Capri Art Theater

kencmcintyre on March 8, 2007 at 11:03 am

Should I have said Capri? LM, I told you I would mix this up.

lostmemory on March 8, 2007 at 12:57 pm

This is a May 26, 2006 article about the Uptown Theater.

“Uptown Theater switches owners and switches paths.

The Amherst Record
By Melanie Larsen

BUFFALO â€" Life is a stage.

At least it is becoming a stage for the inner-city youth near Buffalo’s Bailey Avenue.

What once served as an adult theater at 3165 Bailey Ave., is now owned by retired Amherst police officer Ciro LaCorte.

LaCorte is using Uptown Theater as a community stage for teenagers in order to get them off the streets and away from dangerous behavior.

“It used to be a porno theater, now it is a youth center,” he said. “We let them (neighborhood children) use it in exchange for stopping the violence and teen pregnancies.”

LaCorte intervened with the theater four years ago at the prompting of a friend.

“There was a gentleman (Carl Traina) running the movie theater doing pornography. An elderly gentleman (Gus Galasso) owned the building. He was 93 years old,” LaCorte said.

LaCorte said Traina was practicing poor business ethics among other less desirable behavior, and that is when LaCorte intervened on the behalf of Galasso.

Galasso died before realizing the theater’s new ownership and path.

Because of the person Galasso was, LaCorte said the obvious direction was to use the theater for something positive.

“Unfortunately, a lot of kids drop out of school because it is more lucrative to sell drugs,” he said. “How do you tell kids to go to school when they can make $200 to $400 a day selling drugs?”

LaCorte said while children believe the lifestyle of a drug dealer will lead them to an easier way of living, it often ends in violence.

“Just 10 days ago there was a shooting over drugs,” he said.

While the theater offers children a safe haven from the violence, LaCorte said he and theater friend Darwin Rogers make sure children abide by their rules once they step inside.

“We expect them to sing or dance and be mischievous,” LaCorte said. “It is a struggle until they realize if they want to sing and dance these are the rules.”

The rules of the theater are basically to ensure respect for those involved. He said he will not allow certain language and makes sure the children abide by a strict time schedule.

As long as the teenagers are able to play nice, LaCorte said they are welcome to the stage.

“Initially, the microphone is what draws them,” he said. “We make a subtle type of transition. If you were in a church, you automatically think of a church environment … We tell them, look you can’t learn unless you pay attention. It is a constant struggle.”

Rogers, who is also a resident of the downtown Bailey area, is heavily involved with the stage management.

Rogers leads the children in the choreography of the opening and closing acts, as well as guiding them with their artistic content.

“The hardest thing is to clean up every rap song that’s dirty. It’s tough to turn hip hop music into clean hip hop music,” he said. “I tell them, music and dance don’t have to be polluted so that others can rejoice in what you do.”

Through the bonds of performance, Rogers has lead a group of talented dancers to take their show on the road to places such as Six Flags Darien Lake.

“We want to give them another choice. It doesn’t always have to be about being in gangs and being bad,” he said. “When people don’t know the right way, they think the wrong way is right.”

Friend of the theater and Bailey Avenue resident Mike Holley believes showing children the right way is a struggle that is worth the time, as gang violence and drugs has been ruling neighborhoods like this one for years.

“He (LaCorte) is a God send,” He said. “He had a vision and he took a chance. He has offered the community something no one else wanted to do.”

Holley said the theater offers the children a place to utilize their talents and feel safe.

“A while back we didn’t have anything like this (Uptown Theater),” Holley said. “We all know the history of what this used to be, now it is a family place.”

LaCorte said while he has future plans to expand the theater’s outreach, his funds are nearing their end.

“I do everything on my own nickel,” he said.

Recently the theater experienced a gas leak that ended up costing LaCorte a couple thousand dollars. He said the financial strain was enough to shut the theater’s doors for the winter.

“We receive no grants,” he said, “and no help from the city.”

When and if LaCorte can find funding, he said he has plans to show children’s cartoons on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

While LaCorte said he is in need of money to purchase a projector for weekend cartoons, the theater is always in need of volunteers.

Uptown Theater meets from 5 to 7 p.m. every Tuesday night. For more information, call LaCorte at 510-1505 or Rogers at 578-0078".

roberttoplin on May 17, 2007 at 6:15 pm

The “Varsity” was designed by G. Lewis & R. Hill and opened in 1923 or 1924 with 1,000 seats.

lostmemory on April 16, 2009 at 7:03 pm

This was the Capri in 1982.

Joe Vogel on March 25, 2012 at 3:11 am

The Palace Theatre in the picture DonLewis linked to is not this house, but one on Main Street in Downtown Buffalo. It isn’t listed at Cinema Treasures. As far as I’ve been able to discover, that Palace was always a burlesque house.

This house might have been called the Circle Arts Theatre, if the claim about Fred Keller, operator of the earlier Circle Arts Theatre, on this web page is correct:

“In early 1962 Fred Keller leased the theatre [the Circle] and renamed it the Circle Arts, and, as the new name implied, he specialized in European films. A year or so later he lost the lease and moved to the Varsity Theatre on Bailey and took the Circle Arts name with him.”

Here is a weblog post from early 2010 about Abraham Cisse (though they misspelled his surname as Cissie), who had recently bought the Uptown Theatre and was in the process of renovating it. I’ve been unable to find any more recent information about the project, but Mr. Cisse is apparently still the owner of the property.

Here is another recent photo of this house as the Uptown.