Capitol Theatre
35 Bank Street,
New London,
CT
06320
35 Bank Street,
New London,
CT
06320
10 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 33 of 33 comments
That would be such a nice idea.
Is this the theater with the best acoustics or is that the Garde?
Couldn’t The Capitol be restored and used as a vaudeville museum? They could have performances associated with the museum and a theater school for local children. Wouldn’t there be grant money available for such a purpose? The public could come and tour the museum and see a vaudeville show. And children could take classes and perform in an historic theater. I would love to see something like that done with The Capitol.
“asbestos abatement” causes one to pause and I just wonder how much of this exists in restoring and/or renovating old theatres of yester-year!?!
I fell in love with this theater last week while roaming around New London waiting for the ferry.
Two huge issues: 1. It is a designated landmark so it needs to be restored, not just renovated; and 2. Any major construction will require asbestos abatement, which could double the construction costs of the project.
We could look to the Times Square Rehabilitation project in NYC to see what was done with those old theaters, but unless there’s a niche for a B.B. King’s House of Blues in New London, I fear that the Capitol requires too much capital.
Robert, it has been abandoned for nearly 30 years, so restoration would cost many millions of dollars. Also, the problem would be in finding a niche for it. To use as a cinema it would have to be carved up as one large auditorium is not feasible these days. It could not make it as a performing arts center because the renovated Garde Theatre a couple of blocks away has already fulfilled that need in downtown New London. Also, some genius decided to build directly behind the theatre’s stage area leaving no room to expand the stage which is too small for modern productions.
Wow this place looks like it could still be restored. What is the neighborhood like?
This theatre was shut down for code violations in the mid-70’s and has not been used since. Photos of the interior are at View link .
The Capitol Theatre is located at 43 Bank Street and it seated 1730 people.