The Royal Theatre was a 700-seat movie theater in St. Petersburg, Florida, serving the local African American community from 1948 to 1966. Located at 1011 22nd Street South – a street known as "The Deuces" – the Royal Theatre was part of a thriving hub of commerce and entertainment, and is featured on the African American Heritage Trail. The building is one of the few remaining Quonset huts in the city, and has been listed in the St. Petersburg Register of Historic Places since 2001. The theater is currently home to the local chapter of the Boys and Girls Club of the Suncoast, which has an emphasis on the arts and education. In 2004, the Royal Theater building was recognized as "outstanding rehabilitation project of the year" by the Florida Main Street Program. History The Royal Theatre first opened on November 23, 1948, with an all-African American staff, except for the projectionist. Co-owners Bill Boardman and Horace Williams, Jr. billed the Royal Theatre as a "junior Radio City Music Hall" with 700 seats and large ceiling fans. For the grand opening, the Sons of the Legion drum and bugle corps marched down 22nd Street and played on the front steps of the theater. The featured film was a Western called Panhandle. During the era of segregation, the Royal Theatre was one of the few motion picture houses in St. Petersburg serving African Americans, and the only one in The Deuces. The other long-running theater "reserved for blacks" was the 500-seat Harlem Theater at 1019 Third Avenue South, which opened in 1927, and has since been demolished. Of the twelve public theaters outside of the African American community, only the LaPlaza Theatre was not segregated. Boardman himself owned The Playhouse Theatre on Central Avenue, in addition to the Royal. When it opened, the Royal Theatre was welcomed in local newspapers as "an inspiration for the whole community." The Royal Theatre was very popular among families, especially on Saturdays during the summer months. It featured first-run films, and did not run movies for longer than a week until 1962. On March 20, 1951, when The Jackie Robinson Story was shown at the Royal, members of the New York Giants baseball team appeared at the theater, including Hank Thompson, Monte Irvin, Artie Wilson, and Rafael Noble. The venue also hosted stage performances featuring musical guests such as Frank Culley and his "floor show"