Kings Theatre

Dear Bruce,

If I can, I certainly will. But all of the things which I outlined in my post of April 12 should be done.

I put ten years of volunteer work into the Jersey, giving up much of my free time during those years. It was an unbelievable amount of hard work. While I’d like to have that time back, I don’t regret it because the theater was saved and will eventually be restored. But I don’t like the way it ended for me, and I don’t like politics.

Have you reached out to the community yet, and what is their opinion of the theater? Do the locals understand, or care about this once grand showplace?

Bob

Dear Kings,

I had planned on attending your initial meeting, but a nasty flu kept me in bed throughout most of the weekend.

As much as I would like to assist your endeavor, I’m afraid that helping to save one movie palace was enough for me. It took enough time out of my life, and now I’m more interested in spending my free time with friends and loved ones.

But it should be done, and every person interested in these great structures should try to save and restore at least one. It will be an interesting experience, and you’ll certainly feel better for doing it.

Bob

A very big part of our early support for saving the Jersey came from the local community. Friends of the Loew’s volunteers took to the streets to raise awareness of this hidden jewel in their neighborhood; we went to street fairs, met with city council members and built support for saving the theater. We handed out flyers to the thousands of commuters traveling through the Path transportation center across the street. We were very visible, and VERY proactive. We arranged (with much difficulty and opposition from the developer who intended to demolish the building) to open the theater and present shows in the lobby, even though the building had no heat, running water and limited electricity. We met with, and ultimately convinced journalists to write about this fabulous movie palace in their respective newspapers. We contacted and received support from the arts and entertainment communities.

In short, the effort to save the Jersey took years and thousands of volunteer hours.

Support from the local citizens and politicians is crucial for such an undertaking. Does anyone living in the King’s neighborhood have any concept of this building, or (like the RKO Keith’s in Flushing) do they see it has a huge, bulky eyesore that would look much better as condos or retail space?

Have any of these outreach projects been attempted at the Kings over the last 20 years? If not – why?

R,H.,
Don’t worry, a few of the people on here said the Paradise would never open again, but it did, and even if the venture fails, it is ready for another…people seem to paint the picture a little too bleak for the Kings…unless the theater has developed new leaks, the roof had been fixed in 1994……stage left has developed a new leak meanwhile, which you can see in the pics on the website that I posted…all is not hopeless

I just viewed those pictures from 2001. I also expected much more visible damage after reading some of the posts. Maybe there really is hope!

Ok, Kings. If you want to live in dreams, that’s fine, but if you live in reality, you take the bad with the good. The whole analogy behind “cold water” is that it’s a wake up call to what really needs to be done.

But, in the real world, there are also real people with real solutions to problems that you can and will face if you go into this head first. For example, you yourself were not aware that the original molds for the Kings still exist. That’s the difference between tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars.

Sam, for what it’s worth, the roof and the plaster-work are priority on ANY theater’s agenda of things to be restored. If plaster-work crumbles and falls on an audience, that’s a major liability.

Kings, the original plaster molds DO exist for all of the Loews theaters. The company that made them in the first place still exists and the whole point of keeping them was for the theaters that needed repair-work to easily just replace parts. That’s how the Paradise (which had totally unrepairable plaster-work) was saved.

Ziggy, cold water is always necessary for these projects. Apparently there are people going into this that don’t have realistic visions of what needs to or can be done. They’re not professionals, simply volunteers. Look at Loew’s Jersey and what it could be. Look at Loews Paradise and what it is. That’s the difference between volunteers and professionals doing work.

Currently, there’s not even a legitimate organization set up here, and it’s still at the volunteer level. So in my opinion, all of the ice water should be thrown on this project as possible going into it, so that when you get hit, it’s not going to hurt as badly.

Is there a legitimate list right now? Or is it just someone CCing everyone? Can we set something up on Yahoo! or Google groups perhaps, or some similar list server? In this way, archival of messages can be easily accessed and read by the general public interested in the project.

In my own personal opinion, I feel the Kings is unsavable/not worth it. But I will gladly give my time and effort to those who are serious and can actually get something done. If this is just going to be an armchair, grass-roots committee of five who don’t get anything done, count me out.

So let’s get some stuff done, eh!?

Sheesh! Do you guys wake up and take negativity pills for breakfast or what? All I was saying is that it’s possible to replace missing plaster ornamentation. Do y'all wait in the wings with buckets of cold water?

Though it would be wonderful if the original plaster molds existed, the lack of them wouldn’t be a problem to restoration. At the Paradise, missing ornaments were reproduced from the plaster that still remained in place. Even if the plaster is completely missing it can be reproduced from photographs. At the Elgin Theatre in Toronto the proscenium and box seats were destroyed to make way for Cinerama, and when the theatre was restored for use as a legitimate playhouse the boxes and proscenium were replicated. You would never know that they were new if you hadn’t been told.

Quote Jack Theakston above: “For example, you’re aware that the plasterwork’s original molds exist, yes?” Is this a question or a statement? For original plaster molds to exist at this late date would be a rarity indeed, and a situation much to be hoped for!

Well, I will go into more detail on the started mailing list, but I would say before you do anything else, a better idea than to “plan” is to talk to people who have actually done work in the other five Wonder Loews. For example, you’re aware that the plasterwork’s original molds exist, yes?

What was proposed as the usage of the theater? Concerts? What kind? You’ll either have few people come to oldies shows or you can have a lot of people that damage the theater with the hip-hop concerts.

Did anyone take notes of exactly what was said at the meeting? Like a full minutes readout?

Warren: A church is one possibility, but that would only please the parishiners. A theater would be open to everyone. At the meeting, Brooklynite said that he had seen workers carting out what he thought were chunks of concrete. More than likely they were chunks of plaster that had collected after falling from the balcony facings. More than likely they are chunks that had fallen quite a while ago and the fact that they are being hauled away may mean that the city is getting ready for real estate developers to tour the theater.

So our job is to seek out real estate developers and make them aware of the possibilities that the theater holds.