're happy here. Okay, good. All right. So we've got uh a little bit of time to spend with Jaina, talking about some things that are coming up in the near future as we continue with the GMCF Community Hour here on News Radio, K M A N.