Story of the Royce

A Royal Royce of a Performance Space
.
Theatre Histories: Royce Gallery Theatre Bay Area published 2012-10-26

In the shadows of some of San Francisco’s great Mission District theatres, the three-story building at 2901 Mariposa Street contains an intimate multi-use performance space that often goes unnoticed: Royce Gallery. What began as a two-story industrial warehouse space used for storage has become a prime location for artistic and theatrical performance.

Built in 1937, this building was originally used as an auxiliary storage space for the food cannery located in the warehouse just one block north, at 2111 Harrison Street. Its architectural style is representative of the Mission District’s 20th Century Industrial period (1900-1950): Steel-frames clad in unfinished concrete and punctured by a generous number of steel sash windows. The floors have double reinforced rebar (a metal mesh required by law for this style of structure) because they needed to be strong enough to withstand operating forklifts. In the mid-1940s a third story was added to the building.

In 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Bay Area went into wartime preparedness. The longtime tenants who tell this building’s wartime stories claim this space was used as ammunition storage. The dates of storage and the types of ammunition are undocumented, but it seems that it began sometime in the in the early ‘40s and was mainly naval ship ammunition.

In the early ‘50s, this building went back to its original use as a cold storage facility; by the early ‘60s it was unoccupied. In 1965, a small group of low-income artists searching for an affordable place to live discovered 2901 Mariposa—now a vacant warehouse, and quickly moved in. Their residency was not exactly legal, however. When Ken and Hilda Royce bought 2901 Mariposa in 1967, they were surprised to discover that the building was full of squatters. But rather then evicting the community of artists, the Royce family chose instead to help them. In 1972 the Royce family legally converted the building into a residential hotel. Ken Royce provided the advice and assistance the artists needed to finance electrical wiring, plumbing and lighting. They sledgehammered openings in the external walls to create new windows, as well as a new entrance on 540 Alabama Street. Thus began the existence of the Developing Environments (D.E.) Artist’s Community.

Rosie Radiator, a D.E. tenant since 1972 (and also the kind individual who led me on a tour of the building) conceived the Royce Gallery Performance Space. Radiator, with the help of other D.E. artists, converted the unused northwest area of the building into a 40-seat performance house with a dance studio, a rehearsal room and a pressure-sensitive sound stage. Originally intended as a space solely for the D.E. community, the Royce has since been opened to the use of the public. Outside artists like director Susan Jackson, actor Julian Sands and, recently, award-winning actor John Malkovich have contributed to performances on the Royce stage.

My tour ended on the Royce Gallery’s pressure-sensitive sound stage. Rosie let me try it out, and encouraged me to dance to the beat of my own music. While I let my inner tap dancer out I asked Rosie why the Royce was so special to her. She said, “You know, if it wasn’t for the support of Ken and Hilda none of us would be here.” Before Rosie and I parted ways, she added, “This stage is a way to say, Thank you to the Royce family and this wonderful building for giving our dreams a place to come true”.