JimC
commented about
UA Galaxyon
Dec 13, 2005 at 1:34 pm
According to info I got last night from a former employee of the theatre, the staff was told that the Galaxy will close some time within the next two weeks. I havn’t been able to confirm this but I have no reason to disbeleive the person who told me this.
Did you happen to notice the original 1949 theatre intercom telephone on the far wall of the booth? Last night somebody surprised me with it as a birthday gift as I was working at a projection booth elsewhere in The City. I have a colletion of old telephones and I also have 35mm projection at my house so I’m going to hang this artifact from the Coronet in “a place of honor” right near my 35 projector. The Coronet’s projection booth will be totally stripped by next week. I’m negotiating for a few more items.
I was planning on attending the last show at the Coronet, but got called at the last minute to do a projection gig downtown. Ironically while riding the bus there, I bumped into the Coronet’s projectionst, who is a friend of mine, as he was on his way to his last night at work. He’s worked there for over 20 years, so naturally was pretty bummed out. (We’d had lunch earlier in the week and he was not looking forward to Thursday!)
Later that night I passed the CORONET on the way home. It was less than 2 hours after the last show- – and already all the doors and windows were covered up and there wasn’t a light on anywyere in the place. I passed by there again around 5am this morning (Saturday) and a pack of homeless people had already set up living quarters under the marquee in front of the doorway. What a sorry ending for such a great theatre.
I recently (Feb 2005) had the opportunity to tour the inside of the long closed UC theatre. My first impression upon entering the lobby was that things were not all that bad. But that was a temporary illusion. For some reason the lobby and concession stand area were in inexplicably good shape compared to the rest of the interior and auditorium which have pretty much been totally trashed. The fabric on the auditorium auditorium walls was torn & moldy. All the surround speakers had their cones slashed, and the wall sconce lighting fixtures were either smashed or partly melted from having something flammable poured on them. Nothing is left of the screen, or up the projection room. Parts of the dressing rooms under the stage were under several feet of water from recent heavy rains in the SF Bay area. I took some pictures, but there’s really nothing to show. It was painful to see such a sad end to such a former showplace.
I wish I were a little more computer literate.
I have a great book on the long-ago-demolished San Francisco FOX theatre which contains reproductions of many of the original blueprints, floor plans and other types of architectural drawings. (Along with about a hundred photos)
I assume that if I knew how, and had the right software I’d be able to do renderings of THE FOX similar to the great job Ed has done for THE GRAND.
HEY ED> I’m curious about two things:
1) Approximately how long did this project take you?
2) Did you the renderings totally from memory, or did you also have some documentaton or photos to help you.
They’re great; no matter how you did them. :)
First of all- – Great drawings!
Secondly- – There already IS a “SIM CINEMA” game.
Ironically I accidently stumbled across it on-line about a week ago.
In the game,you go through the whole movie making process from script through distribution and getting it into the right theatres.
Do a simple YAHOO or GOOGLE search on “SIM CINEMA” and you’ll get several hits on URL’s where you can download it. Have fun!
JimC/SanFrancisco
I hate to always come off sounding so cynical, but I have very little faith in San Francisco City government. There are so many ways to beat the system. One look at the history of decisions made by the Planning Dept and it’s pretty obvious that if you “grease the right wheels†you can get anything done.
Here’s an example that I witnessed first hand:
I once worked for a very large corporation that had been doing business in SF since the late 1800’s. They own at least half-a-dozen or more buildings throughout The City and the East Bay. If they wanted to do something, they “just did itâ€. And if they violated some regulation, they paid the fine. They just saw it as a cost of doing business. And because they were violating “regulations†and not “laws†nobody would go to jail or suffer any consequences. In the long run they found it was cheaper to just “pay the fine†than to deal with all of the paperwork, lawyers and bureaucracy of The City Government. And if The City gave them too much static about it- -they’d just threaten to pack up and move their business elsewhere, thus depriving The City of millions of dollars in tax revenue and putting thousands of people out of work. So they pretty much could do whatever they wanted.
Case in point: About 15 years ago they wanted to tear down one of their old buildings in SF and replace it with a new one. They knew the building had potential historical significance, but they didn’t want to have any “problems†with the neighborhood preservationists.
So here’s what they did:
First, they moved everyone out of the building and into their other offices.
Next they had the water and electric service to the building turned off.
Then they hired a bunch of those illegal-immigrant day workers that stand on street corners in South City looking for work to come into the building with sledgehammers.
They smashed holes in the walls. They smashed all the sinks and toilets in all the restrooms. They ripped out a lot of the electrical wiring and plumbing. They also smashed holes in the walls of and removed the doors from the emergency fire stairways. They also ripped out pieces of the fire sprinkler system.
The company then went to The City and declared the building “uninhabitable†and brought in a building inspector. Because the fire stairs and sprinkler system had been compromised the inspector declared the building “a safety hazard†and the company had no problem tearing it down. I’ve since heard that they used this tactic more than once, but I don’t know the other buildings involved.
The Goldman Institute On Aging has a lot of political political clout in this city. I have no doubt that they know how to “play the game†and who to shmooze and that if they want the building to come down, it will come down. Planning Department approval or not. It’s unfortunate but “that’s politics†and life in the the big city.
The ALHAMBRA is listed elsewhere on this web site, but to answer your question- – The ALHAMBRA was twinned, then un-twinned and then eventually closed and remained vacant for awhile. It was eventually converted to a helalth club/gym. So the building is still there and the exterior looks more or less the same, but the interior has undergone major remodling.
For those who have not already heard- – THE CORONET has received a mini-repreive. Apparantly the current film (Million Dollar Baby)is doing well enough that the theatre will remain open for at least another week, and possibly until the end of February.
But probably not much beyond that. The projection equipment, seats, concession equipment and other theatre fixtures have already been sold off and are scheduled to be removed ASAP after “the last show”– – whenever that is.
Libby-
I appreciate your enthusiasm and applaud your spirit in trying to save The Coronet. I by no means mean wish to discourage you from your efforts.
But there are some harsh realities:
>The Goldman institiute on Aging has owned the building since 2000.
> Planning commission or no planning commission, the Goldman Institute has informed the the present “tenant” of the building (UA) that they MUST be out by the end of the month.
>I’m not an expert on this, but I beleive the planning commission only has jurisdiction over something being built- – such as the proposed apartments. It has no jurisdiction over the demolition of the building. The “landmarks commission” has jurisdiction over demolitions and The Coronet, as much as I wish it were otherwise, does not have landmark status. I’ve heard this point of view from several sources and they could be wrong. I don’t pretend to be an expert in planning, demolition or city government, but the the “mission statement” on the SF Planning Commission Website seems to support the position of the the people who expressed this opinion to me.
> Over the past several days non-essential items and equipment not necessary for opeation between now & Sunday have already started being removed from the theatre & projection booth. I personally saw several boxes of these items late last night (Tuesday) as they were being moved into another theatre.
>In a recent SF Chronicle story The Goldman Institute made some comment about the buidling being razed by the end of the year. According to contacts I have who work at the Coronet, they say that Goldman has told them that they’d like to start tearing it down ASAP – – possibly as early as next month- so they don’t have to continue paying tax and insurance on the building.
I wish it were some other way- – and miracles do occasionally happen, but I think THE CORONET is toast. But don’t let me discourage you! Good Luck!
Fascinating info about Mr Poro. I was projectionist at the East Islip from 1971-1973. I remember both Mr Poro the elder, and his son who’s name I think was also Jim, and who helped run the place. I remember once when I inquired about the age of the building he told me that it had originally been some sort of military warehouse during WWI. The elder Mr Poro also had a thick photo album of pictures taken of the theatre over the years that he showed me once. I remember one photo in particular taken during a WWII scrap rubber drive. You got into the movies free that day if you brought some old rubber-goods you no longer needed. The photo showed a line of people with old automobile & tractor tires, rubber hoses,etc. stretching for at least a block down main street.
It was located next to a Church. Mr Poro would let the priests and nuns in for free and they’d sit alone up in the balcony by themselves when they came to watch a movie.
Up in the booth, they still had one of the original Western Electric ERPI sound sytems. It still worked, but was used only as a back up to the main 1940 vintage RCA sound system. The projectors were ancient silent film vintage “Simplex Standard"s that had been converted to sound by adding a sound head. They still had the hand cranks for the projectors in the parts cabinet in the booth! I’d heard that they had an old Vitaphone machine in the basement. I inquired about it and Mr Poro said he’d show it to me. But the room it was in was locked, nobody had been in it for at least 20 years and he couldn’t find the key. While going through old keys trying to open that door, we were able to get into an adjoining room that was filled a lot of old theatre-junk, including several cans of nitrate film that had decayed to a big glob of goop. I was able to see the vitaphone machine by shining a flashlight through a hole in the wall into the locked room we couldn’t open. When the theatre burned down Christmas Eve 1980, I rushed to it first thing the next morning to see if the old machines could somehow have been salvaged, or maybe I could at least salvage one of the projector hand-crands as a souvineer! But the entire theatre had completely burned out and collapsed. It was a cold morning and not only had the place burned down but now the ruins were a solid block of ice from all the water poured on it during the fire. Somewhere around here I have pictures of it.
JimC/SanFrancisco
I was the projectionist at The Farmingdale theatre from 1974 through 1982. The booth had Simplex E-7’s with Ashcraft lamps powered by a motor generator set. It had an RCA sound system, and it also had an old rack of AMEPX amplifers left over from a 1950’s stereo magnetic sound system that I was used as a back up sound system. Despite the age of the equipment it had been very well maintained. The Farmingdale had a very interseting air conditioning system. There was a huge air chamber in back above the stage in back of the screen. Huge blowers moved air over a network of pipes that contained cold water pumped from an underground well that was located under the theatre. The water then went to a very scary room located in the sub-basement of the theatre where it drained into what looked like a swimming pool. The there was no bottom in the pool (just dirt) so the water would eventually seep back underground to the well.
The auditorium ceiling was very high. The light bulbs in the fixtures above the auditorum were changed “from above” by accessing them from a network of catwalks. A lot of bats lived up in that ceiling! I was often the first one to arrive at for work at the theatre, and when I’d first go in and turn on the lights, the bats would fly out of the auditorum and back into the ceiling. In all the years I worked there, I only saw one fly out into the audience once during a show. They’d occasionally surprise me by unexpectedly flying around the projection booth. Never caused me any problem. I didn’t bother them, and they didn’t bother me.
“JimC”
According to info I got last night from a former employee of the theatre, the staff was told that the Galaxy will close some time within the next two weeks. I havn’t been able to confirm this but I have no reason to disbeleive the person who told me this.
Did you happen to notice the original 1949 theatre intercom telephone on the far wall of the booth? Last night somebody surprised me with it as a birthday gift as I was working at a projection booth elsewhere in The City. I have a colletion of old telephones and I also have 35mm projection at my house so I’m going to hang this artifact from the Coronet in “a place of honor” right near my 35 projector. The Coronet’s projection booth will be totally stripped by next week. I’m negotiating for a few more items.
I was planning on attending the last show at the Coronet, but got called at the last minute to do a projection gig downtown. Ironically while riding the bus there, I bumped into the Coronet’s projectionst, who is a friend of mine, as he was on his way to his last night at work. He’s worked there for over 20 years, so naturally was pretty bummed out. (We’d had lunch earlier in the week and he was not looking forward to Thursday!)
Later that night I passed the CORONET on the way home. It was less than 2 hours after the last show- – and already all the doors and windows were covered up and there wasn’t a light on anywyere in the place. I passed by there again around 5am this morning (Saturday) and a pack of homeless people had already set up living quarters under the marquee in front of the doorway. What a sorry ending for such a great theatre.
I recently (Feb 2005) had the opportunity to tour the inside of the long closed UC theatre. My first impression upon entering the lobby was that things were not all that bad. But that was a temporary illusion. For some reason the lobby and concession stand area were in inexplicably good shape compared to the rest of the interior and auditorium which have pretty much been totally trashed. The fabric on the auditorium auditorium walls was torn & moldy. All the surround speakers had their cones slashed, and the wall sconce lighting fixtures were either smashed or partly melted from having something flammable poured on them. Nothing is left of the screen, or up the projection room. Parts of the dressing rooms under the stage were under several feet of water from recent heavy rains in the SF Bay area. I took some pictures, but there’s really nothing to show. It was painful to see such a sad end to such a former showplace.
I wish I were a little more computer literate.
I have a great book on the long-ago-demolished San Francisco FOX theatre which contains reproductions of many of the original blueprints, floor plans and other types of architectural drawings. (Along with about a hundred photos)
I assume that if I knew how, and had the right software I’d be able to do renderings of THE FOX similar to the great job Ed has done for THE GRAND.
HEY ED> I’m curious about two things:
1) Approximately how long did this project take you?
2) Did you the renderings totally from memory, or did you also have some documentaton or photos to help you.
They’re great; no matter how you did them. :)
First of all- – Great drawings!
Secondly- – There already IS a “SIM CINEMA” game.
Ironically I accidently stumbled across it on-line about a week ago.
In the game,you go through the whole movie making process from script through distribution and getting it into the right theatres.
Do a simple YAHOO or GOOGLE search on “SIM CINEMA” and you’ll get several hits on URL’s where you can download it. Have fun!
JimC/SanFrancisco
I hate to always come off sounding so cynical, but I have very little faith in San Francisco City government. There are so many ways to beat the system. One look at the history of decisions made by the Planning Dept and it’s pretty obvious that if you “grease the right wheels†you can get anything done.
Here’s an example that I witnessed first hand:
I once worked for a very large corporation that had been doing business in SF since the late 1800’s. They own at least half-a-dozen or more buildings throughout The City and the East Bay. If they wanted to do something, they “just did itâ€. And if they violated some regulation, they paid the fine. They just saw it as a cost of doing business. And because they were violating “regulations†and not “laws†nobody would go to jail or suffer any consequences. In the long run they found it was cheaper to just “pay the fine†than to deal with all of the paperwork, lawyers and bureaucracy of The City Government. And if The City gave them too much static about it- -they’d just threaten to pack up and move their business elsewhere, thus depriving The City of millions of dollars in tax revenue and putting thousands of people out of work. So they pretty much could do whatever they wanted.
Case in point: About 15 years ago they wanted to tear down one of their old buildings in SF and replace it with a new one. They knew the building had potential historical significance, but they didn’t want to have any “problems†with the neighborhood preservationists.
So here’s what they did:
First, they moved everyone out of the building and into their other offices.
Next they had the water and electric service to the building turned off.
Then they hired a bunch of those illegal-immigrant day workers that stand on street corners in South City looking for work to come into the building with sledgehammers.
They smashed holes in the walls. They smashed all the sinks and toilets in all the restrooms. They ripped out a lot of the electrical wiring and plumbing. They also smashed holes in the walls of and removed the doors from the emergency fire stairways. They also ripped out pieces of the fire sprinkler system.
The company then went to The City and declared the building “uninhabitable†and brought in a building inspector. Because the fire stairs and sprinkler system had been compromised the inspector declared the building “a safety hazard†and the company had no problem tearing it down. I’ve since heard that they used this tactic more than once, but I don’t know the other buildings involved.
The Goldman Institute On Aging has a lot of political political clout in this city. I have no doubt that they know how to “play the game†and who to shmooze and that if they want the building to come down, it will come down. Planning Department approval or not. It’s unfortunate but “that’s politics†and life in the the big city.
The ALHAMBRA is listed elsewhere on this web site, but to answer your question- – The ALHAMBRA was twinned, then un-twinned and then eventually closed and remained vacant for awhile. It was eventually converted to a helalth club/gym. So the building is still there and the exterior looks more or less the same, but the interior has undergone major remodling.
For those who have not already heard- – THE CORONET has received a mini-repreive. Apparantly the current film (Million Dollar Baby)is doing well enough that the theatre will remain open for at least another week, and possibly until the end of February.
But probably not much beyond that. The projection equipment, seats, concession equipment and other theatre fixtures have already been sold off and are scheduled to be removed ASAP after “the last show”– – whenever that is.
Libby-
I appreciate your enthusiasm and applaud your spirit in trying to save The Coronet. I by no means mean wish to discourage you from your efforts.
But there are some harsh realities:
>The Goldman institiute on Aging has owned the building since 2000.
> Planning commission or no planning commission, the Goldman Institute has informed the the present “tenant” of the building (UA) that they MUST be out by the end of the month.
>I’m not an expert on this, but I beleive the planning commission only has jurisdiction over something being built- – such as the proposed apartments. It has no jurisdiction over the demolition of the building. The “landmarks commission” has jurisdiction over demolitions and The Coronet, as much as I wish it were otherwise, does not have landmark status. I’ve heard this point of view from several sources and they could be wrong. I don’t pretend to be an expert in planning, demolition or city government, but the the “mission statement” on the SF Planning Commission Website seems to support the position of the the people who expressed this opinion to me.
> Over the past several days non-essential items and equipment not necessary for opeation between now & Sunday have already started being removed from the theatre & projection booth. I personally saw several boxes of these items late last night (Tuesday) as they were being moved into another theatre.
>In a recent SF Chronicle story The Goldman Institute made some comment about the buidling being razed by the end of the year. According to contacts I have who work at the Coronet, they say that Goldman has told them that they’d like to start tearing it down ASAP – – possibly as early as next month- so they don’t have to continue paying tax and insurance on the building.
I wish it were some other way- – and miracles do occasionally happen, but I think THE CORONET is toast. But don’t let me discourage you! Good Luck!
JimC
Fascinating info about Mr Poro. I was projectionist at the East Islip from 1971-1973. I remember both Mr Poro the elder, and his son who’s name I think was also Jim, and who helped run the place. I remember once when I inquired about the age of the building he told me that it had originally been some sort of military warehouse during WWI. The elder Mr Poro also had a thick photo album of pictures taken of the theatre over the years that he showed me once. I remember one photo in particular taken during a WWII scrap rubber drive. You got into the movies free that day if you brought some old rubber-goods you no longer needed. The photo showed a line of people with old automobile & tractor tires, rubber hoses,etc. stretching for at least a block down main street.
It was located next to a Church. Mr Poro would let the priests and nuns in for free and they’d sit alone up in the balcony by themselves when they came to watch a movie.
Up in the booth, they still had one of the original Western Electric ERPI sound sytems. It still worked, but was used only as a back up to the main 1940 vintage RCA sound system. The projectors were ancient silent film vintage “Simplex Standard"s that had been converted to sound by adding a sound head. They still had the hand cranks for the projectors in the parts cabinet in the booth! I’d heard that they had an old Vitaphone machine in the basement. I inquired about it and Mr Poro said he’d show it to me. But the room it was in was locked, nobody had been in it for at least 20 years and he couldn’t find the key. While going through old keys trying to open that door, we were able to get into an adjoining room that was filled a lot of old theatre-junk, including several cans of nitrate film that had decayed to a big glob of goop. I was able to see the vitaphone machine by shining a flashlight through a hole in the wall into the locked room we couldn’t open. When the theatre burned down Christmas Eve 1980, I rushed to it first thing the next morning to see if the old machines could somehow have been salvaged, or maybe I could at least salvage one of the projector hand-crands as a souvineer! But the entire theatre had completely burned out and collapsed. It was a cold morning and not only had the place burned down but now the ruins were a solid block of ice from all the water poured on it during the fire. Somewhere around here I have pictures of it.
JimC/SanFrancisco
I was the projectionist at The Farmingdale theatre from 1974 through 1982. The booth had Simplex E-7’s with Ashcraft lamps powered by a motor generator set. It had an RCA sound system, and it also had an old rack of AMEPX amplifers left over from a 1950’s stereo magnetic sound system that I was used as a back up sound system. Despite the age of the equipment it had been very well maintained. The Farmingdale had a very interseting air conditioning system. There was a huge air chamber in back above the stage in back of the screen. Huge blowers moved air over a network of pipes that contained cold water pumped from an underground well that was located under the theatre. The water then went to a very scary room located in the sub-basement of the theatre where it drained into what looked like a swimming pool. The there was no bottom in the pool (just dirt) so the water would eventually seep back underground to the well.
The auditorium ceiling was very high. The light bulbs in the fixtures above the auditorum were changed “from above” by accessing them from a network of catwalks. A lot of bats lived up in that ceiling! I was often the first one to arrive at for work at the theatre, and when I’d first go in and turn on the lights, the bats would fly out of the auditorum and back into the ceiling. In all the years I worked there, I only saw one fly out into the audience once during a show. They’d occasionally surprise me by unexpectedly flying around the projection booth. Never caused me any problem. I didn’t bother them, and they didn’t bother me.
“JimC”