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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Abandoned Theaters
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Richard C. Wolfe
Master Film Handler
Posts: 250
From: Northampton, PA, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 08-21-2004 03:47 PM
I guess I'm surely showing my age by this post, but I always have to laugh to myself when I see you folks talking about OLD theatres from the 70s, 80s or even 90s.
I never think of any theatre as being old unless it was built in the pre TV days. All the really great theatres were built during the 20s & 30s, a few decent ones during the 40s and early 50s, but by the mid 50s theatre construction due to TV virtually came to a hault. It wasn't until the mid 60s that theatre constuction resumed at a rapid pace once again and those were still single screens, usually with 800 to 1200 seats on one floor. They generally had large screens with curtains, magnetic stereo sound and some were even 70mm. However, beyound being large and comfortable and having a good presentation, there was nothing else memorable or pleasing about them. They were sterile, boxy, and architecturally unattractive, often with painted concrete block walls. The theatres that came after them, the twins and triplets of the early 70s were even worse, just as ugly but with much smaller auditoriums usually with one isle down the center, and no curtains. Throughout the late 70s, the 80s, and the early 90s nothing got better, except for Dolby stereo sound, as only the number of auditoriums increased. By the mid 90s the stadium theatres started to return (yes they had built stadium theatres in both the 20s and the 40s) and things started to improve.
Today there are once again many well designed and attractive multiplex theatres, but they are seldem maintained after their opening, poorly managed and often have terrible projection and sound presentation. That's sad because that is due only to a lack of caring on the part of the owners or staff.
When I mentioned the theatres of the 60s having 800 to 1000 seats I'm sure many of you though that they were quite large. Compared to today they were, but I remember working in one as an usher and people coming in and often remarking about how small it was. It was the only new theatre in town at that time and all the other first run downtown theatres had from 1800 to 3000 seats.
As to the topic at hand, I have been in probably somewhere between 50 to 75 abandoned theatres. All old single screens. I wouldn't waste my time going into a closed multuplex as there wouldn't be anything worth seeing. I might as well go into closed K-marts as they wouldn't look much different.
I have always found it's best to go well dressed, take a camera, my membership cards to both the Theatre Historical Society, and The League of Historic American Theatres. Sure I might get some good clothes a little dirty, but I don't look like a scavenger, rather someone who looks as though they have a reason to be there.
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