gives regular tours of the building's interior. History Originally designed as the Yaarab Shrine Temple, the headquarters for a 5,000-member Shriners organization, the $2.75 million project exceeded the Shriners' budget, so they leased the auditorium to movie mogul William Fox, who was building theaters around the country at the time. The theater opened on December 25, 1929, just two months after the stock market crash. A week later, on New Year's Day, the Shriners inaugurated their new "mosque" in their part of the building, which contained executive offices, a large lounge, a ballroom/banquet hall, kitchen, practice hall, and locker-shower room. Under the terms of the lease, they remained as paying tenants until 1949. According to the National Park Service, "the Fox Theatre closed only 125 weeks after it opened. Members of the Yaarab Temple could not meet their [mortgage payments], and by 1932, William Fox was bankrupt." After the mortgage was foreclosed in December 1932, the entire complex was purchased jointly by Paramount Pictures and Lucas & Jenkins, a Georgia company that owned a hundred theatres. In 1939, the movie most associated with Atlanta and the South, Gone with the Wind, premiered at the now-demolished Loew's Grand Theatre rather than the Fox. Although GWTW was produced by Selznick International, it was distributed by Loew's Incorporated as part of a deal with rival studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The parade down Peachtree Street for the movie's premier coincidentally started just outside the Fox because the movie's cast was staying across the street at the Georgian Terrace Hotel. During the 1940s, the Fox acquired strong management and became one of the finest movie theaters in Atlanta. It was also at this time that the Egyptian Ballroom became Atlanta's most popular public dance hall and hosted all the important big bands and country and western swing bands of the era. It was notable at that time for being the only theater in Atlanta allowing both white and black patrons. However, there was a separate black box office, entrance, and seating; the segregation wall in the middle of the second dress seating still remains, and the "colored" box office window stands unused at the back entrance. These are left in place for educational and historical purposes. The theater was integrated in 1962. During the 1970s, several elements collided to bring about the Fox's decline – white flight, the rise of suburban multiplex theaters, and changes in how