This really was the best turn of events for the long term future of the theater. There was no practical way that anyone was going to be able to keep it as a movie theater. Sure, they could restore it as a movie theater, but it would of cost a fortune to do so, and once the novelty wore off, it would of gone right back to being a failing business. Noone was going to take that on.
As for the inside being gutted, it’s not like there was all kinds of ornate interiors to be saved. The place had been done over so many times, there really wasn’t even anything left to save. The marquee was really the only thing that was ever that striking about the place, and as long as that is restored and maintained, I feel it’s a win-win-win, for the Theater, for the Victory Gardens, and for the neighborhood. To me, the only options were for a project such as the current one to be undertaken or for the theater to have remained vacant and continued to fall into further and further disrepair.
For those who were talking about Village’s short reign, my favorite part was when they left after their half-ass rennovation, they took everything they could with them — even the lightbulbs. If you look at the marquee today, you can see that all of the lightbulbs except for the top few rows were pulled out. The only reason that the top row’s still there is that the workers they had doing it couldn’t reach them from their scaffolding. It was pretty funny, I was watching them doing it.
This really was the best turn of events for the long term future of the theater. There was no practical way that anyone was going to be able to keep it as a movie theater. Sure, they could restore it as a movie theater, but it would of cost a fortune to do so, and once the novelty wore off, it would of gone right back to being a failing business. Noone was going to take that on.
As for the inside being gutted, it’s not like there was all kinds of ornate interiors to be saved. The place had been done over so many times, there really wasn’t even anything left to save. The marquee was really the only thing that was ever that striking about the place, and as long as that is restored and maintained, I feel it’s a win-win-win, for the Theater, for the Victory Gardens, and for the neighborhood. To me, the only options were for a project such as the current one to be undertaken or for the theater to have remained vacant and continued to fall into further and further disrepair.
For those who were talking about Village’s short reign, my favorite part was when they left after their half-ass rennovation, they took everything they could with them — even the lightbulbs. If you look at the marquee today, you can see that all of the lightbulbs except for the top few rows were pulled out. The only reason that the top row’s still there is that the workers they had doing it couldn’t reach them from their scaffolding. It was pretty funny, I was watching them doing it.