He would have learned about the more successful shows, and, most probably, the booking and production houses of Klaw and Erlanger, the founders of the Syndicate-the most powerful commercial force in the American theatre at the turn of the century. Marks spent most of the year in New York City.Torgerson was familiar with the highly successful Grand Opera House of New Orleans, completed only a few years earlier.The profit margin would be much larger for an opera house than a hotel.The top price for a ticket to a first-run production by a traveling company with a star, set at $1.50 (about the same price as a room in a decent hotel).Factors that may have influenced the decision may have been:
įor an unknown reason, construction of the hotel was interrupted in process, and the brothers decided to develop a Grand Opera House instead. The designs included a mansard roof, establishing the architectural style as late Victorian, Empire/ Romanesque. The exterior of the building was designed by Gustavus Maurice Torgerson, architect of Meridian's original City Hall. Construction began in 1889, under the direction of C.M. The site chosen covered almost a half a block - five lots facing 5th Street and three lots consuming the entire length of 22nd Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets. In the late 19th century, Israel Marks and his half-brothers Levi, Sam, and Marx Rothenberg, expanded their retail operations by opening a new wholesale and retail mercantile store and an adjoining hotel. Together the theater and conference space make up the Mississippi State University Riley Center for Education and Performing Arts, owned and operated by Mississippi State University-Meridian Campus. In addition to the extensive theater renovation, the Riley Center project redeveloped the department store as a conference facility. The opera house was a site for entertainment and theatre for decades. The Grand Opera House and the adjacent Marks-Rothenberg Department store were built in 1889 by half-brothers Israel Marks and Levi Rothenberg.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The Riley Center, also known as the Grand Opera House and formally as the Mississippi State University Riley Center for Education and Performing Arts, is a performing arts and conference center in Meridian, Mississippi.
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