State grants? what are those and what decade you you live in? Michigan is about as broke a state as you could design. The whole anti-American car trend combined with the inability of those who do like our vehicles to get financing has fixed our economy for a while. UM could pull it off, they have a very wealthy, powerful group of alums who give generously.
Flint is also a frogotten town, GM closed up most everything there, and it has been in bad shape since the 1980s and not improving. The upside of all of this (like Detroit) is that no one is in a hurry to demolish theatres or other old buildings, the land underneath is not overly valuable and no one wants to build much of anything new, so places like the Capitol have been spared. I would like to see it, perhaps the Hollywood theatre (Detroit) Barton organ could go in there, there is a U-M connection.
To further comment on Patsy’s comment re: Dreamgirls, there never was a “Detroit theatre” in Detroit, Dreamgirls is about the Supremes, without naming names, every person, place and event has an alternate name to avoid litigation. The Supremes, and other Motown acts appeared in big stage shows at Detroit’s Fox theatre, a 5,000 seat house, and those shows were the only stage entertainment featured at the Fox during the 1960s. They were huge, sold the place out, and lasted all day! All of the fantastic stable of Mowtown acts would appear, The temtations, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Little Stevie Wonder and the Supremes, to name a few.
Jere—here is a picture of the late Bob Howland (organist from the silent era, played the Michigan in Ann arbor, Michigan in Flint in the 20s and 30s)playing the Capitol in Jackson
It is the showroom/service area for gregory Marina, they deal in pleasure boats, and some large ones at that. You can see the shape of the auditorium from the street easily.
Hold on for a minute here—we have some confusion going on re: the three theatres that have been in this part of town (New Center area) all withthe name “Center”. This Theatre (above listing at 7314 Woodward ave.) was built in 1916 as the Regent and was HUGE, over 3,000 seats. I was in this theatre just before it was demolished and it was truly huge, and in very good overall condition at the time if its demise.
The “New Center” you refer to above was a modern cinema in a much newer (1950s-‘60s) building on the Boulevard and third (that part is right), it opened while the Regent was going under the name “Center”, and yes, that “New Center” cinema was part of the Studio chain. I worked at the Studio 8 and Studio 4 in 1975-'77, then under the ownership of the infamous Gorelicks.
There was another theatre on Woodward, built in 1932 as the Trans-Lux, it was renamed the “Center” in 1934, it closed in 1949 and the building was remodeled into retail space.
In summary:
1)The New Center was on The Boulevard and had no connection to the Regent/Center on Woodward.
2) The Regent theatre on Woodward was renamed the “Center” and was open with that name WHILE the “New Center” was open on the Blvd.
3) there was another theatre on Woodward named the Center, it held that name before the Regent was renamed and the New Center Cinema was built.
I recall that a (live) theater troupe ran the new center as a live theater in the early 80s.
David, Rock and Roll was built on/used the left-overs from the buildings of the teens'-1920s, there wasn’t enough real money (or no one involved wanted to invest real money) in building a structure devoted to the presentation of rock and roll, so they used and abused existing old theatres and ballrooms that were down on their luck by the 1960s and 70s.
My wife and I just spent a few days in Orlando at the Hard Rock hotel, a very nice place. It was built just a few years ago and is designed to resemble a 1920s Spanish revival hotel. Very fitting to see the ubiquitous rock memorabilia among the vestiges of an earlier time when the elegance was appreciated.
Hey, those are just the theatres! you should see everything else.
But seriously folks, we are the second theater city in the US behind New York by seat count (divided by # of venues), our Fox theatre is intact and has thrived for 20 years as a beautifully resored theatre, the Masonic Temple theatre has been restored, The State theatre is a rock club, can’t say much more than that but it’s there, open and somewhat clean. Our 1924 Book-Cadillac hotel just opened after a $180,000,000 renovation/restoration and the Pick-Fort Shelby Hotel is in the latter stages of renovation/restoration.
If anything we had too many theatres. Chicago (and New York and San Francisco, etc.) tore them down to put glass box office buildings up. Ours, the real estate under them isn’t that valuable so they sit and rot.
We get “preferred status” from the distributors due to our great track record and the fact that we don’t use platters, we do it old school, 20 minute changeovers. Disney let us run “Swiss family Robinson”, which was a very nice print. What distributors do you get your prints from?
Ehhhh—I wouldn’t classify it quite that way. There has been work done to the building to stabilize the structure, repairs have been made to the auditorium roof, quite extensively so that it may be a new roof. There is a potential taker for the building, but since they are in the mortgage business I’m thinking that might not happen for a while.
The city actually has been stepping up the inspection of buildings, what had been lax under previous administrations actually became more stringent under the Kilpatrick administration, I don’t know for a fact, but would presume that there has been a change at the management level in the city’s building department, the new guy is more of a go-getter and the Kilpatricks had little to do with it.
We all would like to see the theatre restored, it has suffered greatly over the past 30 years. I was there 33 years ago for the auction, and at that time everything was still there, all of the lobby furniture, lighting fixtures, the Wurlitzer 260-special, all tech equipment. The place had been white-washed and the procenium arch had been chewed open for wide-screen but it was all there.
If you restore it, you have to use it, and maybe make some money back. We have a lot of theatres in Detroit, two pretty big ones and some nice mid-sized theatres. I would like someone to restore and use the UA a daunting idea), but just don’t know.
The Mai Kai theatre in Livonia Michiagan was built with 1700 seats, and was a modern version of a completely equipped movie palace, sans organ. A fully operational stage (few hangin sets, though, orchestra pit, locations in the ceiling for lekos and ellipsoidals, the full treatment.
look up the Mai Kai page, it may be listed as “George Burns theater” due to this site’s insistance of listing a theatre by it’s last name rather than its first.
I know all about those sites, and I contribute to waterwinterwonderland when I have something that can be shared.
What I was and am saying is that all this site has is dead links, from people who gave up on their photobucket accounts.
Oh, and I might know one of the posters over on Detroit yes.
It’s too bad the owners of the building evicted the original Barton theatre pipe organ 18 years ago—the voice of the silent films. I wonder what they are using for music, probably electronically amplified piano. Revisionist history at its finest.
Chuck1231 is correct, grandcircus is wrong—The “Grand Circus” he is thinking of is a later name for the Capitol/Broadway Capitol/Paramount/Grand Circus/Opera House on Broadway.
The old Grand Circus sat on the site currently occupied by the State/Palms State/Palms/State/Club X/Fillmore, which stinks like stale beer 24/7/365, a nice house outherwise, and one of Chuck Forbes' wonderful accomplishments.
Years ago I worked as a non-union projectionist and was very conscientious, did no damage to prints, performed flawless changeovers
(we are talking pre-platters here), always had things in frame, in focus. At the time I entered the field the union still had the majority of the houses in town and the older guys were generally good, knew how to run a good professional show and cared.
Their sons were another matter all together. This being the 70s, these were baby-boomer hippie wanna-bees who had this job because Dad connected them down at the Union hall and they couldn’t have cared less. I wanted to join, but had no direct family member in the local already, and really liking projection/the business and having the aptitude didn’t count for much, family connections did. It was an easy job that paid well, the long haired second-gen hippies could afford lots of drugs and take them at work and remain functional, and that gravy train gradually came to an end. I feel for the few good, craftsmen of the Simplex-XL I knew, they were pretty much on their way to retirement. It was good riddance for their kids, who were poster children for why the Union died and the chains moved the sharpest usher up into the booth. As a previous poster noted, it happened to just about every other profession that used to be a Union stronghold, and in some ways the Unions themselves stopped looking out for their own when imported goods started flooding our stores. There was a time in the 70s and 80s when you had your choice between consumer goods made in the US, many by Union labor, and imported goods that were cheaper in price. The Union faithful shopped price, just like everyone else. At one time in the 40s-50s and early 60s the Union could just tell their members to boycott any business that didn’t play ball, and in their numbers that boycott shut the money faucet off to the offending business and that will get any business owners attention. After the “me” generation took over that concept became too much like work and the Unions preferred to just strike against employers, causing economic hardship with the hand that feeds them.
Wurlitzer began in 1856, started making pipe organs in about 1912, left that business in 1942 and continued making Jukeboxes,pianos,electronic organs, home appliances, radios, phonographs, toasters and other products. They went out of business in the early 1980s after the home electronic organ market died. Other companies own and sue the name to market ukeboxes and pianos.
The company survived another 50 years after the theatre pipe organ went out of large-scale production here in the US.
Justin and Loves movies—If you have not seen 2001 in a theatre, you haven’t seen the movie. It is just too big for your TV, no matter how large.
I worked as a projectionist showing a retro-run of 2001 at the Summit Cinerama theatre in Detroit during the summer of 1977. I went with friends to see this movie (having never seen it) and was very impressed with the film, but very disappointed with the horrible projection quality. The film went off screen twice, there were big sound problems and every place the was a splice the operator had put electricians tape across the print to mark the splice. We talked with the guy subletting the theatre (it mainly showed Arabic films by then) and by the end of the night ended up with the job as projectionist. The operator supplied by the local collective bargaining / mediocrity preservation organization was sent packing and we took over. Within three shows we had the machines running right, the show stayed on screen, we fixed problems with the sound system and had a great run for another 5 weeks. The announcement came out that the theatre was going to be demolished and we set to work trying to get the Norelco AAII (later KA DP70) projectors for the Redford theatre. We were ultimately successful, we spent six months redoing the Redford booth to accept the Norelco machines. The three of us launched our bi-weekly movie series in March of 1978 with “The sound of music” in 70mm to capacity houses (1,500+). That movie series is now in its 30th year and the Norelcos are still great machines.
I saw “Jurassic park II” there with my wife (then girlfriend) in 1997, she was taking a “study abroad” course in London that summer and I went to visit her. The cinema-box we sat in wasn’t very large, I’m sorry I didn’t get to see the nice 60s mod original auditorium.
We roomed at the university of London dorms on Brown road nearby.
The second screen at the Michigan is located in a new-construction addition built onto the back of the theater, leaving the auditorium in its original configuration/size. The Michigan is used for symphony, ballet, jazz, folk and contemporary events in addition to films, so “twinning” would not be an option. In regards to SNWEB’s comment about “Hats off to U of M” the University has nothing to do (directly) with the operation of the Michigan. The building is owned by the city (purchased by an overwhelmingly approved millage during an economically difficult year) and run by the non-profit Michigan theatre foundation. The foundation was formed to save the theater, which was well on its way to being gutted and converted into a “food court” mall type place, and to operate it as an auditorium/performing arts facility separate from the University’s whim and why. Henry, who has posted comments above, was really the person who began the movement to save the theater. Without his actions the theater may no exist today.
My wife and I saw “Wicked” this weekend on a getaway trip to Chicago. Great play, and it was really good to be back in the Oriental after 25 years. I played a social for CATOE there in 1982, while the front was converted into the electronic junk store. The CATOE bunch had to enter through a strange door in the front, around the back of the store and into the theatre. They only hosted one other event at the theatre after that, with the great Barbara Sellers playing. Her parents, Preston and Edna played at the Oriental during the “golden age”. Knowing this was to be the last tie the organ was used before it was removed, the last chord was played by Edna, who despite her very advanced age could be there and was brought up to the console to play that last ceremonial chord. I saw the console downstairs, looks wonderful, can’t wait to play it again. The Oriental organ was a hottie! literally a fire-breathing dragon. The theatre looked wonderful. I had a similar emotion as when I stood in the Fox theatre here in Detroit in ‘88 and saw it gloriously restored, doing the right kind of entertainment (not Kung-Fu and exploitation films for an indifferent audience). Wicked was wonderful, made even better by the fact that we won the drawing at Borders for the $25 front row seats that night!
I am playing a concert on that Barton on May 16th.
State grants? what are those and what decade you you live in? Michigan is about as broke a state as you could design. The whole anti-American car trend combined with the inability of those who do like our vehicles to get financing has fixed our economy for a while. UM could pull it off, they have a very wealthy, powerful group of alums who give generously.
Flint is also a frogotten town, GM closed up most everything there, and it has been in bad shape since the 1980s and not improving. The upside of all of this (like Detroit) is that no one is in a hurry to demolish theatres or other old buildings, the land underneath is not overly valuable and no one wants to build much of anything new, so places like the Capitol have been spared. I would like to see it, perhaps the Hollywood theatre (Detroit) Barton organ could go in there, there is a U-M connection.
To further comment on Patsy’s comment re: Dreamgirls, there never was a “Detroit theatre” in Detroit, Dreamgirls is about the Supremes, without naming names, every person, place and event has an alternate name to avoid litigation. The Supremes, and other Motown acts appeared in big stage shows at Detroit’s Fox theatre, a 5,000 seat house, and those shows were the only stage entertainment featured at the Fox during the 1960s. They were huge, sold the place out, and lasted all day! All of the fantastic stable of Mowtown acts would appear, The temtations, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Little Stevie Wonder and the Supremes, to name a few.
………….and don’t call me Shirley!
Jere—here is a picture of the late Bob Howland (organist from the silent era, played the Michigan in Ann arbor, Michigan in Flint in the 20s and 30s)playing the Capitol in Jackson
View link
Roger Mumbrue, photographer, 1960s.
It is the showroom/service area for gregory Marina, they deal in pleasure boats, and some large ones at that. You can see the shape of the auditorium from the street easily.
More Foghorn Leghorn!
who will be at the Wurlitzer in the Pickwick for this screening?
Hold on for a minute here—we have some confusion going on re: the three theatres that have been in this part of town (New Center area) all withthe name “Center”. This Theatre (above listing at 7314 Woodward ave.) was built in 1916 as the Regent and was HUGE, over 3,000 seats. I was in this theatre just before it was demolished and it was truly huge, and in very good overall condition at the time if its demise.
The “New Center” you refer to above was a modern cinema in a much newer (1950s-‘60s) building on the Boulevard and third (that part is right), it opened while the Regent was going under the name “Center”, and yes, that “New Center” cinema was part of the Studio chain. I worked at the Studio 8 and Studio 4 in 1975-'77, then under the ownership of the infamous Gorelicks.
There was another theatre on Woodward, built in 1932 as the Trans-Lux, it was renamed the “Center” in 1934, it closed in 1949 and the building was remodeled into retail space.
In summary:
1)The New Center was on The Boulevard and had no connection to the Regent/Center on Woodward.
2) The Regent theatre on Woodward was renamed the “Center” and was open with that name WHILE the “New Center” was open on the Blvd.
3) there was another theatre on Woodward named the Center, it held that name before the Regent was renamed and the New Center Cinema was built.
I recall that a (live) theater troupe ran the new center as a live theater in the early 80s.
David, Rock and Roll was built on/used the left-overs from the buildings of the teens'-1920s, there wasn’t enough real money (or no one involved wanted to invest real money) in building a structure devoted to the presentation of rock and roll, so they used and abused existing old theatres and ballrooms that were down on their luck by the 1960s and 70s.
My wife and I just spent a few days in Orlando at the Hard Rock hotel, a very nice place. It was built just a few years ago and is designed to resemble a 1920s Spanish revival hotel. Very fitting to see the ubiquitous rock memorabilia among the vestiges of an earlier time when the elegance was appreciated.
Quote:“What an awful city Detroit must be”
Hey, those are just the theatres! you should see everything else.
But seriously folks, we are the second theater city in the US behind New York by seat count (divided by # of venues), our Fox theatre is intact and has thrived for 20 years as a beautifully resored theatre, the Masonic Temple theatre has been restored, The State theatre is a rock club, can’t say much more than that but it’s there, open and somewhat clean. Our 1924 Book-Cadillac hotel just opened after a $180,000,000 renovation/restoration and the Pick-Fort Shelby Hotel is in the latter stages of renovation/restoration.
If anything we had too many theatres. Chicago (and New York and San Francisco, etc.) tore them down to put glass box office buildings up. Ours, the real estate under them isn’t that valuable so they sit and rot.
We get “preferred status” from the distributors due to our great track record and the fact that we don’t use platters, we do it old school, 20 minute changeovers. Disney let us run “Swiss family Robinson”, which was a very nice print. What distributors do you get your prints from?
Does Ray Brubacher still play the Wurlitzer at the Weinberg/Tivoli?
Ehhhh—I wouldn’t classify it quite that way. There has been work done to the building to stabilize the structure, repairs have been made to the auditorium roof, quite extensively so that it may be a new roof. There is a potential taker for the building, but since they are in the mortgage business I’m thinking that might not happen for a while.
The city actually has been stepping up the inspection of buildings, what had been lax under previous administrations actually became more stringent under the Kilpatrick administration, I don’t know for a fact, but would presume that there has been a change at the management level in the city’s building department, the new guy is more of a go-getter and the Kilpatricks had little to do with it.
We all would like to see the theatre restored, it has suffered greatly over the past 30 years. I was there 33 years ago for the auction, and at that time everything was still there, all of the lobby furniture, lighting fixtures, the Wurlitzer 260-special, all tech equipment. The place had been white-washed and the procenium arch had been chewed open for wide-screen but it was all there.
If you restore it, you have to use it, and maybe make some money back. We have a lot of theatres in Detroit, two pretty big ones and some nice mid-sized theatres. I would like someone to restore and use the UA a daunting idea), but just don’t know.
The Mai Kai theatre in Livonia Michiagan was built with 1700 seats, and was a modern version of a completely equipped movie palace, sans organ. A fully operational stage (few hangin sets, though, orchestra pit, locations in the ceiling for lekos and ellipsoidals, the full treatment.
look up the Mai Kai page, it may be listed as “George Burns theater” due to this site’s insistance of listing a theatre by it’s last name rather than its first.
I know all about those sites, and I contribute to waterwinterwonderland when I have something that can be shared.
What I was and am saying is that all this site has is dead links, from people who gave up on their photobucket accounts.
Oh, and I might know one of the posters over on Detroit yes.
It’s too bad the owners of the building evicted the original Barton theatre pipe organ 18 years ago—the voice of the silent films. I wonder what they are using for music, probably electronically amplified piano. Revisionist history at its finest.
Chuck1231 is correct, grandcircus is wrong—The “Grand Circus” he is thinking of is a later name for the Capitol/Broadway Capitol/Paramount/Grand Circus/Opera House on Broadway.
The old Grand Circus sat on the site currently occupied by the State/Palms State/Palms/State/Club X/Fillmore, which stinks like stale beer 24/7/365, a nice house outherwise, and one of Chuck Forbes' wonderful accomplishments.
Years ago I worked as a non-union projectionist and was very conscientious, did no damage to prints, performed flawless changeovers
(we are talking pre-platters here), always had things in frame, in focus. At the time I entered the field the union still had the majority of the houses in town and the older guys were generally good, knew how to run a good professional show and cared.
Their sons were another matter all together. This being the 70s, these were baby-boomer hippie wanna-bees who had this job because Dad connected them down at the Union hall and they couldn’t have cared less. I wanted to join, but had no direct family member in the local already, and really liking projection/the business and having the aptitude didn’t count for much, family connections did. It was an easy job that paid well, the long haired second-gen hippies could afford lots of drugs and take them at work and remain functional, and that gravy train gradually came to an end. I feel for the few good, craftsmen of the Simplex-XL I knew, they were pretty much on their way to retirement. It was good riddance for their kids, who were poster children for why the Union died and the chains moved the sharpest usher up into the booth. As a previous poster noted, it happened to just about every other profession that used to be a Union stronghold, and in some ways the Unions themselves stopped looking out for their own when imported goods started flooding our stores. There was a time in the 70s and 80s when you had your choice between consumer goods made in the US, many by Union labor, and imported goods that were cheaper in price. The Union faithful shopped price, just like everyone else. At one time in the 40s-50s and early 60s the Union could just tell their members to boycott any business that didn’t play ball, and in their numbers that boycott shut the money faucet off to the offending business and that will get any business owners attention. After the “me” generation took over that concept became too much like work and the Unions preferred to just strike against employers, causing economic hardship with the hand that feeds them.
Bump up to top.
The show is upon us! Come to Detroit to see what really made the 20s roar!
Wurlitzer began in 1856, started making pipe organs in about 1912, left that business in 1942 and continued making Jukeboxes,pianos,electronic organs, home appliances, radios, phonographs, toasters and other products. They went out of business in the early 1980s after the home electronic organ market died. Other companies own and sue the name to market ukeboxes and pianos.
The company survived another 50 years after the theatre pipe organ went out of large-scale production here in the US.
Justin and Loves movies—If you have not seen 2001 in a theatre, you haven’t seen the movie. It is just too big for your TV, no matter how large.
I worked as a projectionist showing a retro-run of 2001 at the Summit Cinerama theatre in Detroit during the summer of 1977. I went with friends to see this movie (having never seen it) and was very impressed with the film, but very disappointed with the horrible projection quality. The film went off screen twice, there were big sound problems and every place the was a splice the operator had put electricians tape across the print to mark the splice. We talked with the guy subletting the theatre (it mainly showed Arabic films by then) and by the end of the night ended up with the job as projectionist. The operator supplied by the local collective bargaining / mediocrity preservation organization was sent packing and we took over. Within three shows we had the machines running right, the show stayed on screen, we fixed problems with the sound system and had a great run for another 5 weeks. The announcement came out that the theatre was going to be demolished and we set to work trying to get the Norelco AAII (later KA DP70) projectors for the Redford theatre. We were ultimately successful, we spent six months redoing the Redford booth to accept the Norelco machines. The three of us launched our bi-weekly movie series in March of 1978 with “The sound of music” in 70mm to capacity houses (1,500+). That movie series is now in its 30th year and the Norelcos are still great machines.
I saw “Jurassic park II” there with my wife (then girlfriend) in 1997, she was taking a “study abroad” course in London that summer and I went to visit her. The cinema-box we sat in wasn’t very large, I’m sorry I didn’t get to see the nice 60s mod original auditorium.
We roomed at the university of London dorms on Brown road nearby.
The second screen at the Michigan is located in a new-construction addition built onto the back of the theater, leaving the auditorium in its original configuration/size. The Michigan is used for symphony, ballet, jazz, folk and contemporary events in addition to films, so “twinning” would not be an option. In regards to SNWEB’s comment about “Hats off to U of M” the University has nothing to do (directly) with the operation of the Michigan. The building is owned by the city (purchased by an overwhelmingly approved millage during an economically difficult year) and run by the non-profit Michigan theatre foundation. The foundation was formed to save the theater, which was well on its way to being gutted and converted into a “food court” mall type place, and to operate it as an auditorium/performing arts facility separate from the University’s whim and why. Henry, who has posted comments above, was really the person who began the movement to save the theater. Without his actions the theater may no exist today.
My wife and I saw “Wicked” this weekend on a getaway trip to Chicago. Great play, and it was really good to be back in the Oriental after 25 years. I played a social for CATOE there in 1982, while the front was converted into the electronic junk store. The CATOE bunch had to enter through a strange door in the front, around the back of the store and into the theatre. They only hosted one other event at the theatre after that, with the great Barbara Sellers playing. Her parents, Preston and Edna played at the Oriental during the “golden age”. Knowing this was to be the last tie the organ was used before it was removed, the last chord was played by Edna, who despite her very advanced age could be there and was brought up to the console to play that last ceremonial chord. I saw the console downstairs, looks wonderful, can’t wait to play it again. The Oriental organ was a hottie! literally a fire-breathing dragon. The theatre looked wonderful. I had a similar emotion as when I stood in the Fox theatre here in Detroit in ‘88 and saw it gloriously restored, doing the right kind of entertainment (not Kung-Fu and exploitation films for an indifferent audience). Wicked was wonderful, made even better by the fact that we won the drawing at Borders for the $25 front row seats that night!