The Park Theatre, as it was originally known, was opened in late 1913 by a local businessman, B. H. Cooper, in downtown Champaign.
However, the Park didn't have it's 'official' grand opening until several months later, when a pipe organ was installed to accompany the epic spectacle, 'The Last Days of Pompeii'.
In 1929, the Park began to show sound films, and not long after, Cooper sold the theater to the LaSalle-based Alger Theatres chain, who ran the Park as a 'poor cousin' to Champaign's two largest and much more ornate theaters, the Orpheum and the Virginia.
From the late 40s on, it would mostly screen B-grade Westerns and comedies. The Park was closed in 1958.
The Art Theater Guild reopened the Park later the same year, renaming it the Art, to put the focus on the films which would now be shown there -- foreign and industrial features, the first being 'The Red and the Black'.
For another decade, the Art would be the premiere house in the Champaign-Urbana area for alternative fare, including an Ingmar Bergman festival, revivals of such classics as 'Citizen Kane' and 'Beat the Devil' and, in 1967, a series called 'Underground Cinema' which featured avant-garde works by Andy Warhol, Maya Deren and Bruce Connor on Friday and Saturday nights.
Urbana-native Roger Ebert would call the Art the place he 'learned about the art of film'.
However, by 1969, the theater's ownership switched to adult films. The Art remained a porn house until it closed in 1986.
On New Years' Day 1987, the Art was bought by John Manley, Ron Epple and Tom Angelica who renovated the run-down theater and reopened it as a venue once again for foreign and art features. The partners decided to change the theater's name to the New Art, to break with the assocation the Art had with adult fare for so long.
The New Art closed in February of 2003, but has recently reopened, once more showing foreign and industrial films. It is owned and run by the same owners of the historic Lorraine Theatre in Hoopeston.
Contributed by Bryan Krefft
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The New Art once again shows foreign and domestic indie films, and the new operators seem committed to maintaining and improving the moviegoing experience there.
Their new website is: http://www.boardmansarttheatre.com/