City of Pittsburgh to take possession of Garden Theater

posted by Ron3853 on February 21, 2007 at 12:45 pm

PITTSBURGH, PA — After years of legal battles the former venue for adult films, the Garden Theater, has been sold to the city. Following some cleanup, the Urban Redevelopment Authority will start showing it to developers so it can be the centerpiece of a revived neighborhood.

With 10 years of legal battle now behind them, the Urban Redevelopment Authority expects to take possession of the X-rated Garden Theatre as soon as Wednesday.

URA building manager Marino Marangoni said this morning he expects at least three months of cleaning and clearing out debris will be needed before developers can be shown the space.

Owner George Androtsakis inked a $1.1 million agreement yesterday to turn over the venue that the city first tried to take by eminent domain during Mayor Tom Murphy’s administration.

To read more on this, go to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

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Comments (2)

GOC
GOC on February 21, 2007 at 3:33 pm

Yuck! I’d hate to clean that place up!!!

EvanC
EvanC on February 22, 2007 at 11:37 am

I would love to sift through all the junk in the basements and attics….as well as looking inside the organ chambers.

Hilgreen-Lane, however, were not true theatre organs as were Wurlitzer, Robert Morton, etc. They were “straight” organs on low pressure, rarely having a tibia rank. This is why this organ was 23 ranks—each rank probably had no more than 2 stops playing it, as opposed to unified organs like Wurlitzer that drew many stops from each rank. Hilgreen-Lane organs basically were church organs with some percussions and effects thrown in. As such, there is very little value to their parts today.

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