Help Save The Park Theater in Menlo Park, CA

posted by Patrick Crowley on December 4, 2002 at 9:07 am

MENLO PARK, CA — Donald John Long is seeking classic theater lovers and preservationists in the San Francisco Bay Area who are interested in saving the Park Theater in Menlo Park.

Donald writes…

Recently, within the past year, the Park Theater, on El Camino Real in Menlo Park, California, closed down and the property was put up for sale.

I contacted Gary Parks, and he said a developer interested in the property hired someone to destroy the theater marquee at 5 AM one morning so the theater would lose its value as a cinema showplace, thus making it easier for the developer to acquire the property to demolish or remodel the building.

Similar things have happened elsewhere many times, unfortunately. Perhaps the most famous incident was the Art Deco Pan Pacific Auditorium on Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles, which had achieved historical preservation status with the city and county, but the developer hired someone under the table to torch the structure and an arsonist burnt the building down in April 1989.

Please join with me and Gary Parks, and let’s do something to save and restore this cinema treasure before it is history.

If you’re concerned about the status of the Park Theater and would like to help out on this project, you can contact Donald at .