A shimmy for the ages: how a burlesque dance rankled Milwaukee By Pete Ehrmann
Though tame by current standards, a shimmy dance performed on a downtown stage 86 years ago was considered “shocking, suggestive, immoral, indecent and highly improper” by the cop that arrested Mary Karras for doing it.
When a judge disagreed and dismissed the charges, outraged Mayor Daniel Hoan warned Milwaukeeans to “resign themselves to nakedness and debauchery in public places.” The one-day trial of the 20-year-old Karras in 1927 is now just a quaint, dusty footnote in the legal and cultural history of Milwaukee.
According to Mayor Hoan, citizen complaints about shocking goings-on at the city’s two best-known burlesque palaces impelled him to dispatch police to the Gayety Theater on 3rd Street and West Wisconsin Avenue, and the Empress Theater on nearby West Water Street (now North Plankinton Avenue) on the night of Feb. 24.
Arrested after their performances were Karras, on the Gayety bill as “RedHeaded Mitzi,” and, at the Empress, Catherine Wasauskas,aka “Hinda Wausau.” Also taken into custody were their stage costumes, which in Mitzi’s case consisted of “a red breastband, a flaming red loincloth and a few tassels, and a red shawl,” all apparently worn over a white leotard or oversized bloomers.
For the March 11 trial of Ms. Karras the courtroom of District Judge A.J. Hedding bulged with “church women, society women, actresses, police, attorneys, pastors and representatives of a dozen agencies on various sides of the theater reform question,” reported The Sentinel. Hinda Wausau, whose separate trial was scheduled for a week later, was also there.
Unfortunately for the prosecution, so was defense attorney William B. Rubin, ardent champion of labor unions and left wing causes, foe of censorship, passionate and glib like his friend Clarence Darrow – and, as noted by The Sentinel upon his death in 1959, “an impish critic, a needler at all times [who] let the air out of many a stuffed shirt in his day.”
(“The biggest thing in my life is that I have loved my fellow man,” proclaimed Rubin at a 1954 testimonial dinner tendered him. “I could see virtue in every client – and the bigger the fee the greater the virtue.”)
Atty. Rubin called 22 witnesses who had been in the Gayety audience for Red-Headed Mitzi’s three-minute performance. Among them were Deputy State Fire Marshal Conrad Asmuth; Civil Court Clerk E.J. Hertwig; Cy Rice, reporter for The Milwaukee Journal, several married couples and women. None of them found anything objectionable about it. “She had tights on all the time, anyhow,” groused one male witness.
The sole witness called by Assistant City Attorney Andrew Brunhardt was the policewoman who’d arrested Karras/Mitzi. Helen Lemmon testified that her brazen costume and her shimmy dance constituted immorality of the highest order and a threat to the “best interests of the community,” especially its impressionable and vulnerable youth.
The first thing Atty. Rubin did on cross-examination was call for Mrs. Lemmon to demonstrate the “wiggles and squeals” that had offended her so. The intrepid policewoman stood up to give it a shot, but Judge Hedding told her to forget it unless her imitation of Mitzi’s gyrations was spot-on. So Mrs. Lemmon described what she’d seen instead:
“She strutted back and forth and wiggled in a suggestive manner. She shook the lower part of her body and made little squealing noises. She unloosed (sic) certain parts of her scanty costume to suggest that she was going to let it drop to the floor.”
Did Mrs. Lemmon believe that “the body of a woman was the most beautiful thing in the world as glorified by artists and sculptors?” asked Rubin. “When exhibited in the proper surroundings,” she said.
“Do you consider the Bible immoral, remembering that it contains stories like the one about Lot and his daughter?”
“No, because I think the Bible is a book that teaches morals,” answered Mrs. Lemmon.
“Your own skirts are shorter than you wore them 10 or 20 years ago, aren’t they?” asked Rubin.
Mrs. Lemmon acknowledged that was so, though she was always careful not to expose her knees.
“She was asked if she thought there is anything immoral about the relations of married people,” reported The Sentinel, “and replied that the stage is no place for it to be suggested. ‘Oh, so sex without the canopy of a minister or a marriage license is immoral,’ observed the attorney.”
When she said she was “too busy” to attend many shows and that her standards concerning what was proper were “principally based upon opinions formed in the past,” Rubin tsked, “You’re a little bit behind the times, Mrs. Lemmon.”
He was even more cutting in his summation: “It is about time the living living escape the persecution of the living dead.”
Judge Hedding agreed, though he couched it differently. “I must be guided solely by the evidence in the case, not by my personal views,” he said. “If I decided that the defendant was guilty, I would be doing so on the testimony of one witness, whereas 22 witnesses have stated that they saw nothing offensive about the dance. Upon the facts I must find the young lady not guilty.”
“Applause and cheers greeted the decision,” reported The Journal, “and many spectators rushed forward to congratulate the youthful defendant, a quiet, mild looking girl, simply dressed, and devoid of any materials from the makeup box.”
At 10:45 that night, a much different looking Mary Karras danced on stage at the Gayety and triumphantly sang, “My name is Mitzi Brown, I’m the hottest girl in town!” After her three minutes were up, she took off for a new engagement in Cincinnati.
When he stopped hyperventilating about Hedding’s verdict, Mayor Hoan remembered that each July he had the sole power to grant or deny every city theater’s application for a license renewal.
“…Burlesque theaters will commit such offenses of indecency at their own peril,” he warned. “I want them to take this as a final notice that any acts which suggest indecency of the type that is unprintable and of which they have full knowledge are likely to have considerable influence on my actions in determining whether a renewal of a license will be granted.”
The message came through loud and clear. At Hinda Wausau’s trial on April 9, the only witnesses were Policewoman Emma Meyer, who said the defendant’s dance was an affront to decency, and Empress Theater co-owner Henry Goldenberg, who said he’d warned Wausau beforehand to tone it down.
Judge Hedding pronounced her guilty and fined her $50.
Those inclined to take this as proof there is no justice will be happy to know that while Red-Headed Mitzi danced off into oblivion, Hinda Wausau went on to fame as one of burlesque’s all-time greats and the inventor of the pole dance.
It is Small Business Saturday, and South Milwaukee’s downtown looks ready: holiday lights are strung from light posts on either side of the charming brick street, lined with storefronts dating back to the 1920s.
South Milwaukee is, not surprisingly, a city south of Milwaukee, about 10 miles from downtown. Just five square miles in size and with roughly 21,000 residents, South Milwaukee sits along the shores of Lake Michigan, east of the interstate linking Milwaukee to Chicago.
A movie made about South Milwaukee in the 1930s shows people streaming from the city’s Garden Theater, hats on men’s heads, women all in skirts, children neatly dressed, smiling and waving.
Today, that theater marquee still stands. It reads: Board Game Barrister, and no, that’s not the name of a movie.
It is a local retail chain owned by Gordon Lugauer, who has quickly stopped in at the South Milwaukee warehouse on the busiest shopping weekend of the year, as he makes his way among his other retail locations.
Board Game Barrister is a board game shop with three other locations in the Milwaukee area, two in thriving shopping malls and one along a retail corridor near a shopping mall. Those locations keep regular hours, of course. Games are displayed for people to touch, hold and examine. There are tables for people to play games, hold tournaments.
The South Milwaukee location, however, is not at all like the others. Among other things, it has irregular hours, and no board game tournaments. But that’s South Milwaukee, explains Lugauer. Lugauer’s family moved their carpet business, South Milwaukee Carpet and Vinyl, to the building when he was about three or four years old, in 1976. The family lived above the store. Next door, the once-thriving Garden Theater was by then operating as an arcade. One of the arcade games sparked a fire that destroyed the inside of the building. And so, the Lugauer’s carpet store took over the space, connecting the buildings and opening the former theater side as a warehouse.
Upstairs, the projection room of the theater became Lugauer’s bedroom, right behind the marquee. He and his brother played and invented board games together in that space above the family carpet store.
“That’s the romantic version,” Lugauer says, laughing. The other part of the story is that times were hard. The downtown that once had grocery stores and five-and-dimes and that movie theater now had just a handful of specialty stores. But in the late 1970s into the 1980s, that didn’t really seem to matter. Average middle class Midwestern families had cars and big box stores were only getting bigger. Who shopped local?
“The people in South Milwaukee stopped supporting local businesses 40 years ago,” Lugauer says. “An entire generation or more has grown up without shopping here. And that hasn’t changed.”
Lugauer’s father retired in 2014. At the time, he brought a friend, a commercial real estate agent, to the building. The friend looked around at the joined buildings, the additions, the alterations that spanned more than 100 years and a devastating fire. He said he couldn’t take the listing.
“And so I did what a good son would do so my parents could retire,” Lugauer says. He bought the building. And then he faced downtown South Milwaukee.
“I looked up and down the street and said: ‘What quality of tenant am I likely to be renting to? Oh man.’ And that’s how I became the tenant.”
Today, the former theater section serves as Board Game Barrister’s warehouse. The original carpet store serves as a small retail space displaying shelves of games rejected from the other stores, all at clearance prices.
“This is a masonry block shell with a roof,” he says. “I may want to do ‘x’ here, but the reality is different. And we have buildings like this all up and down Milwaukee Avenue.”
Lugauer does his best to keep reasonably regular hours. But this store is not where he earns his money. Instead, he says, its existence is more of a kindness to the city of South Milwaukee.
“It would really not be doing a justice to the city to have this boarded up,” he says. “So I keep it open as a retail space,” but he is not making even a tenth of what he first hoped for when he opened it.
Advocates of a plan to turn the FOX Theatre in downtown Stevens Point into a “maker space” are scrambling for more time in the wake of a surprise city order to demolish the building. Opened in 1894 as the Grand Opera House, the FOX has been vacant since the mid-1980s and the subject of planned renovation efforts that never quite launched. Greg Wright, executive director of the nonprofit CREATE Portage County, announced last April a $3.5 million plan to make the FOX into its “IDEA Center” … a business incubator and a meet-up place for arts and community groups. The nonprofit has raised nearly $1 million already.
But a city inspector in July issued a surprise order that unless CREATE can address structural concerns, the FOX will be demolished at the end of October. Wright said “We were surprised by the timing of the raze order given that we were actively in the process of the capital campaign when it came out. We are doing our best to both slow that process down and to raise as much money as quickly as we can because of that. It definitely was a hurdle we did not need.”
Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza, who’d told the Portage County Gazette that “safety is a huge concern right now” when the sudden order was first issued, didn’t immediately return requests for comments.
Wright said CREATE is exploring options for appeals, both locally and at the state level. The city’s Historic Preservation and Design Review Commission this month unanimously recommended that the city reverse its decision, but that recommendation is nonbinding … and they’re now trying to raise as much money as they can to save the FOX.
Still, Wright doesn’t seem to be a fan of restored theatres, saying “it’s commonly the case that they won’t work as self-sustaining businesses”, and “what we’re doing is the best way to honor the history of this building” he said. His IDEA Center project is about three years old and he said it has launched some 50 new businesses and served as a home for groups of wood carvers, jewelry makers, fabric artists, video producers and more with about 200 people using the IDEA Center each month in a temporary space owned by the county, an arrangement that won’t last forever. The new prospect of demolition of the FOX, he said, focused attention on those efforts and he hopes to use that to raise enough funding to keep his plans alive, though he admits concern that now “it’s shifted everyone’s attention to the building, and not the project. To read about his renovation plans, visit anewfox.com.
The 86-by-100-foot rear stage wall was shifted to the east by 35 feet into Second Street to accommodate a larger stage. That was expected to take five hours, but the construction schedule allows for up to three days, said Cory Henschel, project executive. International Chimney Corp. and Expert House Movers were subcontracted for the wall move.
Construction is on schedule, with completion expected in summer 2020.
The relocation of the 650-ton wall with its decorative terracotta exterior was required by the National Parks Service for the project to receive historic tax credits.
Four linked hydraulic rams were used. C.D. Smith Construction Inc. is the general contractor; Kahler Slater is the architect. International Chimney Corp. and Expert House Movers were subcontracted for the wall move.
Work is on schedule, with completion expected for September 2020. Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra raised $116 million to date toward its $139 million goal including building up its endowment.
“The Wizard of Oz” world-premiered at the GATEWAY Theatre on this night eighty years ago, and again, there’s been no observance of that history in any manner.
The owners of the LIBERTY Theatre in downtown Libertyville are requesting it be demolished, the Daily Herald is reporting. The building has been owned by the Rhyan family for more than 50 years and operated by Scott Dehn in recent years.
The theater first opened as Liberty Theatre in 1937 and in recent years has gone by the name of Liberty 1 & 2 Theatres, according to the article. The current tenant has not been able to make enough revenue to pay for rent — even after rent had been reduced three times — and ongoing repairs are needed on the aging building. The demolition request is the first being considered by the village since a moratorium on the razing of downtown buildings was lifted in April 2018.
The historic preservation commission will be the first to hear the matter and can recommend approval of the demolition, approve it with conditions, deny it or continue the matter to a future hearing, according to the Daily Herald. The village board would have the final say.
KENOSHA DRIVE-INS RUN GAMUT OF PROMOTION /// Kenosha, Wis. – The Macy-Gimbel price war and Bill Veeck’s recent baseball circus are “small potatoes” compared with the shenanigans of the managers of two outdoor theatres here. Word has traveled among theatregoers in this city that “you really get your money’s worth at the Mid-City on Highway 42, north of the city, and the Keno Family Drive-In on 42 south of the city. The two managers – William Wallos of Mid-City and Robert Peck of Keno Family – help spread the word in newspaper advertisements, radio announcements, posters, handbills and by sound truck. In addition to seeing a movie, or two movies, or sometimes three movies, the Kenosha patrons have been given wrestling, fireworks, bicycle racing on rollers, and a monkey village to watch. One or the other theatre has offered free cigars, parties, towing and repair service, baby bottle warming and guess-the-star contests. The managers even send scouts across town to see coming attractions at the rival theatres. The Keno scored a first when it presented first-run pictures at no increase in regular prices. Mid-City is close behind, scheduling a back-to-school and Christmas party both in September! Santa Claus himself will be on hand to greet the youngsters who come to the outdoor movie with their parents. Square dancing in front of the giant screens has already been introduced with midnight shows, pony rides, and playgrounds for the kiddies. For example, one of the theatres announced that it would bring a special super attraction to its grounds – a real live monkey village. A day or two later, the other theatre told the children to come and see real live bear cubs! It was the same way with wrestling. (Boxoffice Magazine, September 22, 1951)
A fire that started late on the Friday afternoon of August 10, 2018 and continued long into the night caused massive damage to the historic Brin Theatre building, a cornerstone for 90 years. Smoke and flames shot from the roof of the Brin shortly after 5:30 p.m. Firefighters from many departments battled the blaze deep into the night while onlookers came and went, many using their phones to record the damage.
No one was injured. Eight people in six apartments above the storefronts made it out safely. The American Red Cross set up a shelter at Menasha City Hall for them. Onlookers gathered on corners all around the fire. Smoke was so thick at times that it obscured the intersection and wafted down a nearby street. The retail spaces included Joshua’s Dream, a clothing shop, a computer repair store and a couple of vacant spaces. The Brin Building dates back to the late 1920s and housed numerous businesses through the years including a bowling alley.
When firefighters first arrived, flames were shooting through the roof in the middle of the building. They initially entered the building to try to attack it from the inside, but layers of ceiling above the second floor caused problems. By the time crews went to another section of the building flames had already run across the roof line inside the attic. Firefighters then left the building out of fears of a roof collapse, and continued to battle the blaze from outside. Most of the fire damage was contained to the roof, while the first and second floors sustained extensive water damage, Kloehn said. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known – a sad ending for a building that was a fixture for generations. The Wisconsin Historical Society gives it this nod: “Although altered, the Brin Building retains integrity of site and form and is historically significant as Menasha’s premiere commercial block.”
Among the onlookers Friday was John Barkhahn, 76, who reflected on downtown history as he watched the flames tear apart the theatre where he worked as an usher in the late 1950s. “It’s just a lot of memories that are going up in smoke,” he said about two hours after firefighters were called. Smoke still billowed from the building. By that time, the roof had largely collapsed and charred remains where it had been protruded from the top of the structure. The remaining section had been stripped of its tiles by the force of the water from the fire hoses.
Barkhahn said a friend at one point lived in the apartments above. He had been at home down the street Friday when he saw smoke blow past his window, so he came down the block to check it out. Gina Montonati, 52, rushed to the scene as soon as she heard the Brin was burning. Her parents met 60 years ago in the bowling alley that was once in the Brin Building. Her mom died about five years ago; her dad is now 85. “I think he’s going to be very sad when he finds out,” she said. “It’s sad to see the old buildings go. You can’t replace those.” Lifelong Menasha resident Joel Humski, 47, described sadness at seeing the historic building go up in flames.
The Rialto Square Theatre is vibrant and management firm VenuWorks continues to draw popular attractions on a regular basis which fill the seats and generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits. Financial data indicates that the Rialto Square’s events in March and April cost the Rialto about $235,500 and generated nearly $565,000 in revenue, constituting a profit margin of nearly $330,000. The Joliet City Council provides a $500,000 annual subsidy to the Rialto, and corporate sponsors also contribute.
Earlier this year, comedian Bill Engvall drew well, as did the KAR Dance Competition ($35,605) on March 15 and singer Aaron Lewis ($36,539) on March 27. On April 12, the Rainbow National Dance Competition cost the Rialto $13,216 and generated $54,494 in revenue, or a profit of $41,279.
Three weddings at the Rialto during March and April generated profits of between $6,000 and $8,000.
With big events, the Rialto aims to draw a profit of at least $10,000. The least successful this Spring was The Church Basement Ladies on April 9, which cost the Rialto about $7,000 but generated about
$10,800 in actual revenue for a profit of $3,800.
Last year the Rialto began a new monthly movie series with $5 general admission seating for weekday screenings. On March 14, the Rialto played Bohemian Rhapsody to a packed house, an incredible success which cost the Rialto about $4,510 but earned actual revenue over $16,560 and a profit of $12,050.
On March 21, Billy Idol played to a sellout crowd at the Rialto in a two-man performance with guitarist Steve Stevens. That cost the Rialto $29,180 and generated $56,232 in revenue. The Rialto turned a profit of $27,052.
The May 10 “I Left My Heart Tour” performance by Tony Bennett did well.
May and June are both busy months for the Rialto.
The Des Plaines city council is expected to lease the Des Plaines Theatre to Onesti Entertainment Corporation, which will book shows and operate a restaurant at the Des Plaines Theatre.
Ron Onesti, the president of the company, said “I would consider it an honor and responsibility that I wouldn’t take lightly”. City officials began searching for a company to run the day-to-day operations of the theatre in July 2018 and interviewed three firms. The city council interviewed two of those companies and then authorized City Manager Mike Bartholomew to negotiate the lease agreement with Onesti, citing Onesti’s track record of success operating the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles as a reason for choosing his company as the finalist. Onesti also operates Rock ‘N Ravioli Restaurant and Music Hall and the Bourbon 'N Brass Speakeasy & Jazz Club in Evanston. “We were aligned on the vision of the theater,” Bartholomew said. “We want the theater to be an experience. We want people to go to the theater, no matter what the show is.”
Under the proposed five-year agreement, the city will lease the theatre to Onesti for free during its first six months of operations and $10,000 per month the next six months. Rent will increase to $12,000 per month the second year, $14,000 per month the third year, $16,000 per month the fourth year and $18,000 per month the fifth year. The city has the option to renew the lease. However, the city is less concerned about earning money and more focused on the number of people the theater can draw downtown. City leaders view the theater as the anchor of an entertainment and restaurant district and even has a grant program to give new restaurants up to $100,000 to locate there. “The payoff isn’t how much money we can make on rent,” Bartholomew said. “The payoff is people.”
Onesti will help the city decide the layout and design of the restaurant on second level, a bar concept on the first level and seating for anywhere between 600 to 900 people. The agreement stipulates the city will prepare the restaurant space to “vanilla box form” — meaning it will install electrical, drywall and a layer of paint. The cost of installing a kitchen, tables and chairs and all other aspects of the restaurant will be paid by Onesti. The city estimates construction could take between six and nine months.
Onesti pointed to the shows and the overall experience at the Arcada Theatre as a blueprint for what he envisions for Des Plaines. The Arcada books a wide variety of musical acts. “Everything is ambience-driven, themed and upscale,” Onesti said. “The experience is as important as the quality of food and the level of the cocktails.”
The city entered an agreement with Rivers Casino in May 2018 to buy the theatre, with the casino pledging up to $2 million to help purchase and renovate the building. The city completed the purchase of the building in June and has been completing improvements to the venue.
Milwaukee Film said Thursday that it has secured a 1925 Wurlitzer pipe organ for the Oriental Theatre; it’s in the process of being restored and is expected to be ready sometime before the end of 2020.
From 1991 until last year, a Kimball organ was heard on Saturday nights under the aegis of the Kimball Theatre Organ Society. That organ changed hands in 2017, and its new owners elected to remove it from the Oriental in April 2018, three months before Milwaukee Film formally took over.
When it opened in 1927, the Oriental had a Barton pipe organ, built in Oshkosh. That instrument lasted there until 1959, according to Milwaukee Film, which was working on getting a new one in the venue since it took over. “Without a pipe organ, the Oriental Theatre has truly felt incomplete,” Jonathan Jackson, CEO and artistic director for Milwaukee Film, said today. “We’ve heard time and again from members of the community who’ve been clamoring to know when we’re going to install another organ.” This Wurlitzer is a three-manual instrument from the Paramount Theatre in Atlanta, where it operated until the 1950s. Milwaukee Film obtained it through a partnership with JL Weiler Inc., a pipe-organ restoration firm.
Earlier this year, Milwaukee Film announced it had exceeded its $10 million capital fundraising campaign target, clearing the way to complete restoration efforts at the Oriental this summer, to include revamping the concession area and replacing seating in an auxiliary auditorium. (All seats will be replaced in 2020.)
Milwaukee Film created a website that promises regular updates on the Wurlitzer project: mkefilm.org/organ.
The theatre was renamed the Ralph J. Houghton Performance Center on May 11, 2019 during a brief ceremony followed by a free concert by the local Golden Strings, Madrigal Singers, Kenosha Alumni Band and the Tremper Wind Ensemble. During the program, a portrait by the late Kenosha artist George Pollard depicting Houghton was hung in the lobby. Houghton spent 56 years in the public
school district, and for over thirty years was its music director and later director of fine arts, then assistant superintendent before retiring in 1987. He died after heart surgery in 2009. The auditorium, designed by Chicago architect John D. Chubb, was noted for its superior acoustic qualities, for which Houghton frequently fielded compliments from well-known musicians and vocalists. In the mid-1950s, when Houghton was hired as the public schools' music director, he took in a performance of the Kenosha Symphony with contralto Marian Anderson from the balcony and was astounded at how much you could hear as Marian Anderson was singing. Later, Doc Severinsen, Grammy award-winning trumpeter who fronted Johnny Carson’s house band, praised the auditorium’s acoustics. Houghton’s son recalled Severinsen telling his father “Ralph, I just gotta tell ya, I’ve played all over the country and that is the finest hall as far as acoustics and the way the sound resonates in stereo. It’s just fantastic.“
At the dedicatory concert, the final number was “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” which had special significance to Houghton, who as a U.S. Army infantry captain was captured by the Germans in 1945 during the Battle of the Bulge but later escaped his captors during the Christmas holiday, making his way across Europe toward American lines where there was a band playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever”.
The plan to restore the WEST BEND Theatre has been in the works since 2017, when nonprofit group Historic West Bend Theatre, Inc. purchased the building for $250,000 and went public with a capital campaign for the project. The project will include a new heating and ventilating system, new roof, revamped electrical and plumbing systems, new sound and video equipment, IT systems, new restrooms, an enlarged stage, new seating on the main floor and balcony and the addition of an art deco-style bar. The 600-seat theater opened in downtown West Bend in 1929 and showed films until it closed in 2006. The renovated building will include 120 seats on the main floor and 200 in the balcony.
Previous proposals to gut all but the building’s facade were met with opposition from the West Bend community.
The West Bend Theatre vertical sign has been removed for restoration. “This is a very rare event that takes place, where an entire city and town can come together and recreate history,” said Nic Novaczyk, president of HWBT, at the groundbreaking ceremony. “This has been an identifying mark for West Bend for decades and decades and decades. It’s just been such a joy and privilege to watch it in its early stages start to come back to life. And I think over the next six, eight, nine months of construction, we’re really going to see something special.”
HWBT has raised about $2.1 million from private sources, including West Bend Mutual Insurance, National Exchange Bank & Trust, area foundations and individual donors. The organization has also submitted applications for about $1.1 million in tax credits and other grants. The group will continue fundraising throughout the year. HWBT organizers envision the restored theater serving as an all-purpose community facility, hosting showings of classic movies, musical performances, comedy acts, corporate events and weddings. “It’s multi-purpose; we want it to do all kinds of things,” said John Torinus, a HWBT board member and chairman of Serigraph Inc. “We want the public to feel they own this theater. We want it full five or six days a week.” HWBT initially expected the restoration work to take a year to complete, but the group said it could move more quickly than for completion by the end of 2019.
MSI General is the general contractor for the project. Sub-contractors include Steiner Electric, Albiero Plumbing and Affordable Environmental Technologies. HWBT’s board also plans to hire an executive director in June. Until now, HWBT has been a volunteer effort, led by the group’s 18-person board.
Milwaukee Film said it’s beginning the second phase of its Oriental Theatre restoration project with the goal of completing the work in time for the 2019 Milwaukee Film Festival. The organization plans to replace the Oriental’s current concession stand, upgrade the sound system in the main theater, add a new assisted-listening device system, replace all seats in the westernmost theater and upgrade the building’s emergency systems. The first phase of the project, completed in 2018, included adding a women’s lavatory suite to the first floor and replacing project equipment throughout the theater. In February, Milwaukee Film said it surpassed its $10 million capital campaign goal to restore the Oriental and provide the nonprofit with its first-ever operating reserve. In 2017, Milwaukee Film signed a 31-year lease to operate the theatre on Milwaukee’s East Side. “As magnificent as the Oriental Theatre is now, we know there is still work to be done to make it a world-class venue,” said Jonathan Jackson, CEO and artistic director for Milwaukee Film. “Like all our work at the theater, these upgrades will preserve and enhance the historic beauty of this space while creating the best possible film experience for our guests.” All phase-two projects are scheduled to be completed before this year’s film festival, which will run Oct. 17-31. In 2020, the seats in the main and east houses are scheduled to be replaced.
Over the decades, different groups have unsuccessfully sought to secure funding to revitalize the UPTOWN theater since it closed in 1959. Most recently, in 2017, the city Development Department proposed a $5 million earmark for a redevelopment of the theater in the city’s 10-year capital improvement plan, but city aldermen shot it down. At that time, Connolly said, the Uptown was salvageable. But that does not seem to be the case any longer.
“In that year time, between when we went through it the first time and when we went through it the second time, there were so many more holes in the roof — there was so much more damage — that it was obvious that that year had really taken a toll and that there would just be no path forward,” Connolly said.
While tearing down the Uptown Theater is possible, it could need to go through a lengthier process with the Wisconsin Historical Society and city Landmarks Preservation Commission due to its historic designation. The commission has authority to review demolition permits.
The Park Theatre’s looming demolition is just a larger symptom of an unfortunate pattern of Racine’s historic buildings being taken advantage of, Mason said.
“They don’t preserve themselves magically,” Mason said. “It requires investment, commitment, enforcement and stewardship by the property owners to do that.”
The city ordered the demolition of West Racine’s former Park Theatre eight months ago, and for that span of time, it has seemed like a sure thing. It is run down, condemned, vacant and in dire need of repairs.
But a small group of city residents is hoping to give the theater a second act before wrecking crews knock down yet another one of Racine’s 20 former movie theaters, of which just seven remain standing today. Originally opening as The Capitol Theatre in 1928, the Park went on to show movies for 59 years. The property, purchased in 2006 by John Apple, is currently used as storage. “I’d like to save this one, if nothing else,” said Nancy Simonson, treasurer of the neighborhood group West Racine Alliance and one of the organizers of Friends of the Capitol Theater, the group looking to salvage the theater. “This city needs a theater.”
Saving the decaying structure would be a tall order, according to city officials. Apple owes $140,975.16 in delinquent taxes on the building dating back to 2008, records show. If the Friends of the Capitol Theater group were to purchase the building from Apple, it would still need to pay all delinquent taxes and invest more than $800,000 to get the building into a basic usable state before any renovations could be done, said Ken Plaski, the city’s chief building inspector. “There’s more holes than there is ceiling, actually,” Plaski said. A flock of birds has also been living in the building for a decade or more, and there is 3 to 4 inches of bird excrement piled up where they nest, he added.
The entire property is assessed at $150,000, but the theater itself contributes only $107,800 of value to that total. “You’re looking at a structure that not only has low value and hadn’t been maintained, but has actively been demolished by neglect of the current property owner,” said Amy Connolly, director of city development.
Simonson acknowledged “there’s a whole slew of things to get done” with the theater, but said she still wants to salvage it. “It’s not in great shape, but it’s doable,” Simonson said. “If we do it right and we do it right the first time, we might be able to save it.”
While saving the theater would be ideal, Mayor Cory Mason said, it does not seem to be in the cards right now. “I applaud the sentiment of the folks from West Racine who would like to see this building saved,” Mason said. “I’d like to be in a place where it could be saved, too. … It is an unfortunate outcome that we would like to prevent from recurring moving forward. The Park Theatre is just the latest example of demolition through neglect by an irresponsible landlord who’s let it get to this point. I would love to see the theater saved, too, but I can’t ignore what Ken (Plaski) has found there in terms of the structural integrity of the building — or the lack thereof — that would jeopardize health and safety.”
The topic of saving the theater will be brought up at the West Racine Alliance’s neighborhood meeting 6 p.m. Thursday at Wilson Funeral Home, 1212 Lathrop Ave., Simonson said. she plans to start a fundraiser by the end of the week with the goal of raising $2 million. By the time the group could raise that money, it may be too late. The demolition order is currently on hold after Apple filed for a temporary restraining order against the city. His lawyer, Peter Ludwig, erroneously filed the suit against the Village of Wind Point in August after the deadline, and Racine successfully argued the case was improperly filed, resulting in a dismissal. Apple appealed the dismissal in October and the case is still in appellate court waiting on a decision. The city is expecting a decision in April; if the case is again dismissed, Plaski said he expects demolition to begin in June.
If Simonson’s group acquires the building and brings it up to regulation before the case gets out of court, the city may have further discussion with the group, City Administrator Jim Palenick said.
“We wouldn’t have the conversation until that occurred,” Palenick said.
On August 28, 2017 the city issued a list of 24 repairs and inspections that needed to be done for the building to be habitable again. Apple did not fulfill any of the orders, Plaski said. In a phone call with The Journal Times, Apple claimed that he never received the list, the building is in fine shape and he “did a lot of” repairs. He also denied the city’s report that there was a pipe backup that filled the basement with 5 inches of raw sewage, claiming it was just water from a toilet overflow. “These people have their head up their (expletive), as far as that goes,” Apple said.
Apple declined to let a Journal Times reporter see the condition of the theater’s interior. Court records show that Apple was ordered not to let anyone in the building besides his son and himself, and is not allowed to put anything more into storage in the building. He paid $130,000 for the building in 2006. When asked twice what he would be willing to sell it for, Apple did not give a price and instead said he would like to stay involved with the building in some way. He added that he hopes the building does get saved. “I like old buildings. I like old houses, antiques. I like saving things,” Apple said. “I would hate to see it get torn down. It’s a solid building.” But city officials said Apple was wholly neglectful of the property, not reverential as he painted himself to be. “That would be like saying, ‘I bought this dog and decided not to feed it for three weeks because I love dogs,’” Palenick said. “Really? Come on.” Plaski said the theater stuck out as one of the worst buildings he has inspected and condemned. The exterior walls have not been maintained and the steel roof structure is compromised — and the whole building could have collapsed from a heavy load if winter had produced a massive snowfall, he said.
“I didn’t feel safe being in there,” Plaski said.
The Fond du Lac Movie Theater on west Scott Street will be changing ownership. Minneapolis-based Odyssey Entertainment is purchasing the Fond du Lac Theater, with the sale expected to close on or about April 24th. Odyssey President Steve Tripp says they plan to work to upgrade the theater to include “many comforts and amenities” that today’s movie goers have come to expect. Dennis Frank, whose family previously owned the theater says they always ran it as a “family operation” and that they “couldn’t be happier to hand over the keys to a company like Odyssey who will take the theater we built and renovate it to become the area’s premiere cinema for years to come.” Plans are currently underway to upgrade the theater in the next four to five months. One of the upgrades is Luxury recliners that are in the works for all eight auditoriums – those are expected to be installed in the next 60 to 90 days. Odyssey operates theaters in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Ohio.
The “other” Grand Theater (Bobby Tanzilo, May 9, 2017)
Long before the palatial Warner Theater was recast as The Grand in 1982, there was the considerably less opulent and spacious Grand Theatre at 2917-23 N. Holton St., where the Harambee/Riverwest neighborhoods meet. This one was built in 1911. (Trainspotters will also note there was yet another Grand Theater that operated briefly, only from 1904 to 1909, at 738 N. 3rd St. Still another was in South Milwaukee.)
Thanks to a foreclosure, the 6,846-square foot Spanish Colonial-style building, which long housed a church, is now in the City of Milwaukee’s commercial real estate portfolio and could be yours for a cool $20,000. Designed by architect John Roth Jr. – who also designed the smaller, 600-seat Aurora at the same time – construction on the 760-seat theater began in December 1911 and it had a long run, showing films until it closed in 1975.
City permits suggest it was enlarged in 1922 to accommodate 850 movie-goers. In 1928, architect A. L. Seidenschwartz remodeled the theater in the atmospheric style, meaning he made the theater space itself appear to be outside, with the addition of clouds and stars and a bit of Mediterranean-style tile roof hints. Permits show that the ceiling was raised, roof trusses added and the exterior altered.
In 1946, some seats were removed to make room for the construction of a candy stand. According to Larry Widen, co-author of the fine book, “Silver Screens: A Pictorial History of Milwaukee’s Movie Theaters,” “They tried some adult films and some art films but both ventures were short lived.”
Some have suggested it may have operated for a time, later in its life, as Puerto (or Porto) Rico (and, briefly, at the very end as the Magik Grand Cine). Local history buff Carl Swanson wrote a good history of the theater here; I will merely summarize that here and encourage you to visit Carl’s site.
Built just a few years after the dawn of dedicated movie houses in Milwaukee, the Grand really is, as the DCD sell sheet notes, one of the oldest cinemas in the city. And, as a smaller neighborhood theater, it hearkens back to a time when Milwaukeeans could walk around the corner to see the latest films, seated among their neighbors, rather than driving to a movie mall somewhere in the suburbs and watching anonymously.
But as that era ended, the theater went into decline – the porn matinees are a clear sign of that – and ultimately closed, replaced by the Church of the Philippians. In 2007, Haven of Hope Ministries bought the building and occupied it until 2015.
It’s unclear which of the two churches built the block of rooms that now occupy the back-center portion of the auditorium, but Haven of Hope must have expected to stay longer than it did. Architectural plans hanging inside show an expansion plan onto the vacant lot to the north.
Heading inside, I was unprepared for just how intact the former Grand is as a theater. Step inside the lobby and there is earth-toned floor tile, exposed beam ceilings with elaborate painted detail that is almost entirely intact. A series of decorative hanging light fixtures remains, too. Solomonic columns and a quartet of medallions are painted gold and there’s still more decoration here above the doors, above the mirrors on either side of the lobby. There’s also wrought iron radiator grates.
Though the movie poster cases are bricked up on the exterior, their access doors remain in the lobby, which is flanked by men’s and women’s rooms that, in large part, maintain their vintage floor and wall tile. A door in the women’s room has a lot of graffiti etched into it.
A narrow bent staircase leads up to the projection room (pictured above), which appears to have the original footprint, though all but one of the openings out into the theater have been dry-walled over.
Step through the padded, studded doors into the auditorium and you’re transported back in time (if you ignore that block of rooms that surely could easily be removed … hand me a sledgehammer and I’ll start).
Rows of theater seats have been replaced with wooden pews, but the proscenium that conjures a Spanish plaza still stands. A series of niches can be found on each side wall. At the back is a strip of Mediterranean roof tile, again suggesting we’re outside.
Follow the north gangway and you’ll find a tight, steep metal staircase up to a space behind the three arched openings in the proscenium. Up here is the remnant of a piano. If The Grand had an organ, the pipes were likely up here.
I couldn’t find a staircase off the south gangway up to a space on the opposite side of the proscenium, but window openings facing the alley out back suggest there is a similar space up there, though the access may have been closed off.
Beneath the stage and running along the back was a narrow space with stairs up to the stage itself. It’s too tight to have been a useful dressing room or orchestra pit, I’d think, so perhaps it was simply a means of access from behind, or it led to the basement.
For someone with the means – or handyman skills – the idea of returning The Grand to use as a theater – be it films, be it live theater, be it concerts – doesn’t seem at all far-fetched.
The Department of City Development is accepting proposals (and offers) for the building until 3 p.m. on June 30.
Some of the permitted uses as listed on the sell sheet are “community center, food bank, restaurant/café, office, artist studio, live/work unit, dance studio, etc.”
Restoration of the building and façade are required in all proposals, but note that grants for the facade and renovation are potentially available and the DCD has access to other financial resources, too.
The theatre includes the vacant lot to the north, bringing the square footage of the land to 8,314.
Urban spelunking: The Ritz/Villa Theater (Bobby Tanzilo, July 18, 2017)
The former Ritz/Villa movie theater on 36th and Villard is for sale. And it’s mostly intact as a cinema.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to step inside the former Ritz Theater movie house 3608 W. Villard Ave. and find it intact as a movie house.
The same thing happened when I visited the old Grand on Holton and Locust. But, other times, like when I explored the old Lyric Theater on Vliet Street, I had to be content with easter eggs and clues, since all the seating had been removed and the auditorium carved up into rooms.
But after The Ritz, which was called the Villa by then, was closed by Marcus Theatres in 1986, it had a brief return as a movie house in the following decade, so it hasn’t really been gone all that long.
Now, the building is vacant and was acquired by the city in a tax foreclosure. The Department of City Development has listed it for sale for $20,000.
The Spanish Colonial style theater was built as the independent, 840-seat Ritz cinema in 1926 by Michael Brumm, who had opened a nickelodeon called The Princess across Villard Avenue in 1912. His son Arnold helped out at the theaters.
As was often the case with movie theaters of the era, The Ritz had an adjacent retail space and offices upstairs. Over the years, those spaces were occupied by a confectioner, a doctor, a barber, a typewriter store, a gift shop, a real estate and mortgage business, and spaces upstairs also served as residences from 1935 until the end of World War II.
“In summer, when business declined, the Brumm family would travel to outlying areas with a portable generator and a movie projector, bringing the movies to farmers or businesspeople in small towns without movie theaters,” wrote Larry Widen and Judi Anderson in their book, “Silver Screens: A Pictorial History of Milwaukee’s Movie Theaters. "The show was done on a weekly circuit, with posters left behind to advertiser the next week’s feature. When Michael Brumm opened The Ritz in 1926, he stopped the traveling shows and settled into more routine business operations.”
Brumm tapped his son, Arnold, as assistant manager once the latter graduated from high school, Widen and Anderson wrote, leading Arnold to ultimately take over the business entirely.
With powerful chains running the theater game, indie owners like Brumm often struggled to stay afloat. “Arnold Brumm remembered many occasions when film booking became a problem at his family’s Ritz Theater,” Widen and Anderson noted in “Silver Screens.” ‘The buying power of the chains really put the squeeze on the little guys,’ Brumm said. ‘And “block booking,” the packaging of one great picture with 20 lousy ones, hurt us a lot.’ Studios often came to the independent owners with a year’s worth of projected films. To keep a constant flow of films on his screen, the theater owner bought the lot sight unseen, hoping that several films in the package would turn out to be hit attractions. Until block booking was made illegal in 1939, it was an accepted way to do business, ‘Film salesmen were very aggressive guys,’ Brumm said. ‘They would do almost anything to … control your screen for 52 weeks at a time.’ In spite of the hardships connected with being independent, the most determined of the owners found their markets, and their theaters prospered.“
For an interesting look at the finances of The Ritz in this era, check out Matthew Prigge’s delve into one of the theater’s ledgers from 1935, a year in which Brumm’s place lost $320.
One way Arnold Brumm worked to "find his market” was to catch the public’s eye in unusual ways, according to Widen and Anderson.
“Although he had always been known for his innovative advertising techniques, such as displaying movie posters upside down, Brumm pulled off his most successful stunt to promote the sale of war bonds in 1944. "Coming up short on the bond sales quota set for his theater, Brumm climbed to the top of the Ritz theater’s five-story chimney on a Saturday afternoon. A huge sign on the chimney said, ‘BUY ME WITH WAR BONDS.’ He stayed at his post for the next 24 hours, and war bond sales were brisk. When the final figures were tallied, Brumm’s stunt had doubled the theater’s goals.”
According to a much later Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article,“ "One of the strangest efforts came in the early 1950s, when the theater implemented something it called ‘Dignity Nights.’ On designated evenings, candy eaters, popcorn munchers and peanut shell snappers were corralled into a special section, protecting the aurally sensitive from the oral cacophony.”
In late 1959, Marcus Theaters, which had moved into the Milwaukee market when it acquired the Tosa Theater (now the Rosebud) in 1940, bought The Ritz and ran it for the last 11 weeks of the year. At the time, movies were 85 cents for adults in the evening, 60 cents for matinees and early bird screenings. Children paid 25 cents and students twice that.
In 1962, three days before Christmas, the theater was re-launched as The Villa, playing both on the architecture of the building and the location on Villard Avenue. Marcus archivist Leslie Heinrichs shared these interesting tidbits from the theater’s Marcus era…
Nov. 4 1977 – one of 8 Marcus Theatres that had a Thanksgiving Food Drive for the Needy in association with the Milwaukee B’nai B’rith council’s 1977 drive. The idea is to show a movie that would appeal to audience of all ages and have everyone who wants to attend get a free ticket. The ticket and at least a $1.00 contribution in food or cash are necessary for admittance. The movie show was a 1976 limited run film “It’s Showtime”.
January 1978 – Villa is one of 10 theatres that has special showings of films for Milwaukee area teachers who want to take their students to the movies as a field trip. Some that are tentatively scheduled include: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Grease,” “Jungle Book,” “Cat from Outer Space,” “International Velvet,” “Wild Billy and the Keystone Cowboy.” Other films may appeal to select student groups such as social studies, humanities or foreign language classes. These are a perfect supplement to classroom studies.
January 1980 – Admission prices are dramatically reduced at the Villa to great success. Ticket prices are only 79 cents. Current showings include two Burt Reynolds hit films “Starting Over” and “The End”. Vice President of the Marcus Corporation, Bruce Olson, said: “ We choose to offer these lower priced admissions especially for those families who may find it difficult, at times, to afford regular admission prices. We also believe it will stimulate the older audiences who seldom go to the movies anymore. Furthermore, in today’s inflationary environment, we want to provide a low cost form of entertainment.” (Note: The Villa is one of two theatres that did this.)
March 1980 – The Marcus Theatres Corporation will institute a $1 admission price on Mondays and Tuesdays beginning Monday, March 16th. The $1 policy will be in effect at most theaters throughout the statewide Marcus Theatres chain, for a limited time only. Note: The Villa is one of 74 theaters that had this policy.
October 1984 – Marcus Corporation offers 50 cent movies for 1 night only at all theaters including the Villa. This is in honor of its 50th anniversary.
In 1986, Marcus closed The Villa and two years later Tanya and Herman Lewis bought the building and attempted to run it as a second-run house, then a first-run cinema, then a community theater and center before calling it quits in March 1995.
Since then, the building has been home to a salon, a school (called AGAPE), a church, a bookstore. But now it’s vacant, and while it’s seen better days – there is a fair bit of water intrusion – it still looks entirely like a theater inside.
There’s a lobby that looks as though it’s definitely been altered at some point. The marquee still hangs above the door, with a vertical sign advertising the school that once occupied the building. Up the terrazzo stairs are a handful of empty offices facing the street. Across the hall are some storage rooms and the projection room, which, as was customary, has its own bathroom.
One door offers a view (though no ladder anymore) up to the attic lit by those dormers you can see on the facade. In the basement, which I didn’t get to explore completely, were the bathrooms, which look as though they’d been updated at least once. Inside the auditorium, the seats are all still there, including what are surely the original cast iron decorative standards at the ends of each row. There are decorative plaster moldings on the walls, and the ceiling has a recessed dome painted blue. Flanking the stage are a pair of exits with organ pipe lofts above (there was a 2/5 Kilgen organ – now in a private collection in Columbus, Ohio – up there). On one side, you can scale a ladder to peek into the organ pipe loft, which is empty and the opening that allowed the sound into the theater has been boarded up. There’s a space below the stage, accessed via the orchestra pit – which itself sits under a stage extension – where there are extra seats and other objects stored.
Up in one of the offices there are more modern plexiglass letters for the marquee. Seven of them now appear outside: “For Sale.”
The owner of the Uptown Theatre shared his vision yesterday, which includes hosting 100 shows a year, offering 200 jobs and even a non-profit arm focused on community arts outreach. Now for the hardest part: raising the remaining $40 million to finish the ambitious renovation. Yesterday, the Chicago Architecture Center hosted a panel featuring those working on the long-awaited restoration. Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones moderated and was joined by co-owner Jerry Mickelson, long-time volunteer Robert Boin and the Department of Planning and Development’s director of historic preservation Eleanor Gorski. “There is nowhere like The Uptown, at least that I’ve been,” said Jones, who has traveled to theaters across the country and around the world.
The Uptown Theatre, the largest freestanding theater ever built in its time, has three marquees, a kid’s playroom and over 17,000 light bulbs in the auditorium. It took 18 months and cost $4 million dollars to construct (over $58 million today if adjusted for inflation). One of the reasons the theatre has lasted so long — despite lying dormant for nearly four decades — is because it was built with one third more steel than necessary, making it able to withstand winter after winter without completely deteriorating. “It’s one of the most beautiful buildings, palaces ever built,” said Mickelson, who talked about the timeline for the restoration project. Although it has been previously reported that construction could start as early as this summer, it is more likely to start near the beginning of 2020. There is still $40 million that needs to be raised, and Mickelson said he won’t feel comfortable breaking ground until he has raised at least $20 million. He said he feels confident in raising those funds, already has an investor who has pledged a million dollars to the theater, and is hoping the theatre will open with its first show in early 2021. Much like in Las Vegas, he said he has been considering the option of having performers in residency who would regularly perform at the venue. To Mickelson, restoring the Uptown Theatre is all about bringing benefit to the Uptown community. His production company JAM also runs the nearby Riviera Theatre and the area is close to his heart. Everyone on the panel agreed the theatre would be a catalyst of economic development for Uptown. “It will bring back the glory of this proud neighborhood,” Mickelson said. “It’s all about creating jobs and opportunities for people who don’t have them.”
Instead of running the Uptown Theatre as a for-profit enterprise, Mickelson hopes the theatre will become a non-profit foundation run by a board of directors. He has already made deals with Chicago Public Schools, After School Matters and The People’s Music School, so that kids will have access to the theater during the restoration and once it’s open for good. “It’s about taking care of the future of us, of our city,” he said. “Kids cannot become what they cannot see.”
The panel recalled some of the theater’s darkest hours, when it looked like it might not be saved. Boin recalled a time in the early 80’s when its owners promised to heat the building in the winter. After failing to do so, several pipes burst, flooding large parts of the theatre. Boin was one of the unsung heroes who helped look after the theatre, often on his own dime. He used to pay for the oil and light the furnaces himself throughout the winter. In the 80’s it cost over $8,000 a year just to buy enough oil. Gorski remembered when the building had fallen into complete disrepair and the top of the building was close to falling off. The city was able to get a judge to allow them to appoint a caretaker, to supplement the careless owners.
Mickelson bought the theatre in 2008, just before the housing market crashed. Those were darker days, he said. When one of the former owners suggested turning the theatre into an indoor go-kart track, Mickelson doubled down on his efforts to save the building. “That really made me mad,” he said. But Gorski said city officials realized they needed to help save the theatre because of its stunning beauty. “This building has an effect unlike any building I have ever seen,” she said. “People are mesmerized. Once they see this building they understand why it needs to be saved.”
While Mickelson plans to restore the theatre to its former glory, there will be some changes made. The largest of those changes includes tiering off the main floor and creating a general admission dance floor. “It will increase the usage and is necessary to support the operational plans of the theatre,” he said.
Crowd members wanted to know if the 46th ward aldermanic race could have an impact on the theatre’s restoration efforts. Ald. James Cappleman (46th) only has a narrow lead over opponent Marianne Lalonde in the still too-close-to-call race, and some worried Lalonde may not be as friendly to the project. “I think the project is bigger than any one person,” said Mickelson. “It would be incredibly wrong to pull the rug out from under us at this point.” This morning, Lalonde said she’s excited for the project, but wants to make sure there’s community input.
“I’m excited for it to be redone, but I think that we need a community benefits agreement for it,” Lalonde said. “The agreement would be to ensure that we have a plan for parking, safety and to make sure that the economic benefit for theater returns the community.”
Others were worried about keeping the theatre accessible to the entire community. Mickelson told them to look at JAM’s average ticket price. He said their average ticket sells for around $33, much lower than his competitors in town. He also talked about opening the theatre during the day as a place for the community, particularly kids, to congregate.
When asked about his dreams for the theatre, Mickelson said the legacy of the Uptown Theatre will be about giving back. “If the Uptown Theatre becomes a foundation, it will probably be the first theatre in the country where all of its profits will be donated to good causes,” he said. “And that will be the enduring legacy of the theatre.”
A shimmy for the ages: how a burlesque dance rankled Milwaukee
By Pete Ehrmann
Though tame by current standards, a shimmy dance performed on a downtown stage 86 years ago was considered “shocking, suggestive, immoral, indecent and highly improper” by the cop that arrested Mary Karras for doing it.
When a judge disagreed and dismissed the charges, outraged Mayor Daniel Hoan warned Milwaukeeans to “resign themselves to nakedness and debauchery in public places.” The one-day trial of the 20-year-old Karras in 1927 is now just a quaint, dusty footnote in the legal and cultural history of Milwaukee.
According to Mayor Hoan, citizen complaints about shocking goings-on at the city’s two best-known burlesque palaces impelled him to dispatch police to the Gayety Theater on 3rd Street and West Wisconsin Avenue, and the Empress Theater on nearby West Water Street (now North Plankinton Avenue) on the night of Feb. 24.
Arrested after their performances were Karras, on the Gayety bill as “RedHeaded Mitzi,” and, at the Empress, Catherine Wasauskas,aka “Hinda Wausau.” Also taken into custody were their stage costumes, which in Mitzi’s case consisted of “a red breastband, a flaming red loincloth and a few tassels, and a red shawl,” all apparently worn over a white leotard or oversized bloomers.
For the March 11 trial of Ms. Karras the courtroom of District Judge A.J. Hedding bulged with “church women, society women, actresses, police, attorneys, pastors and representatives of a dozen agencies on various sides of the theater reform question,” reported The Sentinel. Hinda Wausau, whose separate trial was scheduled for a week later, was also there.
Unfortunately for the prosecution, so was defense attorney William B. Rubin, ardent champion of labor unions and left wing causes, foe of censorship, passionate and glib like his friend Clarence Darrow – and, as noted by The Sentinel upon his death in 1959, “an impish critic, a needler at all times [who] let the air out of many a stuffed shirt in his day.”
(“The biggest thing in my life is that I have loved my fellow man,” proclaimed Rubin at a 1954 testimonial dinner tendered him. “I could see virtue in every client – and the bigger the fee the greater the virtue.”)
Atty. Rubin called 22 witnesses who had been in the Gayety audience for Red-Headed Mitzi’s three-minute performance. Among them were Deputy State Fire Marshal Conrad Asmuth; Civil Court Clerk E.J. Hertwig; Cy Rice, reporter for The Milwaukee Journal, several married couples and women. None of them found anything objectionable about it. “She had tights on all the time, anyhow,” groused one male witness.
The sole witness called by Assistant City Attorney Andrew Brunhardt was the policewoman who’d arrested Karras/Mitzi. Helen Lemmon testified that her brazen costume and her shimmy dance constituted immorality of the highest order and a threat to the “best interests of the community,” especially its impressionable and vulnerable youth.
The first thing Atty. Rubin did on cross-examination was call for Mrs. Lemmon to demonstrate the “wiggles and squeals” that had offended her so. The intrepid policewoman stood up to give it a shot, but Judge Hedding told her to forget it unless her imitation of Mitzi’s gyrations was spot-on. So Mrs. Lemmon described what she’d seen instead:
“She strutted back and forth and wiggled in a suggestive manner. She shook the lower part of her body and made little squealing noises. She unloosed (sic) certain parts of her scanty costume to suggest that she was going to let it drop to the floor.”
Did Mrs. Lemmon believe that “the body of a woman was the most beautiful thing in the world as glorified by artists and sculptors?” asked Rubin. “When exhibited in the proper surroundings,” she said.
“Do you consider the Bible immoral, remembering that it contains stories like the one about Lot and his daughter?”
“No, because I think the Bible is a book that teaches morals,” answered Mrs. Lemmon.
“Your own skirts are shorter than you wore them 10 or 20 years ago, aren’t they?” asked Rubin.
Mrs. Lemmon acknowledged that was so, though she was always careful not to expose her knees.
“She was asked if she thought there is anything immoral about the relations of married people,” reported The Sentinel, “and replied that the stage is no place for it to be suggested. ‘Oh, so sex without the canopy of a minister or a marriage license is immoral,’ observed the attorney.”
When she said she was “too busy” to attend many shows and that her standards concerning what was proper were “principally based upon opinions formed in the past,” Rubin tsked, “You’re a little bit behind the times, Mrs. Lemmon.”
He was even more cutting in his summation: “It is about time the living living escape the persecution of the living dead.”
Judge Hedding agreed, though he couched it differently. “I must be guided solely by the evidence in the case, not by my personal views,” he said. “If I decided that the defendant was guilty, I would be doing so on the testimony of one witness, whereas 22 witnesses have stated that they saw nothing offensive about the dance. Upon the facts I must find the young lady not guilty.”
“Applause and cheers greeted the decision,” reported The Journal, “and many spectators rushed forward to congratulate the youthful defendant, a quiet, mild looking girl, simply dressed, and devoid of any materials from the makeup box.”
At 10:45 that night, a much different looking Mary Karras danced on stage at the Gayety and triumphantly sang, “My name is Mitzi Brown, I’m the hottest girl in town!” After her three minutes were up, she took off for a new engagement in Cincinnati.
When he stopped hyperventilating about Hedding’s verdict, Mayor Hoan remembered that each July he had the sole power to grant or deny every city theater’s application for a license renewal. “…Burlesque theaters will commit such offenses of indecency at their own peril,” he warned. “I want them to take this as a final notice that any acts which suggest indecency of the type that is unprintable and of which they have full knowledge are likely to have considerable influence on my actions in determining whether a renewal of a license will be granted.”
The message came through loud and clear. At Hinda Wausau’s trial on April 9, the only witnesses were Policewoman Emma Meyer, who said the defendant’s dance was an affront to decency, and Empress Theater co-owner Henry Goldenberg, who said he’d warned Wausau beforehand to tone it down.
Judge Hedding pronounced her guilty and fined her $50.
Those inclined to take this as proof there is no justice will be happy to know that while Red-Headed Mitzi danced off into oblivion, Hinda Wausau went on to fame as one of burlesque’s all-time greats and the inventor of the pole dance.
(January 2nd, 2018, by Lisa Holewa)
It is Small Business Saturday, and South Milwaukee’s downtown looks ready: holiday lights are strung from light posts on either side of the charming brick street, lined with storefronts dating back to the 1920s.
South Milwaukee is, not surprisingly, a city south of Milwaukee, about 10 miles from downtown. Just five square miles in size and with roughly 21,000 residents, South Milwaukee sits along the shores of Lake Michigan, east of the interstate linking Milwaukee to Chicago.
A movie made about South Milwaukee in the 1930s shows people streaming from the city’s Garden Theater, hats on men’s heads, women all in skirts, children neatly dressed, smiling and waving.
Today, that theater marquee still stands. It reads: Board Game Barrister, and no, that’s not the name of a movie.
It is a local retail chain owned by Gordon Lugauer, who has quickly stopped in at the South Milwaukee warehouse on the busiest shopping weekend of the year, as he makes his way among his other retail locations.
Board Game Barrister is a board game shop with three other locations in the Milwaukee area, two in thriving shopping malls and one along a retail corridor near a shopping mall. Those locations keep regular hours, of course. Games are displayed for people to touch, hold and examine. There are tables for people to play games, hold tournaments.
The South Milwaukee location, however, is not at all like the others. Among other things, it has irregular hours, and no board game tournaments. But that’s South Milwaukee, explains Lugauer. Lugauer’s family moved their carpet business, South Milwaukee Carpet and Vinyl, to the building when he was about three or four years old, in 1976. The family lived above the store. Next door, the once-thriving Garden Theater was by then operating as an arcade. One of the arcade games sparked a fire that destroyed the inside of the building. And so, the Lugauer’s carpet store took over the space, connecting the buildings and opening the former theater side as a warehouse.
Upstairs, the projection room of the theater became Lugauer’s bedroom, right behind the marquee. He and his brother played and invented board games together in that space above the family carpet store.
“That’s the romantic version,” Lugauer says, laughing. The other part of the story is that times were hard. The downtown that once had grocery stores and five-and-dimes and that movie theater now had just a handful of specialty stores. But in the late 1970s into the 1980s, that didn’t really seem to matter. Average middle class Midwestern families had cars and big box stores were only getting bigger. Who shopped local?
“The people in South Milwaukee stopped supporting local businesses 40 years ago,” Lugauer says. “An entire generation or more has grown up without shopping here. And that hasn’t changed.”
Lugauer’s father retired in 2014. At the time, he brought a friend, a commercial real estate agent, to the building. The friend looked around at the joined buildings, the additions, the alterations that spanned more than 100 years and a devastating fire. He said he couldn’t take the listing.
“And so I did what a good son would do so my parents could retire,” Lugauer says. He bought the building. And then he faced downtown South Milwaukee.
“I looked up and down the street and said: ‘What quality of tenant am I likely to be renting to? Oh man.’ And that’s how I became the tenant.”
Today, the former theater section serves as Board Game Barrister’s warehouse. The original carpet store serves as a small retail space displaying shelves of games rejected from the other stores, all at clearance prices.
“This is a masonry block shell with a roof,” he says. “I may want to do ‘x’ here, but the reality is different. And we have buildings like this all up and down Milwaukee Avenue.”
Lugauer does his best to keep reasonably regular hours. But this store is not where he earns his money. Instead, he says, its existence is more of a kindness to the city of South Milwaukee.
“It would really not be doing a justice to the city to have this boarded up,” he says. “So I keep it open as a retail space,” but he is not making even a tenth of what he first hoped for when he opened it.
Advocates of a plan to turn the FOX Theatre in downtown Stevens Point into a “maker space” are scrambling for more time in the wake of a surprise city order to demolish the building. Opened in 1894 as the Grand Opera House, the FOX has been vacant since the mid-1980s and the subject of planned renovation efforts that never quite launched. Greg Wright, executive director of the nonprofit CREATE Portage County, announced last April a $3.5 million plan to make the FOX into its “IDEA Center” … a business incubator and a meet-up place for arts and community groups. The nonprofit has raised nearly $1 million already. But a city inspector in July issued a surprise order that unless CREATE can address structural concerns, the FOX will be demolished at the end of October. Wright said “We were surprised by the timing of the raze order given that we were actively in the process of the capital campaign when it came out. We are doing our best to both slow that process down and to raise as much money as quickly as we can because of that. It definitely was a hurdle we did not need.” Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza, who’d told the Portage County Gazette that “safety is a huge concern right now” when the sudden order was first issued, didn’t immediately return requests for comments. Wright said CREATE is exploring options for appeals, both locally and at the state level. The city’s Historic Preservation and Design Review Commission this month unanimously recommended that the city reverse its decision, but that recommendation is nonbinding … and they’re now trying to raise as much money as they can to save the FOX. Still, Wright doesn’t seem to be a fan of restored theatres, saying “it’s commonly the case that they won’t work as self-sustaining businesses”, and “what we’re doing is the best way to honor the history of this building” he said. His IDEA Center project is about three years old and he said it has launched some 50 new businesses and served as a home for groups of wood carvers, jewelry makers, fabric artists, video producers and more with about 200 people using the IDEA Center each month in a temporary space owned by the county, an arrangement that won’t last forever. The new prospect of demolition of the FOX, he said, focused attention on those efforts and he hopes to use that to raise enough funding to keep his plans alive, though he admits concern that now “it’s shifted everyone’s attention to the building, and not the project. To read about his renovation plans, visit anewfox.com.
Video: https://cbsloc.al/2ZiuZdv
The 86-by-100-foot rear stage wall was shifted to the east by 35 feet into Second Street to accommodate a larger stage. That was expected to take five hours, but the construction schedule allows for up to three days, said Cory Henschel, project executive. International Chimney Corp. and Expert House Movers were subcontracted for the wall move. Construction is on schedule, with completion expected in summer 2020. The relocation of the 650-ton wall with its decorative terracotta exterior was required by the National Parks Service for the project to receive historic tax credits. Four linked hydraulic rams were used. C.D. Smith Construction Inc. is the general contractor; Kahler Slater is the architect. International Chimney Corp. and Expert House Movers were subcontracted for the wall move. Work is on schedule, with completion expected for September 2020. Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra raised $116 million to date toward its $139 million goal including building up its endowment.
During restoration, 2019.
“The Wizard of Oz” world-premiered at the GATEWAY Theatre on this night eighty years ago, and again, there’s been no observance of that history in any manner.
The owners of the LIBERTY Theatre in downtown Libertyville are requesting it be demolished, the Daily Herald is reporting. The building has been owned by the Rhyan family for more than 50 years and operated by Scott Dehn in recent years.
The theater first opened as Liberty Theatre in 1937 and in recent years has gone by the name of Liberty 1 & 2 Theatres, according to the article. The current tenant has not been able to make enough revenue to pay for rent — even after rent had been reduced three times — and ongoing repairs are needed on the aging building. The demolition request is the first being considered by the village since a moratorium on the razing of downtown buildings was lifted in April 2018.
The historic preservation commission will be the first to hear the matter and can recommend approval of the demolition, approve it with conditions, deny it or continue the matter to a future hearing, according to the Daily Herald. The village board would have the final say.
August 17, 1914.
KENOSHA DRIVE-INS RUN GAMUT OF PROMOTION /// Kenosha, Wis. – The Macy-Gimbel price war and Bill Veeck’s recent baseball circus are “small potatoes” compared with the shenanigans of the managers of two outdoor theatres here. Word has traveled among theatregoers in this city that “you really get your money’s worth at the Mid-City on Highway 42, north of the city, and the Keno Family Drive-In on 42 south of the city. The two managers – William Wallos of Mid-City and Robert Peck of Keno Family – help spread the word in newspaper advertisements, radio announcements, posters, handbills and by sound truck. In addition to seeing a movie, or two movies, or sometimes three movies, the Kenosha patrons have been given wrestling, fireworks, bicycle racing on rollers, and a monkey village to watch. One or the other theatre has offered free cigars, parties, towing and repair service, baby bottle warming and guess-the-star contests. The managers even send scouts across town to see coming attractions at the rival theatres. The Keno scored a first when it presented first-run pictures at no increase in regular prices. Mid-City is close behind, scheduling a back-to-school and Christmas party both in September! Santa Claus himself will be on hand to greet the youngsters who come to the outdoor movie with their parents. Square dancing in front of the giant screens has already been introduced with midnight shows, pony rides, and playgrounds for the kiddies. For example, one of the theatres announced that it would bring a special super attraction to its grounds – a real live monkey village. A day or two later, the other theatre told the children to come and see real live bear cubs! It was the same way with wrestling. (Boxoffice Magazine, September 22, 1951)
As seen in 1943.
A fire that started late on the Friday afternoon of August 10, 2018 and continued long into the night caused massive damage to the historic Brin Theatre building, a cornerstone for 90 years. Smoke and flames shot from the roof of the Brin shortly after 5:30 p.m. Firefighters from many departments battled the blaze deep into the night while onlookers came and went, many using their phones to record the damage. No one was injured. Eight people in six apartments above the storefronts made it out safely. The American Red Cross set up a shelter at Menasha City Hall for them. Onlookers gathered on corners all around the fire. Smoke was so thick at times that it obscured the intersection and wafted down a nearby street. The retail spaces included Joshua’s Dream, a clothing shop, a computer repair store and a couple of vacant spaces. The Brin Building dates back to the late 1920s and housed numerous businesses through the years including a bowling alley. When firefighters first arrived, flames were shooting through the roof in the middle of the building. They initially entered the building to try to attack it from the inside, but layers of ceiling above the second floor caused problems. By the time crews went to another section of the building flames had already run across the roof line inside the attic. Firefighters then left the building out of fears of a roof collapse, and continued to battle the blaze from outside. Most of the fire damage was contained to the roof, while the first and second floors sustained extensive water damage, Kloehn said. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known – a sad ending for a building that was a fixture for generations. The Wisconsin Historical Society gives it this nod: “Although altered, the Brin Building retains integrity of site and form and is historically significant as Menasha’s premiere commercial block.” Among the onlookers Friday was John Barkhahn, 76, who reflected on downtown history as he watched the flames tear apart the theatre where he worked as an usher in the late 1950s. “It’s just a lot of memories that are going up in smoke,” he said about two hours after firefighters were called. Smoke still billowed from the building. By that time, the roof had largely collapsed and charred remains where it had been protruded from the top of the structure. The remaining section had been stripped of its tiles by the force of the water from the fire hoses. Barkhahn said a friend at one point lived in the apartments above. He had been at home down the street Friday when he saw smoke blow past his window, so he came down the block to check it out. Gina Montonati, 52, rushed to the scene as soon as she heard the Brin was burning. Her parents met 60 years ago in the bowling alley that was once in the Brin Building. Her mom died about five years ago; her dad is now 85. “I think he’s going to be very sad when he finds out,” she said. “It’s sad to see the old buildings go. You can’t replace those.” Lifelong Menasha resident Joel Humski, 47, described sadness at seeing the historic building go up in flames.
The Rialto Square Theatre is vibrant and management firm VenuWorks continues to draw popular attractions on a regular basis which fill the seats and generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits. Financial data indicates that the Rialto Square’s events in March and April cost the Rialto about $235,500 and generated nearly $565,000 in revenue, constituting a profit margin of nearly $330,000. The Joliet City Council provides a $500,000 annual subsidy to the Rialto, and corporate sponsors also contribute. Earlier this year, comedian Bill Engvall drew well, as did the KAR Dance Competition ($35,605) on March 15 and singer Aaron Lewis ($36,539) on March 27. On April 12, the Rainbow National Dance Competition cost the Rialto $13,216 and generated $54,494 in revenue, or a profit of $41,279. Three weddings at the Rialto during March and April generated profits of between $6,000 and $8,000. With big events, the Rialto aims to draw a profit of at least $10,000. The least successful this Spring was The Church Basement Ladies on April 9, which cost the Rialto about $7,000 but generated about $10,800 in actual revenue for a profit of $3,800. Last year the Rialto began a new monthly movie series with $5 general admission seating for weekday screenings. On March 14, the Rialto played Bohemian Rhapsody to a packed house, an incredible success which cost the Rialto about $4,510 but earned actual revenue over $16,560 and a profit of $12,050. On March 21, Billy Idol played to a sellout crowd at the Rialto in a two-man performance with guitarist Steve Stevens. That cost the Rialto $29,180 and generated $56,232 in revenue. The Rialto turned a profit of $27,052. The May 10 “I Left My Heart Tour” performance by Tony Bennett did well. May and June are both busy months for the Rialto.
The Des Plaines city council is expected to lease the Des Plaines Theatre to Onesti Entertainment Corporation, which will book shows and operate a restaurant at the Des Plaines Theatre. Ron Onesti, the president of the company, said “I would consider it an honor and responsibility that I wouldn’t take lightly”. City officials began searching for a company to run the day-to-day operations of the theatre in July 2018 and interviewed three firms. The city council interviewed two of those companies and then authorized City Manager Mike Bartholomew to negotiate the lease agreement with Onesti, citing Onesti’s track record of success operating the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles as a reason for choosing his company as the finalist. Onesti also operates Rock ‘N Ravioli Restaurant and Music Hall and the Bourbon 'N Brass Speakeasy & Jazz Club in Evanston. “We were aligned on the vision of the theater,” Bartholomew said. “We want the theater to be an experience. We want people to go to the theater, no matter what the show is.”
Under the proposed five-year agreement, the city will lease the theatre to Onesti for free during its first six months of operations and $10,000 per month the next six months. Rent will increase to $12,000 per month the second year, $14,000 per month the third year, $16,000 per month the fourth year and $18,000 per month the fifth year. The city has the option to renew the lease. However, the city is less concerned about earning money and more focused on the number of people the theater can draw downtown. City leaders view the theater as the anchor of an entertainment and restaurant district and even has a grant program to give new restaurants up to $100,000 to locate there. “The payoff isn’t how much money we can make on rent,” Bartholomew said. “The payoff is people.”
Onesti will help the city decide the layout and design of the restaurant on second level, a bar concept on the first level and seating for anywhere between 600 to 900 people. The agreement stipulates the city will prepare the restaurant space to “vanilla box form” — meaning it will install electrical, drywall and a layer of paint. The cost of installing a kitchen, tables and chairs and all other aspects of the restaurant will be paid by Onesti. The city estimates construction could take between six and nine months.
Onesti pointed to the shows and the overall experience at the Arcada Theatre as a blueprint for what he envisions for Des Plaines. The Arcada books a wide variety of musical acts. “Everything is ambience-driven, themed and upscale,” Onesti said. “The experience is as important as the quality of food and the level of the cocktails.”
The city entered an agreement with Rivers Casino in May 2018 to buy the theatre, with the casino pledging up to $2 million to help purchase and renovate the building. The city completed the purchase of the building in June and has been completing improvements to the venue.
Milwaukee Film said Thursday that it has secured a 1925 Wurlitzer pipe organ for the Oriental Theatre; it’s in the process of being restored and is expected to be ready sometime before the end of 2020. From 1991 until last year, a Kimball organ was heard on Saturday nights under the aegis of the Kimball Theatre Organ Society. That organ changed hands in 2017, and its new owners elected to remove it from the Oriental in April 2018, three months before Milwaukee Film formally took over. When it opened in 1927, the Oriental had a Barton pipe organ, built in Oshkosh. That instrument lasted there until 1959, according to Milwaukee Film, which was working on getting a new one in the venue since it took over. “Without a pipe organ, the Oriental Theatre has truly felt incomplete,” Jonathan Jackson, CEO and artistic director for Milwaukee Film, said today. “We’ve heard time and again from members of the community who’ve been clamoring to know when we’re going to install another organ.” This Wurlitzer is a three-manual instrument from the Paramount Theatre in Atlanta, where it operated until the 1950s. Milwaukee Film obtained it through a partnership with JL Weiler Inc., a pipe-organ restoration firm.
Earlier this year, Milwaukee Film announced it had exceeded its $10 million capital fundraising campaign target, clearing the way to complete restoration efforts at the Oriental this summer, to include revamping the concession area and replacing seating in an auxiliary auditorium. (All seats will be replaced in 2020.)
Milwaukee Film created a website that promises regular updates on the Wurlitzer project: mkefilm.org/organ.
The theatre was renamed the Ralph J. Houghton Performance Center on May 11, 2019 during a brief ceremony followed by a free concert by the local Golden Strings, Madrigal Singers, Kenosha Alumni Band and the Tremper Wind Ensemble. During the program, a portrait by the late Kenosha artist George Pollard depicting Houghton was hung in the lobby. Houghton spent 56 years in the public school district, and for over thirty years was its music director and later director of fine arts, then assistant superintendent before retiring in 1987. He died after heart surgery in 2009. The auditorium, designed by Chicago architect John D. Chubb, was noted for its superior acoustic qualities, for which Houghton frequently fielded compliments from well-known musicians and vocalists. In the mid-1950s, when Houghton was hired as the public schools' music director, he took in a performance of the Kenosha Symphony with contralto Marian Anderson from the balcony and was astounded at how much you could hear as Marian Anderson was singing. Later, Doc Severinsen, Grammy award-winning trumpeter who fronted Johnny Carson’s house band, praised the auditorium’s acoustics. Houghton’s son recalled Severinsen telling his father “Ralph, I just gotta tell ya, I’ve played all over the country and that is the finest hall as far as acoustics and the way the sound resonates in stereo. It’s just fantastic.“ At the dedicatory concert, the final number was “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” which had special significance to Houghton, who as a U.S. Army infantry captain was captured by the Germans in 1945 during the Battle of the Bulge but later escaped his captors during the Christmas holiday, making his way across Europe toward American lines where there was a band playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever”.
The plan to restore the WEST BEND Theatre has been in the works since 2017, when nonprofit group Historic West Bend Theatre, Inc. purchased the building for $250,000 and went public with a capital campaign for the project. The project will include a new heating and ventilating system, new roof, revamped electrical and plumbing systems, new sound and video equipment, IT systems, new restrooms, an enlarged stage, new seating on the main floor and balcony and the addition of an art deco-style bar. The 600-seat theater opened in downtown West Bend in 1929 and showed films until it closed in 2006. The renovated building will include 120 seats on the main floor and 200 in the balcony. Previous proposals to gut all but the building’s facade were met with opposition from the West Bend community. The West Bend Theatre vertical sign has been removed for restoration. “This is a very rare event that takes place, where an entire city and town can come together and recreate history,” said Nic Novaczyk, president of HWBT, at the groundbreaking ceremony. “This has been an identifying mark for West Bend for decades and decades and decades. It’s just been such a joy and privilege to watch it in its early stages start to come back to life. And I think over the next six, eight, nine months of construction, we’re really going to see something special.” HWBT has raised about $2.1 million from private sources, including West Bend Mutual Insurance, National Exchange Bank & Trust, area foundations and individual donors. The organization has also submitted applications for about $1.1 million in tax credits and other grants. The group will continue fundraising throughout the year. HWBT organizers envision the restored theater serving as an all-purpose community facility, hosting showings of classic movies, musical performances, comedy acts, corporate events and weddings. “It’s multi-purpose; we want it to do all kinds of things,” said John Torinus, a HWBT board member and chairman of Serigraph Inc. “We want the public to feel they own this theater. We want it full five or six days a week.” HWBT initially expected the restoration work to take a year to complete, but the group said it could move more quickly than for completion by the end of 2019. MSI General is the general contractor for the project. Sub-contractors include Steiner Electric, Albiero Plumbing and Affordable Environmental Technologies. HWBT’s board also plans to hire an executive director in June. Until now, HWBT has been a volunteer effort, led by the group’s 18-person board.
Milwaukee Film said it’s beginning the second phase of its Oriental Theatre restoration project with the goal of completing the work in time for the 2019 Milwaukee Film Festival. The organization plans to replace the Oriental’s current concession stand, upgrade the sound system in the main theater, add a new assisted-listening device system, replace all seats in the westernmost theater and upgrade the building’s emergency systems. The first phase of the project, completed in 2018, included adding a women’s lavatory suite to the first floor and replacing project equipment throughout the theater. In February, Milwaukee Film said it surpassed its $10 million capital campaign goal to restore the Oriental and provide the nonprofit with its first-ever operating reserve. In 2017, Milwaukee Film signed a 31-year lease to operate the theatre on Milwaukee’s East Side. “As magnificent as the Oriental Theatre is now, we know there is still work to be done to make it a world-class venue,” said Jonathan Jackson, CEO and artistic director for Milwaukee Film. “Like all our work at the theater, these upgrades will preserve and enhance the historic beauty of this space while creating the best possible film experience for our guests.” All phase-two projects are scheduled to be completed before this year’s film festival, which will run Oct. 17-31. In 2020, the seats in the main and east houses are scheduled to be replaced.
Over the decades, different groups have unsuccessfully sought to secure funding to revitalize the UPTOWN theater since it closed in 1959. Most recently, in 2017, the city Development Department proposed a $5 million earmark for a redevelopment of the theater in the city’s 10-year capital improvement plan, but city aldermen shot it down. At that time, Connolly said, the Uptown was salvageable. But that does not seem to be the case any longer. “In that year time, between when we went through it the first time and when we went through it the second time, there were so many more holes in the roof — there was so much more damage — that it was obvious that that year had really taken a toll and that there would just be no path forward,” Connolly said. While tearing down the Uptown Theater is possible, it could need to go through a lengthier process with the Wisconsin Historical Society and city Landmarks Preservation Commission due to its historic designation. The commission has authority to review demolition permits. The Park Theatre’s looming demolition is just a larger symptom of an unfortunate pattern of Racine’s historic buildings being taken advantage of, Mason said. “They don’t preserve themselves magically,” Mason said. “It requires investment, commitment, enforcement and stewardship by the property owners to do that.”
The city ordered the demolition of West Racine’s former Park Theatre eight months ago, and for that span of time, it has seemed like a sure thing. It is run down, condemned, vacant and in dire need of repairs. But a small group of city residents is hoping to give the theater a second act before wrecking crews knock down yet another one of Racine’s 20 former movie theaters, of which just seven remain standing today. Originally opening as The Capitol Theatre in 1928, the Park went on to show movies for 59 years. The property, purchased in 2006 by John Apple, is currently used as storage. “I’d like to save this one, if nothing else,” said Nancy Simonson, treasurer of the neighborhood group West Racine Alliance and one of the organizers of Friends of the Capitol Theater, the group looking to salvage the theater. “This city needs a theater.”
Saving the decaying structure would be a tall order, according to city officials. Apple owes $140,975.16 in delinquent taxes on the building dating back to 2008, records show. If the Friends of the Capitol Theater group were to purchase the building from Apple, it would still need to pay all delinquent taxes and invest more than $800,000 to get the building into a basic usable state before any renovations could be done, said Ken Plaski, the city’s chief building inspector. “There’s more holes than there is ceiling, actually,” Plaski said. A flock of birds has also been living in the building for a decade or more, and there is 3 to 4 inches of bird excrement piled up where they nest, he added.
The entire property is assessed at $150,000, but the theater itself contributes only $107,800 of value to that total. “You’re looking at a structure that not only has low value and hadn’t been maintained, but has actively been demolished by neglect of the current property owner,” said Amy Connolly, director of city development.
Simonson acknowledged “there’s a whole slew of things to get done” with the theater, but said she still wants to salvage it. “It’s not in great shape, but it’s doable,” Simonson said. “If we do it right and we do it right the first time, we might be able to save it.”
While saving the theater would be ideal, Mayor Cory Mason said, it does not seem to be in the cards right now. “I applaud the sentiment of the folks from West Racine who would like to see this building saved,” Mason said. “I’d like to be in a place where it could be saved, too. … It is an unfortunate outcome that we would like to prevent from recurring moving forward. The Park Theatre is just the latest example of demolition through neglect by an irresponsible landlord who’s let it get to this point. I would love to see the theater saved, too, but I can’t ignore what Ken (Plaski) has found there in terms of the structural integrity of the building — or the lack thereof — that would jeopardize health and safety.”
The topic of saving the theater will be brought up at the West Racine Alliance’s neighborhood meeting 6 p.m. Thursday at Wilson Funeral Home, 1212 Lathrop Ave., Simonson said. she plans to start a fundraiser by the end of the week with the goal of raising $2 million. By the time the group could raise that money, it may be too late. The demolition order is currently on hold after Apple filed for a temporary restraining order against the city. His lawyer, Peter Ludwig, erroneously filed the suit against the Village of Wind Point in August after the deadline, and Racine successfully argued the case was improperly filed, resulting in a dismissal. Apple appealed the dismissal in October and the case is still in appellate court waiting on a decision. The city is expecting a decision in April; if the case is again dismissed, Plaski said he expects demolition to begin in June. If Simonson’s group acquires the building and brings it up to regulation before the case gets out of court, the city may have further discussion with the group, City Administrator Jim Palenick said. “We wouldn’t have the conversation until that occurred,” Palenick said.
On August 28, 2017 the city issued a list of 24 repairs and inspections that needed to be done for the building to be habitable again. Apple did not fulfill any of the orders, Plaski said. In a phone call with The Journal Times, Apple claimed that he never received the list, the building is in fine shape and he “did a lot of” repairs. He also denied the city’s report that there was a pipe backup that filled the basement with 5 inches of raw sewage, claiming it was just water from a toilet overflow. “These people have their head up their (expletive), as far as that goes,” Apple said.
Apple declined to let a Journal Times reporter see the condition of the theater’s interior. Court records show that Apple was ordered not to let anyone in the building besides his son and himself, and is not allowed to put anything more into storage in the building. He paid $130,000 for the building in 2006. When asked twice what he would be willing to sell it for, Apple did not give a price and instead said he would like to stay involved with the building in some way. He added that he hopes the building does get saved. “I like old buildings. I like old houses, antiques. I like saving things,” Apple said. “I would hate to see it get torn down. It’s a solid building.” But city officials said Apple was wholly neglectful of the property, not reverential as he painted himself to be. “That would be like saying, ‘I bought this dog and decided not to feed it for three weeks because I love dogs,’” Palenick said. “Really? Come on.” Plaski said the theater stuck out as one of the worst buildings he has inspected and condemned. The exterior walls have not been maintained and the steel roof structure is compromised — and the whole building could have collapsed from a heavy load if winter had produced a massive snowfall, he said. “I didn’t feel safe being in there,” Plaski said.
The Fond du Lac Movie Theater on west Scott Street will be changing ownership. Minneapolis-based Odyssey Entertainment is purchasing the Fond du Lac Theater, with the sale expected to close on or about April 24th. Odyssey President Steve Tripp says they plan to work to upgrade the theater to include “many comforts and amenities” that today’s movie goers have come to expect. Dennis Frank, whose family previously owned the theater says they always ran it as a “family operation” and that they “couldn’t be happier to hand over the keys to a company like Odyssey who will take the theater we built and renovate it to become the area’s premiere cinema for years to come.” Plans are currently underway to upgrade the theater in the next four to five months. One of the upgrades is Luxury recliners that are in the works for all eight auditoriums – those are expected to be installed in the next 60 to 90 days. Odyssey operates theaters in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Ohio.
The “other” Grand Theater (Bobby Tanzilo, May 9, 2017) Long before the palatial Warner Theater was recast as The Grand in 1982, there was the considerably less opulent and spacious Grand Theatre at 2917-23 N. Holton St., where the Harambee/Riverwest neighborhoods meet. This one was built in 1911. (Trainspotters will also note there was yet another Grand Theater that operated briefly, only from 1904 to 1909, at 738 N. 3rd St. Still another was in South Milwaukee.) Thanks to a foreclosure, the 6,846-square foot Spanish Colonial-style building, which long housed a church, is now in the City of Milwaukee’s commercial real estate portfolio and could be yours for a cool $20,000. Designed by architect John Roth Jr. – who also designed the smaller, 600-seat Aurora at the same time – construction on the 760-seat theater began in December 1911 and it had a long run, showing films until it closed in 1975. City permits suggest it was enlarged in 1922 to accommodate 850 movie-goers. In 1928, architect A. L. Seidenschwartz remodeled the theater in the atmospheric style, meaning he made the theater space itself appear to be outside, with the addition of clouds and stars and a bit of Mediterranean-style tile roof hints. Permits show that the ceiling was raised, roof trusses added and the exterior altered. In 1946, some seats were removed to make room for the construction of a candy stand. According to Larry Widen, co-author of the fine book, “Silver Screens: A Pictorial History of Milwaukee’s Movie Theaters,” “They tried some adult films and some art films but both ventures were short lived.” Some have suggested it may have operated for a time, later in its life, as Puerto (or Porto) Rico (and, briefly, at the very end as the Magik Grand Cine). Local history buff Carl Swanson wrote a good history of the theater here; I will merely summarize that here and encourage you to visit Carl’s site.
Built just a few years after the dawn of dedicated movie houses in Milwaukee, the Grand really is, as the DCD sell sheet notes, one of the oldest cinemas in the city. And, as a smaller neighborhood theater, it hearkens back to a time when Milwaukeeans could walk around the corner to see the latest films, seated among their neighbors, rather than driving to a movie mall somewhere in the suburbs and watching anonymously. But as that era ended, the theater went into decline – the porn matinees are a clear sign of that – and ultimately closed, replaced by the Church of the Philippians. In 2007, Haven of Hope Ministries bought the building and occupied it until 2015. It’s unclear which of the two churches built the block of rooms that now occupy the back-center portion of the auditorium, but Haven of Hope must have expected to stay longer than it did. Architectural plans hanging inside show an expansion plan onto the vacant lot to the north.
Heading inside, I was unprepared for just how intact the former Grand is as a theater. Step inside the lobby and there is earth-toned floor tile, exposed beam ceilings with elaborate painted detail that is almost entirely intact. A series of decorative hanging light fixtures remains, too. Solomonic columns and a quartet of medallions are painted gold and there’s still more decoration here above the doors, above the mirrors on either side of the lobby. There’s also wrought iron radiator grates.
Though the movie poster cases are bricked up on the exterior, their access doors remain in the lobby, which is flanked by men’s and women’s rooms that, in large part, maintain their vintage floor and wall tile. A door in the women’s room has a lot of graffiti etched into it.
A narrow bent staircase leads up to the projection room (pictured above), which appears to have the original footprint, though all but one of the openings out into the theater have been dry-walled over.
Step through the padded, studded doors into the auditorium and you’re transported back in time (if you ignore that block of rooms that surely could easily be removed … hand me a sledgehammer and I’ll start).
Rows of theater seats have been replaced with wooden pews, but the proscenium that conjures a Spanish plaza still stands. A series of niches can be found on each side wall. At the back is a strip of Mediterranean roof tile, again suggesting we’re outside.
Follow the north gangway and you’ll find a tight, steep metal staircase up to a space behind the three arched openings in the proscenium. Up here is the remnant of a piano. If The Grand had an organ, the pipes were likely up here.
I couldn’t find a staircase off the south gangway up to a space on the opposite side of the proscenium, but window openings facing the alley out back suggest there is a similar space up there, though the access may have been closed off. Beneath the stage and running along the back was a narrow space with stairs up to the stage itself. It’s too tight to have been a useful dressing room or orchestra pit, I’d think, so perhaps it was simply a means of access from behind, or it led to the basement. For someone with the means – or handyman skills – the idea of returning The Grand to use as a theater – be it films, be it live theater, be it concerts – doesn’t seem at all far-fetched.
The Department of City Development is accepting proposals (and offers) for the building until 3 p.m. on June 30.
Some of the permitted uses as listed on the sell sheet are “community center, food bank, restaurant/café, office, artist studio, live/work unit, dance studio, etc.”
Restoration of the building and façade are required in all proposals, but note that grants for the facade and renovation are potentially available and the DCD has access to other financial resources, too. The theatre includes the vacant lot to the north, bringing the square footage of the land to 8,314.
Urban spelunking: The Ritz/Villa Theater (Bobby Tanzilo, July 18, 2017) The former Ritz/Villa movie theater on 36th and Villard is for sale. And it’s mostly intact as a cinema. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to step inside the former Ritz Theater movie house 3608 W. Villard Ave. and find it intact as a movie house. The same thing happened when I visited the old Grand on Holton and Locust. But, other times, like when I explored the old Lyric Theater on Vliet Street, I had to be content with easter eggs and clues, since all the seating had been removed and the auditorium carved up into rooms. But after The Ritz, which was called the Villa by then, was closed by Marcus Theatres in 1986, it had a brief return as a movie house in the following decade, so it hasn’t really been gone all that long. Now, the building is vacant and was acquired by the city in a tax foreclosure. The Department of City Development has listed it for sale for $20,000. The Spanish Colonial style theater was built as the independent, 840-seat Ritz cinema in 1926 by Michael Brumm, who had opened a nickelodeon called The Princess across Villard Avenue in 1912. His son Arnold helped out at the theaters. As was often the case with movie theaters of the era, The Ritz had an adjacent retail space and offices upstairs. Over the years, those spaces were occupied by a confectioner, a doctor, a barber, a typewriter store, a gift shop, a real estate and mortgage business, and spaces upstairs also served as residences from 1935 until the end of World War II. “In summer, when business declined, the Brumm family would travel to outlying areas with a portable generator and a movie projector, bringing the movies to farmers or businesspeople in small towns without movie theaters,” wrote Larry Widen and Judi Anderson in their book, “Silver Screens: A Pictorial History of Milwaukee’s Movie Theaters. "The show was done on a weekly circuit, with posters left behind to advertiser the next week’s feature. When Michael Brumm opened The Ritz in 1926, he stopped the traveling shows and settled into more routine business operations.” Brumm tapped his son, Arnold, as assistant manager once the latter graduated from high school, Widen and Anderson wrote, leading Arnold to ultimately take over the business entirely. With powerful chains running the theater game, indie owners like Brumm often struggled to stay afloat. “Arnold Brumm remembered many occasions when film booking became a problem at his family’s Ritz Theater,” Widen and Anderson noted in “Silver Screens.” ‘The buying power of the chains really put the squeeze on the little guys,’ Brumm said. ‘And “block booking,” the packaging of one great picture with 20 lousy ones, hurt us a lot.’ Studios often came to the independent owners with a year’s worth of projected films. To keep a constant flow of films on his screen, the theater owner bought the lot sight unseen, hoping that several films in the package would turn out to be hit attractions. Until block booking was made illegal in 1939, it was an accepted way to do business, ‘Film salesmen were very aggressive guys,’ Brumm said. ‘They would do almost anything to … control your screen for 52 weeks at a time.’ In spite of the hardships connected with being independent, the most determined of the owners found their markets, and their theaters prospered.“ For an interesting look at the finances of The Ritz in this era, check out Matthew Prigge’s delve into one of the theater’s ledgers from 1935, a year in which Brumm’s place lost $320. One way Arnold Brumm worked to "find his market” was to catch the public’s eye in unusual ways, according to Widen and Anderson. “Although he had always been known for his innovative advertising techniques, such as displaying movie posters upside down, Brumm pulled off his most successful stunt to promote the sale of war bonds in 1944. "Coming up short on the bond sales quota set for his theater, Brumm climbed to the top of the Ritz theater’s five-story chimney on a Saturday afternoon. A huge sign on the chimney said, ‘BUY ME WITH WAR BONDS.’ He stayed at his post for the next 24 hours, and war bond sales were brisk. When the final figures were tallied, Brumm’s stunt had doubled the theater’s goals.” According to a much later Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article,“ "One of the strangest efforts came in the early 1950s, when the theater implemented something it called ‘Dignity Nights.’ On designated evenings, candy eaters, popcorn munchers and peanut shell snappers were corralled into a special section, protecting the aurally sensitive from the oral cacophony.” In late 1959, Marcus Theaters, which had moved into the Milwaukee market when it acquired the Tosa Theater (now the Rosebud) in 1940, bought The Ritz and ran it for the last 11 weeks of the year. At the time, movies were 85 cents for adults in the evening, 60 cents for matinees and early bird screenings. Children paid 25 cents and students twice that. In 1962, three days before Christmas, the theater was re-launched as The Villa, playing both on the architecture of the building and the location on Villard Avenue. Marcus archivist Leslie Heinrichs shared these interesting tidbits from the theater’s Marcus era…
Nov. 4 1977 – one of 8 Marcus Theatres that had a Thanksgiving Food Drive for the Needy in association with the Milwaukee B’nai B’rith council’s 1977 drive. The idea is to show a movie that would appeal to audience of all ages and have everyone who wants to attend get a free ticket. The ticket and at least a $1.00 contribution in food or cash are necessary for admittance. The movie show was a 1976 limited run film “It’s Showtime”. January 1978 – Villa is one of 10 theatres that has special showings of films for Milwaukee area teachers who want to take their students to the movies as a field trip. Some that are tentatively scheduled include: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Grease,” “Jungle Book,” “Cat from Outer Space,” “International Velvet,” “Wild Billy and the Keystone Cowboy.” Other films may appeal to select student groups such as social studies, humanities or foreign language classes. These are a perfect supplement to classroom studies. January 1980 – Admission prices are dramatically reduced at the Villa to great success. Ticket prices are only 79 cents. Current showings include two Burt Reynolds hit films “Starting Over” and “The End”. Vice President of the Marcus Corporation, Bruce Olson, said: “ We choose to offer these lower priced admissions especially for those families who may find it difficult, at times, to afford regular admission prices. We also believe it will stimulate the older audiences who seldom go to the movies anymore. Furthermore, in today’s inflationary environment, we want to provide a low cost form of entertainment.” (Note: The Villa is one of two theatres that did this.) March 1980 – The Marcus Theatres Corporation will institute a $1 admission price on Mondays and Tuesdays beginning Monday, March 16th. The $1 policy will be in effect at most theaters throughout the statewide Marcus Theatres chain, for a limited time only. Note: The Villa is one of 74 theaters that had this policy. October 1984 – Marcus Corporation offers 50 cent movies for 1 night only at all theaters including the Villa. This is in honor of its 50th anniversary. In 1986, Marcus closed The Villa and two years later Tanya and Herman Lewis bought the building and attempted to run it as a second-run house, then a first-run cinema, then a community theater and center before calling it quits in March 1995.
Since then, the building has been home to a salon, a school (called AGAPE), a church, a bookstore. But now it’s vacant, and while it’s seen better days – there is a fair bit of water intrusion – it still looks entirely like a theater inside.
There’s a lobby that looks as though it’s definitely been altered at some point. The marquee still hangs above the door, with a vertical sign advertising the school that once occupied the building. Up the terrazzo stairs are a handful of empty offices facing the street. Across the hall are some storage rooms and the projection room, which, as was customary, has its own bathroom. One door offers a view (though no ladder anymore) up to the attic lit by those dormers you can see on the facade. In the basement, which I didn’t get to explore completely, were the bathrooms, which look as though they’d been updated at least once. Inside the auditorium, the seats are all still there, including what are surely the original cast iron decorative standards at the ends of each row. There are decorative plaster moldings on the walls, and the ceiling has a recessed dome painted blue. Flanking the stage are a pair of exits with organ pipe lofts above (there was a 2/5 Kilgen organ – now in a private collection in Columbus, Ohio – up there). On one side, you can scale a ladder to peek into the organ pipe loft, which is empty and the opening that allowed the sound into the theater has been boarded up. There’s a space below the stage, accessed via the orchestra pit – which itself sits under a stage extension – where there are extra seats and other objects stored. Up in one of the offices there are more modern plexiglass letters for the marquee. Seven of them now appear outside: “For Sale.”
The owner of the Uptown Theatre shared his vision yesterday, which includes hosting 100 shows a year, offering 200 jobs and even a non-profit arm focused on community arts outreach. Now for the hardest part: raising the remaining $40 million to finish the ambitious renovation. Yesterday, the Chicago Architecture Center hosted a panel featuring those working on the long-awaited restoration. Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones moderated and was joined by co-owner Jerry Mickelson, long-time volunteer Robert Boin and the Department of Planning and Development’s director of historic preservation Eleanor Gorski. “There is nowhere like The Uptown, at least that I’ve been,” said Jones, who has traveled to theaters across the country and around the world.
The Uptown Theatre, the largest freestanding theater ever built in its time, has three marquees, a kid’s playroom and over 17,000 light bulbs in the auditorium. It took 18 months and cost $4 million dollars to construct (over $58 million today if adjusted for inflation). One of the reasons the theatre has lasted so long — despite lying dormant for nearly four decades — is because it was built with one third more steel than necessary, making it able to withstand winter after winter without completely deteriorating. “It’s one of the most beautiful buildings, palaces ever built,” said Mickelson, who talked about the timeline for the restoration project. Although it has been previously reported that construction could start as early as this summer, it is more likely to start near the beginning of 2020. There is still $40 million that needs to be raised, and Mickelson said he won’t feel comfortable breaking ground until he has raised at least $20 million. He said he feels confident in raising those funds, already has an investor who has pledged a million dollars to the theater, and is hoping the theatre will open with its first show in early 2021. Much like in Las Vegas, he said he has been considering the option of having performers in residency who would regularly perform at the venue. To Mickelson, restoring the Uptown Theatre is all about bringing benefit to the Uptown community. His production company JAM also runs the nearby Riviera Theatre and the area is close to his heart. Everyone on the panel agreed the theatre would be a catalyst of economic development for Uptown. “It will bring back the glory of this proud neighborhood,” Mickelson said. “It’s all about creating jobs and opportunities for people who don’t have them.”
Instead of running the Uptown Theatre as a for-profit enterprise, Mickelson hopes the theatre will become a non-profit foundation run by a board of directors. He has already made deals with Chicago Public Schools, After School Matters and The People’s Music School, so that kids will have access to the theater during the restoration and once it’s open for good. “It’s about taking care of the future of us, of our city,” he said. “Kids cannot become what they cannot see.”
The panel recalled some of the theater’s darkest hours, when it looked like it might not be saved. Boin recalled a time in the early 80’s when its owners promised to heat the building in the winter. After failing to do so, several pipes burst, flooding large parts of the theatre. Boin was one of the unsung heroes who helped look after the theatre, often on his own dime. He used to pay for the oil and light the furnaces himself throughout the winter. In the 80’s it cost over $8,000 a year just to buy enough oil. Gorski remembered when the building had fallen into complete disrepair and the top of the building was close to falling off. The city was able to get a judge to allow them to appoint a caretaker, to supplement the careless owners.
Mickelson bought the theatre in 2008, just before the housing market crashed. Those were darker days, he said. When one of the former owners suggested turning the theatre into an indoor go-kart track, Mickelson doubled down on his efforts to save the building. “That really made me mad,” he said. But Gorski said city officials realized they needed to help save the theatre because of its stunning beauty. “This building has an effect unlike any building I have ever seen,” she said. “People are mesmerized. Once they see this building they understand why it needs to be saved.”
While Mickelson plans to restore the theatre to its former glory, there will be some changes made. The largest of those changes includes tiering off the main floor and creating a general admission dance floor. “It will increase the usage and is necessary to support the operational plans of the theatre,” he said.
Crowd members wanted to know if the 46th ward aldermanic race could have an impact on the theatre’s restoration efforts. Ald. James Cappleman (46th) only has a narrow lead over opponent Marianne Lalonde in the still too-close-to-call race, and some worried Lalonde may not be as friendly to the project. “I think the project is bigger than any one person,” said Mickelson. “It would be incredibly wrong to pull the rug out from under us at this point.” This morning, Lalonde said she’s excited for the project, but wants to make sure there’s community input. “I’m excited for it to be redone, but I think that we need a community benefits agreement for it,” Lalonde said. “The agreement would be to ensure that we have a plan for parking, safety and to make sure that the economic benefit for theater returns the community.”
Others were worried about keeping the theatre accessible to the entire community. Mickelson told them to look at JAM’s average ticket price. He said their average ticket sells for around $33, much lower than his competitors in town. He also talked about opening the theatre during the day as a place for the community, particularly kids, to congregate.
When asked about his dreams for the theatre, Mickelson said the legacy of the Uptown Theatre will be about giving back. “If the Uptown Theatre becomes a foundation, it will probably be the first theatre in the country where all of its profits will be donated to good causes,” he said. “And that will be the enduring legacy of the theatre.”