Fairfax Cinemas
7907 Beverly Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90048
7907 Beverly Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90048
28 people
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There will be a party tomorrow from noon to 12:30, Saturday, March 27th, out in front of the theater to show support for preservation efforts and to celebrate the theater’s 80th birthday.
The landmark nomination will be heard on April 1st.
Here is the link to the article:
http://tinyurl.com/yafof5l
As I said before, they call that “demolition by neglect.” Theoretically, the city’s building codes require that you maintain your buildings and don’t let them rot away and become blights in otherwise nice neighborhoods. But wonder of wonders, yet more government employees who either don’t do their jobs or bend the rules to benefit wealthy owners…
By the way, Ken, does the LA Times note that the roof had been leaking for quite a while and refused to fix it? That the Regency employees had jury-rigged tarps to catch water and funnel it to large trash containers? As well as government employees, I think we can add newspaper reporters to the list of people who are taking it easy on the job.
LA Times today says extensive rain damage has forced the theater to close indefinitely. Draw your own conclusions.
That’s one of the big motivators for preservation: if they let the building go and then the construction doesn’t happen (empty lot where the National stood in Westwood anyone?), you’re left with a huge eyesore in your neighborhood.
It’s also interesting that the owners say it’s no longer viable as a cinema since they had someone who was renting the space and programming it. As long as they were collecting rent, what do they care? The new owner of the NuWilshire in my neighborhood was hot to turn it into retail and got his way. Now the building stands empty and is starting to collect tags, damage, filth…
The Los Angeles Times just ran an article on the Fairfax (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/14/local/la-me-fairfax-theater14-2010jan14). As the Times, like to drop articles here’s the text:
There has never been any shortage of drama at the Fairfax Theatre — not even counting the cinematic conflict that for 80 years has flashed across its screens.
Just months after the 1,800-seat Hollywood movie house opened in 1930, a pair of armed robbers burst into its ornate Art Deco lobby, used adhesive tape to bind and gag employees and made a wild escape with $437 — a fortune in Depression-era receipts.
A half-dozen years later, burglars were so common that the theater’s owners took to leaving a fake safe in their office to fool intruders. One angry thief who spent hours prying open the safe one night in 1937, only to find it empty, took revenge by looting a theater storeroom of 60 lightbulbs, cartons of cigarettes from the lobby snack bar and postage stamps from the office.
Then there was that police raid in 1969 that resulted in the arrest of actors performing a nude scene on the Fairfax stage and led to the shutdown of the Los Angeles debut of “Oh, Calcutta!”
But now the action at the venerable theater at Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue shapes up to be a fight over whether the Fairfax itself lives or dies.
The longtime owner of the building that houses the theater and nine neighboring shops wants to gut the structure and rebuild it as a combination retail and residential complex.
The exterior concrete Art Deco facade of the building would remain. But the theater would be removed, underground parking for 220 cars would be added and 71 high-end condominium units and a swimming pool would be built atop ground-floor retail space.
Even critics of the $30-million redevelopment proposal acknowledge that the planned residential addition, designed by Santa Monica architect Howard Laks, skillfully blends the old and the new.
They argue, however, that steps also need to be taken to preserve the interior theater space.
“It’s one of the last neighborhood theaters in L.A. It has a curtain tower, a full stage, dressing rooms. It’s got everything to become a legitimate live theater as well as a movie house,” said Gaetano Jones, a leader of a campaign to preserve the Fairfax.
Jones, an actor and singer-songwriter who lives nearby, said the Fairfax Theatre began as a single-auditorium venue for film screenings and live shows. Its current three-theater configuration would allow for operation of a movie house, a theatrical rehearsal stage and a full-production live theater stage, he said.
Jones has launched a friends-of-the-Fairfax group. Others groups supporting preservation include the Los Angeles Conservancy, Hollywood Heritage and several neighborhood organizations.
Hollywood Heritage, in fact, has prepared paperwork that would nominate the theater for designation for city cultural-historic landmark status. Brian Curran, director of preservation issues for the group, said it has agreed to delay filing the nomination papers until after a scheduled meeting with representatives of property owner Alex Gorby.
“The Fairfax Theatre is among the earliest Art Deco neighborhood theaters,” Curran said. “The theater’s cultural significance is wider in that it became a fixture that is very much attached to the postwar Jewish community, with use by synagogues and Holocaust films premiering there.”
Representatives of Gorby, a Santa Monica businessman who they say has owned the theater building and the attached shop spaces for four decades, counter that the era of the small neighborhood movie house is over.
In any event, they contend that the Fairfax has been so heavily remodeled and renovated that it no longer represents the original theater designed in 1929 by Vermont Avenue architect W.C. Pennell.
But a full environmental impact report is being prepared and it will detail any cultural and historic significance that is attached to the property, pledged Ira Handelman, a governmental relations consultant who is a spokesman for Gorby.
Because of a lack of parking space and competition from new movie houses, the Fairfax Theatre is no longer viable as a business, Handelman said.
The theater’s current operators and merchants who operate nine storefronts in the building anticipate they have several more years before any redevelopment begins, said Lana Sterina, who for 11 years has owned a pharmacy next to the theater.
Maurice Marzouk, who has operated a 10-foot-square key shop in the building for 15 years, predicted the theater will avoid demolition. “C'mon, it’s not going to happen,” he said.
But a stalemate will just prolong merchants' anxiety, said Mike Monsef, co-owner of a shoe shop that has been in the building for 62 years.
“We don’t want to leave,” Monsef said from his store, where shoes are stacked in boxes on ancient shelving.
“But nobody is going to spend any money to improve or change things as long as we’re here on a month-to-month basis.”
C/O The Los Angeles Times
This is from the Larchmont Chronicle on 12/31/09:
http://tinyurl.com/yjmamub
No longer on the Regency website. Rest in peace.
The owner refuses to fix the roof and Regency can’t afford to do it themselves. A friend involved in theater preservation called it “demolition by neglect.” There are still a lot of people interested in saving this theater, but they need to act. Someone from the Mid City Community Council posted details of a meeting on the Friends Of The Fairfax Theatres Facebook page, and apparently no one showed up. The developers were there, however, and had their way unopposed. It’s still not over though; there will be more meetings before this is a done deal.
Insomniac Cinema sent out their monthly e-newsletter yesterday with the following:
“After 80 years of service to the fine people of Los Angeles, the Fairfax Cinemas has closed for good. Due to circumstances beyond Regency Theatres control, the Fairfax is now closed, forever :( 80 years ago people knew how great the Fairfax was. I still know. Fairfax Cinema(s) 1929 – 2010.”
Yep. All the Insomniac Cinema shows through March and beyond have been moved to Pasadena. It’s sad that it had to go (at least in terms of regular operations) this way — no one last farewell for those who wanted it.
It may be time to stick a fork in it. A call to the theatre’s recording line comes up with a “this number has been disconnected or is no longer in service” automated message.
Looks like the Fairfax will be closed until at least 2/25. All the previously-booked Midnight shows up to that point have been moved to the Academy in Pasadena. While that’s a shame on its face, it might be a good thing that Regency is feeling out the market for Midnights in Pasadena. With the Rialto no longer operating, the area hasn’t had this type of show in the last few years. And if the Fairfax does indeed end up closing, then it would be nice to not have to lose ANOTHER theater showing older films on 35mm in Los Angeles.
The original Fairfax theatre was a long house back before the triplexing. The theatre being built back in 1929, only got limited remodeling during the it’s life with Fox West Coast Theatres. When CinemaScope can out, the theatre’s screen did not get larger. Like wider theatres, it got smaller with the masking coming down from the top.
Ahhh, thanks so much, very interesting. So the smaller theaters are actually the two back corners of the real auditorium. That’s what I couldn’t figure out, as the main theater looked “normal”, it’s just that it’s “shorter” now. It does keep the aesthetics of cutting a theater up. Best of both worlds…
The two smaller theaters are the back of the old theater, turning the front into the main auditorium. Now there’s a long hallway that runs between the small auditoriums to reach the main. They also had to extend the projection room out over the small theaters to serve the main auditorium. It’s an interesting solution to turning a single screener into a multi-screen facility — one that avoids the problem of throwing off the symmetry by dividing it down the middle. Plus they still have one good sized screen.
What are the two smaller theaters carved out of? Was the main auditorium cut up into the three auditoriums, or were the two smaller ones carved out of other areas of the theater?
Closed for the next nine days, for repairs due to the recent rains in Los Angeles. I wonder if the owner will use this as the excuse to kick everyone out and start turning the building into condos.
From the LA Times today:
http://tinyurl.com/yaeo66p
“It is a poor example of the architecture of the time and style.”
So why are they saving the facade?
I’ve seen a movie there, so am familiar with the theater. It is NOT a poor example of a Roaring 20’s movie palace!
CURBED
“…—"Based upon preliminary research regarding the site, it has been
determined that the Fairfax Theater is not listed on the Federal, State or Local Register of Historic Buildings or Places. The building is not the work product of a master architect nor is it the masterpiece of the architect who designed it. It is a poor example of the architecture of the time and style. No notable events occurred at the theater…”
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There is a Facebook group for this theatre now:
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Here is another LAPL photo circa 1930s:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater2/00015284.jpg
Here is a circa 1940s photo from the LAPL:
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics35/00067272.jpg