Mother and daughter leading effort to restore historic Ace Theater in West Grove
While celebrating Mother’s Day 2021, Dorothy Martin Wallace and her daughter, Denise, continue planning the restoration and reopening of the ACE Theater located at 3664 Grand Ave. in Miami’s Coconut Grove.
Historically a predominantly Black neighborhood, this Coconut Grove area is often referred to as West Grove.
Harvey Wallace, husband and father, purchased the ACE Theater in 1979 from Wometco Enterprises, formerly the Wolfson-Meyer Theater Company. Harvey — a native of Coconut Grove and a Black businessman — planned to rehabilitate the theater, build a five-story Bahamian marketplace with retail on the ground floor, an auditorium/entertainment on the second floor, and apartments on the top floors.
According to his widow, after the McDuffie riots in 1980, Black businesses were denied loans and insurance. Without business financing, Harvey Wallace was unable to implement his dream before his death in 1988.
Over time, led by mother and daughter, this family of Black pioneers formed the Ace Development Corp. Inc. to restore and reopen the building to the entire community. They proceeded with no paid staff, using the skills of volunteer family members, when available.
In the first phase of the plan, the Wallace duo collected and submitted to the City of Miami’s Historic Preservation Board testimonies from pioneer Coconut Grove residents. These eyewitnesses worked in the theater, attended high school proms and graduations, watched closed circuit boxing and stage shows of the “Chitlin’ Circuit” (traveling Black performers), Westerns, and movies starring Black actors.
The “Statement of Significance” to the Historic Preservation Board summarizes the pioneers’ feelings: “For those of us who know the ACE, it becomes much more than a fading relic of yesterday’s apartheid. The ACE houses our pain as we witnessed Sammy Davis, Jr. alongside the Rat Pack and realized that he could not sleep at the same hotel with the others. The ACE beams with our smiles and pride as we applaud our children accepting graduation diplomas.” The ACE Theater was designated a local historic site by the city in 2014.
Added to the National Register in 2016, the U.S. Secretary of Interior’s report refers to the ACE Theater as a “rare surviving resource from Coconut Grove’s [racially] segregated past, and as such meets the exceptional standard. The streamlined design details are consistent with the Art Deco style common in the 1930s. Despite some minor deterioration, the building retains character and integrity. The owner, ACE Development Company, Inc. currently seeks to rehabilitate the building, which is easily the most recognizable landmark in the historically African American (Black) section of Coconut Grove.”
Later listed by Dade Heritage Trust as an endangered site, the ACE draws inquiries mainly from those interested in purchasing the theater. Selling this historic property is not the intent of the family. According to Denise Wallace, “plans are underway to start a crowdfunding campaign to repair the deteriorating marquee and to eventually rehab the theater into a multipurpose cultural arts/entertainment complex. To make the ACE speak again.”
Denise Wallace, J.S.D, co-owner and co-principal of ACE Development Company, is a third-generation Grovette. She attended then-segregated Frances S. Tucker Elementary School and George Washington Carver High School in Coconut Grove. In 1992, she became the first co-chair of the Coconut Grove Village Council, representing parts of West Grove and the predominantly white South Grove. She has practiced law for over 25 years in both public and private practice, served as the director of policy and legislation for the Office of the Mayor in Miami under Manny Diaz, and as an assistant city attorney for the city.
She has also served as assistant School Board attorney for Miami-Dade County Public Schools and as an assistant attorney general for the Illinois and Florida attorney general offices. A former vice president of legal affairs and general counsel for Dillard University in New Orleans, in 2019 she was appointed, and serves as vice president and general counsel at Florida A&M University.
The ACE ‘s other co-owner and co-principal is the family matriarch, Dorothy Martin Wallace, a native of Missouri. After marrying her college sweetheart, Harvey, she migrated to Coconut Grove and became a substitute teacher and mother.
During her career, Dorothy Wallace broke many barriers. In 1963, she was one of two Black women to integrate the University of Miami’s School of Education, graduating with a master’s degree in guidance and counseling. After being appointed administrator of COPE Center South in 1997, the Miami-Dade County School Board renamed the school Dorothy M. Wallace COPE Center South. She enjoys retirement with her family, and before COVID-19, occasionally helped conduct guided tours in West Grove.
Both mother and daughter are members of Coconut Grove’s Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Beta Tau Chapter. At age 92, as the planning proceeds, Dorothy Wallace looks forward to the reopening of the ACE Theater before her 100th birthday.
Happy Mother’s Day, all!
Dorothy Jenkins Fields, Ph.D., is a historian and founder of the Black Archives, History & Research Foundation of South Florida. Send feedback to djf@bellsouth.net
