Comments from jaswmclark

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jaswmclark
jaswmclark commented about Brockville Arts Centre on Mar 31, 2011 at 1:22 pm

When I was growing up in Brockville, there were two cinemas on King Street. The Capital and the Regent. In the late 1950’s due to competition from television the Regent closed and by 1960 the town got it back for unpaid taxes.

Mr Kenneth Eland drove an effort to restore it as a community live theater rather than see it torn down. He drove a group of “volenteers” cleaning up the place. The asbestos fire curtain had saved the stage. The lighting panel was intact and many of the kleigh lights were still there. I am afraid that Robin Johnson is not correct in stating the orriginal projectors as being there. They wern’t. One of the service clubs donated a 16mm Bell and Howell unit which was used for many years until the modern system was installed.

In the 1970’s a reception hall and modern offices were added and more recently the seating area was rebuilt.

Yes Gord to me there are ghosts there. Whenever I am backstage I see Art Wood and his white German Shepard Dog talking to my father and Ken Eland decieding how best to restore the light and sound system, more than 50 years ago. If the needed a small boy to crawl into spaces too small for them the usually volenteered me,