PART 2 -- THE EVICTION OF JOE PATTEN FIFTEEN YEARS LATER

 SUMMARY

Below, a photo of Joe Patten tending his Moller console in 1974, the year he was named chairman of the "Save the Fox" committee for Atlanta Landmarks, Inc, which was founded through the leadership of Pat Connell, Joe Patten, Fox organist Bob Van Camp, and my father Robert L. Foreman, Jr.  (Source.)  XXX

Once Atlanta Landmarks took possession of the building in the summer of 1975, Joe was hired as Technical Director and served until his retirement in 2001, on a pension of $17,500.  For the next ten years, Joe regularly received press attention as the voluntary keeper of the organ and as "The Phantom of the Fox."  Below, a shot from Atlanta Magazine, November 2002.

While Joe was recuperating from a mild stroke at Wesley Woods in August, 2010, Atlanta Landmarks Trustees including President Woody White (below) visited and, out of the blue, informed Joe that they didn't want him to return to his apartment.  Instead, the Board insisted that Joe move directly into "an assisted living facility."  (Source.) XXX

An angry and bewildered Joe hired the excellent attorney Emmet Bondurant (and his fine associate Mike Caplan), and they put the  story in the papers, despite the fact that the Fox wanted the matter kept secret.  Woody White blamed Joe for "making this a contentious issue."  (Source.) XXX

On August 30, the Board voted to terminate Joe's lifetime lease, in effect evicting him as of December first.  Among those shown below en route to the meeting is Joe's sister Patti, who said that after the vote, "I stayed with Joe for some time and I saw the decline.  Joe had tears in his eyes and he said to me, "They don't want me."  I will NEVER forget it.  Joe was not the kind of person to cry, but that broke him."

According to my father's notes, only four of the twenty-nine Board members votes against the eviction:  besides himself, Starr Moore, Nancy Gordy Simms, and John Busby.  Below, Daddy's scorecard.

Joe's attorney sued Woody White and the Fox, claiming that the eviction was in violation of Fair Housing Laws and a breach of contract. (Source.)  XXX   In an anti-climactic 20 minute hearing on October 28, 2010, Judge Jerry Baxter agreed, reinstated Joe's lease, and told the parties to settle.  Among those picketing the hearing was yours truly, below left, pictured and named.

As the only Fox employee to speak out publicly against the Fox, the theatre fired me two hours into a union stage hand call, in violation of what I believed was my right of free speech.  IATSE Local 927 agreed as did the NLRB, and six months later I was reinstated.

The public uproar in favor of Joe (and against Atlanta Landmarks, Inc.) translated into 10,000 supporters on Facebook (Source) XXX and non-stop press, including a half-page in the New York Times. (Enlarge). XXX

Picketers became a permanent fixture outside the Fox offices, seen below on the occasion of Woody White being re-elected Board President in December, 2010.

My father on his way to vote against Woody White, writing to the Board, "the 'leadership' of Woody White has caused the Fox Theatre embarrassment, humiliation, and untold loss of patronage... and Mr. White has also led the Board to violate both state and federal laws."  (Source). XXX   My father's entreaties fell on deaf ears, as if an undercurrent of evil had permeated the place.

Indeed, an AJC letter to the editor written by Atlanta theatre veteran Steve Cucich characterized Woody White as the devil incarnate.

A final settlement was approved by Judge Baxter in June, 2011, and although the details were confidential, my father told me that the Fox was required to pay Joe's legal fees, which ran $200,000 and the Fox' 990 for 2010 shows their legal expenses at $342,888.  Thus the Fox likely spent half a million dollars to evict the man who had saved the theatre.  (Source.) XXX 2010 990

Esteemed writer Janice McDonald was granted total access to the normally sealed Fox archive if she agreed not to mention the Joe Patten eviction in her book, according to my father.  She complied, but when the Board saw that she had dedicated the book to Joe (green inset), the Fox refused to sell it at their concessions stands.

Perhaps as a reward for their loyalty to Woody White in the ongoing Patten smear, in 2011 General Manager Allan Vella and his assistant Adina Alford were granted extraordinary changes of title, with Vella being promoted from GM to "CEO and President" while Alford was re-titled COO.  Between 2011 and 2023, Vella's total compensation rose from $272,000 to $925,000, and after 2010, Vella was listed in the Fox Inc. tax returns as "Principal Officer" in place of Woody White.  (Source 2010, 11, 23) XXX

Woody White, having irreparably sullied the formerly good name of Atlanta Landmarks, Inc., spearheaded a move to change the non-profit's name to "Fox Theatre Inc."-- as in "Murder, Inc."-- and the new name was state-certified in November of 2012.

At the same time that the size of the Board was sliced from 29 to 16 (Source) XXX, the 1974 chartered purpose of the company was altered to omit the words "maintain" and "restore."

In a 2016 Fox-produced promotional film, Fox Inc. dismissed their official IRS designation as a public charity entirely, as shown below.  Yet in the year 2020 alone, the Fox received ten million dollars in "contributions and grants," in the same period that Fox CEO Allan Vella received a bonus of $197,000.  (Source.)  XXX

At the only Fox Theatre event Joe Patten attended between 2010 and his death in 2016 was the Atlanta American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS) Convention, where he was to honored.  At the theatre's front door, Joe suffered the indignity of being stopped because he didn't have a ticket.  A location pass had to be written up while he waited.

Joe, who was seated in his accustomed Loge front row center, was no longer welcome to use the Grand Salon shortcut from the theatre to his apartment, nor to use the Ballroom elevator which he had had constructed 25 years before.  To get home from the show, he was forced to exit the theatre, walk a block, then climb 39 steps.

No Fox memorial service for Joe Patten was ever produced, despite assurances to the Patten family that plans for a memorial service "were still coming together," for months after his death.  (Source) XXX  But the spiteful treatment of Joe paled in contrast with that of Fox House Organist Larry Embury, whose lifeless body laid unclaimed at the county morgue for a month-- in the same year the Fox posted assets of fifty million dollars (Source.) XXX  Volunteers paid to have him buried.

As if to illustrate their newfound freedom from "maintain and restore," in 2018 Fox Theatre Inc. constructed a 20 million dollar roof-top club, off-limits to mere ticket buyers, negating also the revised Fox purpose, "to preserve" and "to share."  "It's the kind of project you can't do halfway," Vella told WAGA-TV, in a story which claimed the club to have cost a mere 10 million, contrary to  the Atlanta Business Chronicle listing below.  (Source.)  XXX WAGA

 A bank of eight Spanish Room toilets constructed in 1988 expressly for the public were gobbled up and made part of the new club, which besides the roof, occupied three (formerly public) storefronts on Peachtree Street.  (Source.) email XXX   That the Fox opened a VIP restaurant is not surprising given Vella's background.  (Source.) XXX

Joe's apartment, which the Patten family had hoped would be preserved intact as a public museum, was downgraded to construction field office for the Marquee Club, and Joe's furnishings auctioned off.

The original design of  the Fox itself was altered with the introduction of garish plastic directional signs.

The Marquee club was "Sponsored by Lexus," and one may buy a Lexus on the Fox website, the only non-profit, tax-exempt car dealership in town.

According to Yelp, both rank and file and Marquee Club members have to pass through permanent metal detectors installed in 2016.  "Guests will not have to remove shoes, belts, jewelry or watches," wrote the AJC.  (Source). 

The death blow fell in 2020, when the Fox desecrated Joe's beloved Moller organ console, its sui-generis insides ripped out and replaced by electronics, it's stop tabs and keys replaced by plastic.  Below, the rear of the console as it was being removed from the theatre, showing off the original 1929 workmanship.  (Source.)  ATOS

In 2023, the Fox gave Woody White a "building buy-out" retirement party fit for a king, the sort of celebration Joe Patten never got.

On the occasion of his retirement, Woody White was given credit for the "meticulous restoration" of the organ (below, top), but the conversion organ shop itself (A.E. Schlueter, bottom) termed the job a "rebuild," precisely the opposite of a "meticulous restoration."

According to Schlueter, the cost of the rebuild combined with the cost of fabricating a full-scale replica "stand in" was $500,000.  (Source.) XXX email  Below, a Schlueter technician begins the process of destruction.

Schlueter went so far as to describe the original hand-crafted parts as "obsolete."

The $250,000 expended on this electronic evisceration (below) represented fifty percent of what the Fox had spent in legal fees to evict Joe; less than two percent of the cost of the Marquee Club; and only five percent of the 2008 $4,800,000 appraisal of the theatre's greatest asset.  (Source.)   XXX "This is a project that we CAN do half way," was the message.

That public deception was the name of the game was exemplified by poor Larry Embury's successor as House Organist, Ken Double, below.  (Source). XXX same ATOS mag

But one would have to be legally blind not to notice the console's exterior makeover, re-imagined as the sort of instrument one would expect to find in a nouveau riche whorehouse.  

According to organist Double, the theatre's point man for the console demolition was good old Ass't. Manager/COO Adina Alford, whose preparation for the task consisted of a degree in physical education and a masters in sports management.  (Source).  XXX 2003  Or perhaps her inspiration derived from her practice of "Ubuntu" where lessons are taken from the Boston Celtics.  (Source.)  XXX

And the beat goes on.  Woody White' successor for the position of Board Chairman was Robyn Rieser Barkin, a third generation member of the Rich's Department store tribe and whom, according to my father, had voted to terminate Joe Patten's lease, back fifteen years ago.

Could any one of these people look Joe Patten in the eye after what they've done?

THE EVICTION.

What follows is the complete story of the eviction fiasco, exquisitely documented.

In 2010, the Fox Theatre Board of Trustees, with the full support of the staff, attempted to evict Joe Patten from his apartment.  Here is that story-- and the aftermath.  Below, Joe in 2009, Kristi Casey Sanders photo.

The Board resolution Joe received upon his retirement in 2001 was glowing.  To view the complete resolution click here. XXX.

Joe never fully retired; besides being a Board member, care and feeding of  the Moller organ remained his exclusive domain.  "Joe saved the Fox so he'd have a place to put the organ," according to my dad.  (Michael Portman photo).

Joe never trusted anyone with the key to the five organ chambers, as evidenced in this memo written five years after he retired.  Sent from Joe and my dad, who was chairman of the Board's Pipe Organ Committee to the assistant manager.

Even retired, Joe was rarely out of the public eye, starting with this Atlanta Magazine color spread of November 2002, XXX a year after he retired.    

Photographs included a view from the bridge above the orchestra pit.  In 1982, the Atlanta Constitution dubbed Joe "the Phantom of the Fox,"  and it stuck.

In 2003, Patten and his apartment were a featured attraction of the Fox Silver Anniversary Gala, where he allowed $175 guests upstairs to view "The Merry Widow" in his personal media room, adjacent to his bedroom.

The same year, school kids got their first chance to visit the Phantom's lair.

In 2004, it was mentioned that Joe had sprinkled the ashes of former Fox organist Bob Van Camp over the organ chambers back in 1990.

Van Camp was not only the house organist, but the morning drive disc jockey on top-rated WSB, where listeners awoke to his mellifluous voice for thirty years. The only decent photo ever taken of Van Camp, snapped by my dad, below.

Joe preparing to sprinkle, 1990.

Van Camp himself sprinkled a few ashes as chain-smoking house organist, and he had his own console ashtray, lower right.

This 2004 AJC feature XXX showed the location of his apartment  (green star).  

The article pointed out that Joe was offered the apartment "in appreciation."

Joe was also featured in the December, 2004 Fox-produced GPS documentary, voiced by Hal Holbrook.  Here is a one minute clip. XXX

The same year Joe was presented with an award from the American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS).  In the shadows left is my dad; on Joe's right is Ken Double, house-organist-in-waiting. 

In March, 2006, it was announced that Allan Vella would become General Manager of the Fox.  

Board member Woody White guided the search XXX which found Vella, who had held a similar position with the 5000-seat Detroit Fox.

Unlike Atlanta, the Detroit house was a profit-making enterprise owned by the Ilitch family who had made their fortune from Little Caesar's Pizza.  

The theatre was booked not by Vella, but by an outside company, according to this article.  XXX The article describes how, in 1989, the Detroit Fox had converted the shallow Entresol balcony to dining suites, connected directly to a parking deck.

Vella explained that he was not a theatre person, but a restaurant person "by nature."

Vella couldn't help but miss the next Joe Patten spread XXX of November, 2007, a year and a half after Vella took office.

"I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather live," Joe told reporters, "[except maybe] the Biltmore House in Asheville.  It has a pipe organ in it."  The article showed for the first time house the Phantom got from his apartment to the auditorium gallery, moving faster than the camera's shutter.

In that year, Joe was drawing a pension of $17,500 against former manager Ed Gneiss, at $96,442.   According to this memo, XXX Joe was making $45,200 two years before he retired.

In March, 2008, my father asked the Board XXX to extend the period Joe's heirs would have to clear out his apartment, following his death, from three to six months, the "First Amendment to Indenture of Lease" shown below.

Copies were sent to Vella for his "permanent file" and to the Fox attorney, Steve Ensor.  Ensor was a junior member of Alston & Bird, the law firm from which my father had retired in 1992, but where he was "of counsel" and still had an office.

Board minutes of 2008 reveal the existence of a condition in Joe's "separation agreement" giving Fox management control of the use of keys to Joe's apartment.

Keys were contentious because anyone with access to Joe's apartment also had access to the theatre.  Doors from his apartment connected directly to the Grand Salon.

The Grand Salon (below) connected to the theatre's Mezzanine Foyer as well as to the Egyptian Ballroom.  The Ballroom was equipped with an elevator which Joe routinely used instead of climbing 39 steps.

At street level, the elevator was accessed through the Executive Offices, located in Bay 9, adjacent to Joe's apartment stair entry.

In November, 2008, another Joe feature XXX appeared courtesy of Vella who had an obsession with the organ's snare drum.

The feature introduced the iconic shot of Joe at the console.

The article described Joe's climbing ability.

A shot of Joe climbing the straight ladder to the stage left chambers in 1972.

Vella was also described.

In April, 2008, I had begun working as a union stagehand at the Fox, returning after a 32-year absence from 1975-76 when I was Production Manager and Engineer.  On September 9, 2008 I noticed that the "O" on the Fox vertical sign had not lighted for at least three weeks, so I took a picture and mailed it to Vella.

  Vella replied that "the damage was not as extensive as the photo indicated."  What could he mean?  Was he denying that the condition shown in the photo existed?  Or was denial of facts business as usual at the Fox?

In January, 2009, Woody White, the man who guided Vella's selection, was named President of Atlanta Landmarks, the non-profit which owned the Fox.  White was also the President of the Cecil B. Day Foundation, which gives "Grants to Christian churches, especially Baptist churches, for evangelism, missions, and discipleships."

In mid-2009, a $75 Fox-produced coffee table book, "The Fabulous Fox" appeared and gave over a ten page chapter XXX to Joe and the organ.

A shot of visitors in Joe's kitchen was included.

Below is the composition of the Board in mid-2009, Woody White and my father on the Executive Committee, and Joe on the main Board.

 

The first attempts to evict Joe from his apartment occurred while he was recuperating from "a mild stroke" he had suffered on July 11, 2010.  By early August, he was in rehabilitation at Wesley Woods near Emory.

While Mr. Patten was recuperating at Wesley Woods, representatives of the Board of Trustees, including Woody White paid Mr. Patten several visits, often in pairs.  They told Mr. Patten that, because of concerns about his health condition, the Board did not want him to return to his home in the Fox.