I remember taking my high-school sweetheart, Nancy, to see “Cinerama Holiday” in Detroit. We went by train from Fort Wayne, Indiana and returned the same day. While in Detroit, we enjoyed a “taxi tour” of the city. It was our first trip “out of town” and quite a negotiation between me and her parents!
This weekend I was going through some old papers. When I unearthed a newspaper clipping (unrelated to anything here) that I’d kept around, I just about fell off my chair when I saw what was included on it, perfectly preserved:
I was spending the summers of 1968 and 1969 in nearby Rochester. In 1968 I had just recently seen “2001” in Cleveland, and one evening I dragged some friends into Detroit for their first shot at it. I wish I could conjure up more than the vaguest memories of the theater itself! I remember we were seated in the balcony, but that’s about it.
I worked as a projectionist at the summit in 1977 for the retro showing of 2001. Some of my fellow projectionist friends and I went to see the showing, were not impressed with the projection quality, the picture went off screen three times, there were sound system issues and the there were pieces of electrician’s tape on the film to mark splices. We talked to the entrepreneur who was subletting the theatre for this showing and ended up with the job! We were able to present seamless shows, in focus, with good sound in short order. The run was from mid July to late August that summer. The guy we worked for would come into the booth at intermission and smoke a joint then go sit in the seats to watch the light show sequence.
Near the end of the run it was announced that the building was going to be demolished that fall, the owners wanted to take down the theatre and leave the attached office building, a consulting engineer told them that wasn’t feasible, that the office building north wall would collapse when the theatre was taken down. The building (Commerce building) was full of quality tenants; UPI and AP had their Detroit offices there, as did “Kelley girl” and other good firms. They were all sent elsewhere and the building was demoed. During the demo process they discovered that the consulting engineer was wrong, the office building stood on its own just fine after the theatre came down, but it was too late. We began negotiating the acquisition of the Norelco AA-II projectors in the Summit for the Redford theatre in northwest Detroit. During that negation period the Star Wars 70 MM mini-renaissance began, making the booth more valuable. It looked like a guy from California was going to get the booth, but the owners stayed in negations for so long they were up against the demolition of the building and the party from California couldn’t get back to take the booth out. We got it, and removed it in early October 1977. We were allowed to take anything else we wanted in the building, we took new electrical service panels that had been recently installed in the UPI offices, and a new suspended ceiling from the Kelley Girl offices. All of these items went into the re-working of the Redford booth. Our only real expense was wire to hook everything up.
The Summit was a classy house, it had been built and used as the Cass theatre, one of Detroit’s legitimate stage houses, and it lost that honor with the reopening of the remodeled Fisher in the new center area. Even after it was converted to Cinerama the wood paneled lobbies and marble foyer were beautiful. The auditorium was covered in Pepto-Bismol pink drapes and the woodwork was painted to match. I was at the DuMochelle auction; the big chandelier went for $6,000.
There’s a vintage article about the modifications made to the Music Hall to accomodate Cinerama at View link The Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts is a magnificent facility and a Detroit treasure. The Summit (formerly the Cass) is no more. The Northland was a suburban theater in Southfield which is now called the Millenium Centre.
I remember taking my high-school sweetheart, Nancy, to see “Cinerama Holiday” in Detroit. We went by train from Fort Wayne, Indiana and returned the same day. While in Detroit, we enjoyed a “taxi tour” of the city. It was our first trip “out of town” and quite a negotiation between me and her parents!
My apologies if that url isn’t working.
Try it this way:
http://tinyurl.com/pgaank
This weekend I was going through some old papers. When I unearthed a newspaper clipping (unrelated to anything here) that I’d kept around, I just about fell off my chair when I saw what was included on it, perfectly preserved:
http://home.comcast.net/~chasmith7/theaters/2001 at Summit.pdf
I was spending the summers of 1968 and 1969 in nearby Rochester. In 1968 I had just recently seen “2001” in Cleveland, and one evening I dragged some friends into Detroit for their first shot at it. I wish I could conjure up more than the vaguest memories of the theater itself! I remember we were seated in the balcony, but that’s about it.
I worked as a projectionist at the summit in 1977 for the retro showing of 2001. Some of my fellow projectionist friends and I went to see the showing, were not impressed with the projection quality, the picture went off screen three times, there were sound system issues and the there were pieces of electrician’s tape on the film to mark splices. We talked to the entrepreneur who was subletting the theatre for this showing and ended up with the job! We were able to present seamless shows, in focus, with good sound in short order. The run was from mid July to late August that summer. The guy we worked for would come into the booth at intermission and smoke a joint then go sit in the seats to watch the light show sequence.
Near the end of the run it was announced that the building was going to be demolished that fall, the owners wanted to take down the theatre and leave the attached office building, a consulting engineer told them that wasn’t feasible, that the office building north wall would collapse when the theatre was taken down. The building (Commerce building) was full of quality tenants; UPI and AP had their Detroit offices there, as did “Kelley girl” and other good firms. They were all sent elsewhere and the building was demoed. During the demo process they discovered that the consulting engineer was wrong, the office building stood on its own just fine after the theatre came down, but it was too late. We began negotiating the acquisition of the Norelco AA-II projectors in the Summit for the Redford theatre in northwest Detroit. During that negation period the Star Wars 70 MM mini-renaissance began, making the booth more valuable. It looked like a guy from California was going to get the booth, but the owners stayed in negations for so long they were up against the demolition of the building and the party from California couldn’t get back to take the booth out. We got it, and removed it in early October 1977. We were allowed to take anything else we wanted in the building, we took new electrical service panels that had been recently installed in the UPI offices, and a new suspended ceiling from the Kelley Girl offices. All of these items went into the re-working of the Redford booth. Our only real expense was wire to hook everything up.
The Summit was a classy house, it had been built and used as the Cass theatre, one of Detroit’s legitimate stage houses, and it lost that honor with the reopening of the remodeled Fisher in the new center area. Even after it was converted to Cinerama the wood paneled lobbies and marble foyer were beautiful. The auditorium was covered in Pepto-Bismol pink drapes and the woodwork was painted to match. I was at the DuMochelle auction; the big chandelier went for $6,000.
There’s a vintage article about the modifications made to the Music Hall to accomodate Cinerama at View link The Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts is a magnificent facility and a Detroit treasure. The Summit (formerly the Cass) is no more. The Northland was a suburban theater in Southfield which is now called the Millenium Centre.