Two storey masonry storefronts under the Interstate 95 viaduct, and the Lyric Theater where Whitney Houston shot Try It On My Own.
What Overtown looks like
Northwest Second and Northwest Third Avenues carry two storey masonry storefronts under upstairs apartments, painted signs and metal awnings over most of the ground floors. Some fronts are boarded and fenced, hand lettered with cut rate liquor and beer signs. holds one corner on Northwest Third Avenue, a barbershop and a beauty salon open under its striped awnings.
The Interstate 95 viaduct runs on tall concrete columns along the district's edge, its decks stacked where the ramps split for downtown and the Port of Miami. Streets pass directly underneath the structure, the roadway in permanent shade.
holds the corner of Northwest 11th Street and Northwest 3rd Avenue in cream and ochre stucco, pointed gothic windows facing the crosswalk. , a few blocks north on Northwest 14th Terrace, is grey fieldstone with a conical red roofed turret over the entrance and a stone cross set into the gable.
The former on Northwest 11th Street is a rounded corner building in streamline moderne concrete, a band of glass block under stepped relief, boarded up behind a chain link fence. , several blocks west on Northwest 6th Avenue, is a three storey cream building with tall grilled windows and its name cast into the pediment above the entrance. The , a 1913 masonry playhouse at 819 Northwest Second Avenue, seats 390 people.
Shot in Overtown
For the music video for her single Try It On My Own, Whitney Houston filmed inside the Lyric Theater in March 2003. She painted the theater's walls purple for the shoot and had them repainted afterward.
Try It On My Own, 2003
The Lyric Theater
The theater's auditorium seats 390 under a shallow balcony, the room the production painted purple for the shoot. The plain masonry exterior on Northwest Second Avenue gives no sign of it. Street View
The Claiborne Avenue corridor in Tremé runs directly under an elevated Interstate 10 viaduct on tall columns, the same relationship between a commercial street and a highway overhead. Two storey masonry storefronts continue under the shade of the deck on both sides. Tremé's columns carry murals and different signage, so a wide shot needs its own dressing to avoid a recognisable landmark. Try searching storefronts under the viaduct now.
Sweet Auburn in Atlanta, Georgia
Auburn Avenue has two storey masonry storefronts from the same decades as Northwest Second Avenue. The redbrick Odd Fellows Auditorium at 228 to 250 Auburn Avenue is a Black owned entertainment hall added in 1913, the same year as the Lyric. Its brick front sits close to the sidewalk with the same painted sign lettering. Auburn Avenue is wider and has more restored facades, so a tighter frame on one block reads closer to Overtown's rougher edges. Try searching brick storefronts painted signs now.
State Street and the side streets around it carry the same two storey masonry storefronts under apartments, built in the same decades as Overtown's commercial blocks. Corner churches in stone and brick repeat the scale of Ebenezer Methodist and Christ Church of the Living God. Bronzeville's buildings run taller in places, three and four storeys, so a low block face reads closer to Overtown's fabric. Try searching two storey masonry storefronts now.
