First it was a movie palace.
Then it was a (fill in the blank)  _______________.
(church)
(parking garage)
(basketball court)
(restaurant)
(flea market)
(storage facility)
Then it was a theater again.
 
In cities and towns all over America, the above pattern is playing itself out, where fortune and lack of real estate opportunism have left great theaters still standing through the dark eclipse of movie palaces in the seventies and, in many cases, after sometimes clandestine makeovers. In the case of the St. George Theatre (2,672 seats in Staten Island), which I spent a year of my life (1976) running as a movie palace, there were several transformations (roller-rink, dinner theater, flea market). Fortunately, other than a fire, which left a large hole in the stage and destroyed a gorgeous house curtain, the most disastrous alteration the St. George underwent was the leveling of its “rake,” (the flattening of the orchestra floor). This may have seemed like a brilliant notion to a lost-in-time roller-rink entrepreneur, but when Rosemary Cappozalo turned in her life savings to rescue the old grand dame of a palace, she and her daughters found it difficult to recreate normal seating downstairs. Patrons seated in the back row had to stand to see over the heads of the rest of the audience. A series of platforms beneath the balcony overhang has somewhat ameliorated this problem, but nothing beats walking (literally) down the aisle of a theater. Which brings me to the subject of a reno in progress: the Brooklyn Paramount.

What does it take to repurpose a theater that has spent more than fifty years as a  basketball court? Just as the St. George lost its rake, the Brooklyn Paramount did as well. After its floor was leveled, boards of polished maple, nets with backboards left and right, and, beneath the proscenium, a scoreboard, completed the transformation. Long Island University, which had purchased the Paramount, outfitted it in the early nineteen sixties as a home for its basketball team, the Blackbirds. Still, LIU was keeping an eye all along on the possible future of this Rapp and Rapp beauty. The remodelers preserved the theater’s ornate filigreed ceiling — a surreal vision, no doubt, for the occasional fallen basketball player looking skyward! They also saw fit to leave untouched its 4 manual, 26 rank 1928 Wurlitzer. The organ was a unique feature, I’m told, at home games, where it rose suddenly on its platform to blast the Blackbirds home to victory. Thanks to the New York Theatre Organ Society, which came regularly to tune and maintain the instrument and all of its 1838 pipes, this rare organ suffered a better fate than the one we never got to see at the St. George, which, like so many theater organs, had already been sold for parts, some of which, in the St. George's case, we traced to a pizza parlor in Texas. Speaking of the Paramount's organ, get a load of this clip of Mark Herman, a young organist, cutting loose with “Give my Regards to Broadway.” 

Everything is cyclical. The Blackbirds have a new home court these days, just down the street, and Brooklyn itself is undergoing a renaissance, not unlike the one that’s overtaken downtown L.A., where the Theatre at the Ace Hotel, the Palace, and the Orpheum, (which boasts one of the 3 remaining pipe organs in Southern Calfornia — can this be right??), have put on new performance gowns.

Returning to Brooklyn, the Paramount’s career as a sports venue is over. A 49-year lease and a 50-million-dollar reno by a corporate and community consortium under the aegis of Paramount Events Center, will make it the second grand old hall on Flatbush Avenue to return to its roots in performance. 

What roots? In the 1950’s when Rock was in its cradle, the DJ Alan Freed (who arguably coined the term “Rock & Roll,”) headlined a young Chuck Berry and an equally spry Jerry Lee Lewis at the Brooklyn Paramount and its sister Paramount theater in Manhattan, breaking the color barrier, both for performers and for audiences and taking the rap for “inciting juvenile delinquency.” Rock, in those days, was considered by some, at best lewd and at worst completely immoral. Before its Rock days, this fine old hall held and gave back the voices of Dizzy, Frank, and Ella (are last names necessary?) In those glory days, it sported better than four thousand seats, second only to the roughly six-thousand seat Radio City Music Hall.

So here’s to the old theaters, that have done their time and come back (The United Palace, part church but mostly performance hall these days, one of New York’s five “Wonder Theaters,”), the Kings, (formerly Loew’s Kings) right down the street from the Paramount in Flatbush , and so many others including, yes, our own St. George.

And don't fogey that, for all the revivals, there are plenty of halls that no longer exist (the Albee in Cincinnati, the Roxy in NYC, the Paramount in L.A., and so many more. When Joni Mitchell wrote “They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot,” (“Big Yellow Taxi)” I always thought she was referring to the Paradise Theatre in Chicago (a Balaban and Katz confection), demolished in 1956. But I had my facts wrong; they turned it into a supermarket -- no parking lot, pink hotel or “swinging hot spot.”
 
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Afterthought: For those of you who followed, with some interest, the previews of the latest Treasures of New York documentary series about our own St. George Theatre, on (local NY) PBS, but haven’t yet viewed the whole half hour, here’s a link. I’m pleased to say Dean and I are part of it, in more than a passing sense!

Dean, my husband (and fellow theater entrepreneur) has lived a long life in the television business. Imagine my surprise one night, over Key Lime pie, when he mentioned that a sound technician he has worked with, happened to be part of a crew hired to do “...some kind of documentary about the St. George Theatre.” That documentary, over a year in the making, premiers on WLIW (channel 21) in New York at 8 PM this Thursday, October 19, and the following Sunday on WNET Channel 13, NYC, at 7 PM. Following these two showings, this Treasures of New York episode will be available on line (we’ll feature a link here). Meanwhile, here’s a link to the preview.

For anyone who’s new to this blog, the St. George is the very theater a group of us went bankrupt running in 1976, a grand red and gold 2,672-seat Spanish Baroque movie palace (with, some say, Italian overtones) in Staten Island. Forty-plus years later, it’s still standing, five minutes from our house.

I say “still standing,” because so many other marvelous theaters built, as the SG was, in the 1920’s, were torn down in the sixties, seventies and eighties, the era that spawned multiplexes (think the Roxy in Manhattan, the Paramount in L.A., the 20th Century in Chicago). Some theaters are still standing but serve as warehouses, drug stores, churches, or even in one terrible instance, a parking garage.

Lucky St. George! For once, Staten Island’s relatively low real estate values, combined with the zest of a local family, have resulted in the re-emergence of this former Vaudeville house as a live performance space. Who saved it?  As I mentioned, Rosemary Cappozalo and her daughters, did what we, in 1976, would have given our life and breath to do: they bought the building and raised the rest of the money as a non-profit. We like to joke that we were a non-profit back in 1976, just never knew it!        

The acoustically-perfect space warms, these days, to the voices of Tony Bennett, K.D. Lang, and others, but we’d like to think that our voices, announcing free popcorn while a broken bit of film was being re-spliced, telling stories around the concession stand, talking while cleaning and lighting long-dim chandeliers, are preserved in the silence of the theater’s dome, the way old radio signals are said to linger in outer space. And that’s not to mention the voices of all those people, over nearly a century, who made it their palace, the patron ghosts.

That PBS chose the St. George for its pioneering Treasures of New York documentary series (think the FlatIron Building, the Park Avenue Armory, the Erie Canal) says it all. As Dean pointed out in our interview, “You know...a great society needs a great cultural component.  And the St. George is that, not just for St. George, but for all...of New York.”

This week I’m pleased to present a conversation I had with Marisa Wong, the producer of this documentary. Marisa consulted Starts Wednesday on a regular basis  early in her process, for research and background.  Here’s my conversation with her:

Where did you first hear of the St. George Theatre?  What led you and your team to make it part of Treasures of New York?
As it turns out, St. George Theatre president and CEO, Doreen Cugno, is on the board of directors for WNET’s grassroots advocacy and community arm, Friends of THIRTEEN, Inc. Through that relationship, WNET hosted a community engagement event at the St. George Theatre in 2015, called Staten Island Talks Education. The moment our staff walked in the door of the theatre, we knew there was a story to be told.
 
Beyond the appeal of its gorgeous interior and big name performers, the theater also has a fascinating history and close community ties. It was a perfect fit for the Treasures of New York series, which features New York landmarks and cultural establishments, like St. Patrick’s Cathedral the Cooper Hewitt, and Smithsonian Design Museum. We are particularly excited about Treasures of New York: St. George Theatre, because it is our very first episode to feature an institution on Staten Island.
 
What was the production process like for the St. George project, how long did it take?    
We started pre-production and research in the summer of 2016, and our first day of filming focused on the theater’s annual Summer Youth Outreach Program in June. Since then, we’ve spent about a year producing and editing the half hour documentary – interviewing the theater’s staff and supporters, filming events and performances, and trying to fit almost 90 years of history into a 30-minute program.
 
In the documentary, we explore the theater’s 1929 beginnings as a Vaudeville and movie house, its ups and downs through the decades, and its recent renaissance as a live performance venue and cultural beacon on the north shore. We also explore the story of Rosemary Cappozalo and her family, who are responsible for the theater’s late revival.
 
What was the most challenging aspect of finding out about the St. George and then telling its story?
It was exciting to have the opportunity to create the first comprehensive documentary about the theater, but also a great challenge and responsibility. We quickly discovered that the St. George Theatre, like many historic community theaters, has a vibrant oral history that has been passed down over the years through first-hand experiences and word of mouth. But while many Staten Islanders shared their fond memories and stories...with us, we had a much harder time finding written historical accounts and archival photographs of the St. George.
 
Fortunately, with the help of the theater and all of its supporters over the years, we did manage to unearth several small collections of photographs and videos that have helped us tell the theater’s story. We were able to mine The Staten Island Advance archives for photos and articles. A few months into our research process, we stumbled on the Starts Wednesday blog. We were thrilled to learn that you were writing a book about the theater — and were able to provide names and images to help us piece the story together.
 
Today, we’re proud that our documentary will live on to share the theater’s story as it continues to grow and change. 
 
What did you imagine the theater to be like, before you ever set foot in it? Did it live up to your expectations?
When we started this project last summer, I had heard about the theater’s beautiful interior and unique community ties — but I had only been to Staten Island once before, and I’d never even ridden on the Staten Island ferry. We had our initial site visit in May of 2016, and I had my first experience of walking through the lobby doors — I was blown away by the space and the stories that people began telling us. At WNET our mission is to create “media with impact,” and our hope is that when people watch this documentary, they will have the same feeling we had, of experiencing the St. George Theatre for the very first time.
 
*  *  *

No, I haven’t seen the finished documentary, but the trailer promises a delicious glimpse of a fine old movie and Vaudeville house enjoying its post-millennial revival. Although Dean and I were interviewed for about twenty minutes, I suspect you’ll catch just a glimpse of us here or there, which is fine. Our efforts and those of our long-ago dedicated staff, form a tiny part of the coral reef of care and effort that have helped keep the St. George standing, as it approaches its hundred-year anniversary. Therefor, readers, here we are...and more importantly, here’s the theater.

Afterthought
Is there a theater in your community or hometown that was important in your life? I’d love to know about it, perhaps even feature your story in an upcoming blog post.

​The next episode on PBS's popular series, Treasures of New York, will feature the St. George Theatre:
​
Treasures of New York: St. George Theatre goes behind the curtain of a vibrant theatre and beloved community institution on Staten Island. Starting in the golden age of vaudeville, the film follows the theatre's story of survival through the decades to the thriving performance venue it is today.

Air Date: October 19, 2017. Time: Check your local listing. In the meantime, look at this preview!   

Tomorrow's blog post will feature interview questions with producer Marisa Wong, who interviewed me and my husband Dean Thompson, as part of her background research into the theater and its history.

​Don't miss it!

The St. George Theatre, which I was involved in going broke running, for one deeply magical year, 1976, had, for the better part of its movie theater life, been the “flagship” of a chain. We knew this, because the back office, where my husband sat making calls to film distributors and being stiffed by booking agents, was called “The District Office.” Those words were actually stenciled in red on the door. Okay, so the 2,672-seat St. George was not actually the flagship of the entire New Jersey-based Fabian chain but “the George” was apparently Fabian’s district hub, beginning in the mid-thirties. Before that time, it had been the central ruby in the metaphorical necklace of another local theater entrepreneur, Solomon Brill, who’d built it on the spot of a splendid copper-domed mansion, torn down in the 1920‘s. Brill sold the theater to Joseph Kohn in 1932 who sold it to Fabian, or so the story goes.           .  

These days, theater chains may be, like the U.S. Postal Service’s mailboxes, fast becoming a rarity (26 theater chains are listed at MoPix, where once there were hundreds). Many of the original chains bore the names of the great moguls who dreamed the dream of movie palaces in the first place:  Sid Grauman, William Fox, Alexander Pantages, Marcus Loew. Some early Vaudeville entrepreneurs, seeing the writing on the wall (or the the shadow on the screen!) began building or accumulating movie theaters early on: Edward Franklin Albee, and B.F. Keith (of Radio Keith Orpheum) come to mind. All of these names live on in theaters they built across the U.S.(still standing and in operation as cinemas or live theaters or both): Grauman’s Chinese/TCL Chinese, Grauman’s Egyptian, the Atlanta Fox, and Fox Oakland come to mind. The Keith-Albee in Huntington, West Virginia bears witness in its name to the blending of Vaudeville and motion pictures and the ultimate dominance of movies. B.F. Keith and E.F. Albee, recent corporate newlyweds via merger, oversaw the construction of this Thomas Lamb theater, under the aegis of Keith-Albee-Orpheum. Formed in January, 1928, KAO, the ultimate Vaudeville circuit for about a half an hour, operated a chain of over 700 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, with more than 15,000 Vaudeville performers, including the recently-signed-but-as-yet-relatively-unknown couple act,"Burns and Allen."

Corporate mergers are, oftener than not, piracy. So it was that in May 1928, five months after KAO was formed, a controlling portion of its stock was sold to the notorious booze-runner and father of a future president, Joseph P. Kennedy. By pre-arrangement, the stock was then purchased in October of that same year by Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as part of the deal that created Radio Keith Orpheum (RKO Pictures).  

By 1928, Vaudeville, despite its 15,000 performers, was on the slide and everybody knew it. It would survive for a while in brief and increasingly shabby entertainment interludes on the stages of movie palaces, many of them, like the St. George, built initially for live performance.

The names of the old impresarios — Keith, Albee, Pantages, Fox, Loew — would linger on, obscure as names on neighborhood street signs. 20th Century Fox (which has the surname of a mogul embedded in it), was once a theater-owning entity. But by the time of my childhood, it was, by law, strictly a film corporation. It’s owned, these days, by 21st Century Fox. That’s the 21st Century owning the 20th, and almost nobody knows who Fox  was!

Afterthought:
I had meant to include in this reflection on names and naming certain latter-day chains, including Mann Theatres (our booking agent at the St. George worked for Mann and for us on the side). Walter Reade was another prominent chain owner, proud of the cleanliness of his movie houses. The briefly-extant Jerry Lewis Cinemas, formed by the comedy star in 1969, is an anomaly. There was nothing like this chain before, and thankfully nothing like it after. Jerry Lewis‘ business plan was a “perfect storm; ” it could be used in business schools worldwide as a classic example of “how not to.” The chain nearly bankrupted Lewis. Suffice it to say, the 1970’s were a terrible time in the U.S. movie business.

Did you ever pick your feet up from the floor of a movie theater? I did it a lot as a child (still do sometimes), and not because of sticky Coke syrup. Taking my feet off the floor while watching a movie is a way of making myself feel safe. I’m pretty sure I tucked my sneakers under me in an attempt to escape Disney’s giant squid (in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1954). Covering my eyes was another protective magic; I think I did both these things during Earth Versus the Flying Saucers (1956). When that giant saucer sliced through the Washington Monument and, with people everywhere on the run, headed for the Capitol Building, I just couldn’t look. It all seems so tame now, with real life way scarier, but back then, for a middle-class eight-year-old struggling with the idea of the Neutron Bomb, the decimation of the revered (and extremely phallic) national monument and its partner the Capitol, a benign breast-like (Do I go too far?) dome were tantamount to double murder. Movies were just too real.

The Wicked Witch of the West was consummate evil; her melting, in The Wizard of Oz, should have given me some comfort, but I couldn’t watch that happen any more than I could look on Ahab’s corpse tied to the Whale in Moby Dick. These cinematic traumas happened in the movie palaces and domed stadium theaters of my Cincinnati childhood. Movies that contain horror moments are, like roller coasters, more attractive than repulsive, and the theaters that contained these movies involved another deeper level of fantasy, which is  why, eventually, I was drawn to the project of running a movie palace, the 2,672-seat St. George Theatre in Staten Island, where I’d come to live by 1976. The St. George had its horror moments too.

I was grown up by then, but when Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974) came on-screen in our magic cave of a palace, my feet went off the floor. I didn’t watch all of this movie, partly because I needed to spend time sitting in my office trying to figure out how to balance the books, and come up with the staggering sum necessary to get our hands on the next picture. But who am I fooling? When he hangs the girl on the meathook, I’m up the aisle and out of there.    

The Exorcist, which I’d seen for the first time two years before, was just as scary, requiring me both to  cover my eyes and tuck my feet under me. I didn’t stay for the whole movie, but couldn’t claim it was because we were running out of cash. We actually sold out! For several nights the house was packed with maniacs all hiding their eyes. Were they picking their feet up? Whether or not that’s just my peculiar reaction, it would have been a smart strategy, in a theater where spilled soda and popcorn fed an ample population of mice who made bold after everybody left. Speaking of Exorcist, when my Yoga instructor encourages me, as she did last week, to turn my neck just a little further and look backwards, I think of Linda Blair. But my feet are firmly on the floor, I’m happy to say.

​There were other movies in our theater year I didn’t bother to sit down for. The Omen? I stood in the doorway with a small popcorn, and Jaws? I watched it from the concession stand, ducking my head into the popcorn popper to shut out the screams of the swimmer.

Movies, I believe, were and still are, the core of what we now call “virtual reality.” We’re used to movies, but they’re still, as they always were, collective dreams. I’d like to let Fellini weigh in on this subject:

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.

"A language made of image." I like that. When I hide from the image by shielding my eyes, literally from the light, or lift my feet up, I’m responding with my whole body to the experience of dreaming. 

BTW, speaking of virtual reality, there are “VR” movies (a redundancy? subject of another post?).

Long before I was around — in 1895, when cinema was in its infancy — legend has it that the Lumiere brothers presented a fifty-second short film (L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat) of a train moving towards the camera as it arrives in a station, which caused the as-yet-ignorant-of-cinema audience to bolt from the theater in panic. The story of the audience’s reaction is apparently a fiction, but what does it matter? What does it say of our own sense of wonder at watching together in the dark, that we like to think they ran away?