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Robert E. Lee Theater in New Orleans to be demolished
posted by
CSWalczak
on
August 13, 2009 at 9:49 am
NEW ORLEANS, LA — Closed for nearly two decades, the Robert E. Lee Theatre will soon have an appointment with a demolition crew.
But 18 years after General Cinema shut down the theater in 1991, the building’s owners, M&O Realty Inc., have decided to demolish it to make way for a new retail-office development, said Dan Schaneville, who represents M&O.
Although the theater flooded after Hurricane Katrina, the structure was not badly damaged and the decision to finally tear it down was unrelated to the storm. The real problem is that its design is too rooted in the 1960s to be functional in 2009.
Read the full story in theTimes-Picayune.
Comments (7)
Update: The demolition has been completed.
Yet another one bites the dust.
That’s sad.
If it’s one of those pathetic General Cinema theatres with that crazy “shadow box” screens (or whatever that thing was called!)…good riddance! What a disappointment those things were when they opened in the San Francisco Bay Area (Hayward, Hillsdale, Walnut Creek) in the 1960’s. Things got even worse when they started dividing the auditoriums into even smaller shoe boxes. Poorly managed, horrible film presentation! Thank God they are gone!
It is not likely that this was one of GC’s shadow box theaters; it was not built by that chain. It was built by Joy Theaters and was later operated by GC.
Here’s one of the last photos taken of the Robert E. Lee
View link
Thanks for the photo BigEasyBarry