Comments from rogerscorpion

Showing 1 - 25 of 49 comments

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Eastwood Theatre on Jul 8, 2015 at 4:08 am

Jeffrey, it isn’t just ‘economics’(greed). It is because Houston has some of the most LAX preservation laws in the nation. San Antonio has some of the strongest. They have a refurbished theatre, The Majestic, in downtown, which has been converted into a live performance venue. Houston, though, couldn’t do that. We demolished our grand movie palaces in the early 80’s, to build more office space!

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Greenway Theatres on Dec 13, 2011 at 7:17 am

The Greenway was a Landmark Theatre & has, sadly, been closed for several years now.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Alabama Theatre on Dec 12, 2011 at 6:27 am

westawesta, don’t let your guard down. Fight as hard as you can. Weingarten’s only care about what hits their pocketbook. There’s been mention of Trader Joe’s moving into the Alabama. Most recently, though, the report is that murals have been removed & the floor filled in with sand & no mention of Trader Joe’s whatsoever.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Alabama Theatre on Jan 17, 2011 at 7:16 am

The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema company has shown some interest.
Even better, our Angelika Film Center, downtown, suddenly closed, about 2 months ago. Landlord disputes. I see a physical theatre needing a tenant & a living film company, needing a home.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Alabama Theatre on Sep 21, 2009 at 1:14 am

Oppinger, the Barnes & Noble manage said:

“The decision is less about sales than about offering
more at the new store. We’re able to add a full range of services
that we couldn’t retrofit into an old building like this.”

That means it’s still about sales. Perhaps not the sale of books, but the sale of services.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Alabama Theatre on Sep 20, 2009 at 6:20 pm

Sept 15th—it closed.

Weingarten’s Realty, the owner, issued a statement, meant to reassure the public, saying they have no intentions, of tearing down the theatre.

Interpreted, this means, they haven’t yet received an offer, which would make tearing it down, profitable for Weingarten’s Realty.

This does not assure us that they have intentions to NOT tear it down—or that they’d turn down any such offers.

We need stronger preservation laws here.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Alabama Theatre on Feb 10, 2007 at 8:40 pm

Yep. Gorgeous. A friend of mine manages the cafe.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about River Oaks Theatre on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:48 pm

Another action to take, if one is interested in saving the River Oaks & Alabama Theatres, is to contact the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance @ www.ghpa.org & see what they suggest. They’re involved in the fight.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about River Oaks Theatre on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:21 pm

Mina, on 9/10, you said a pic explained about the ticket box being in the Rocky ‘storage room’. What pic, what link & where is the ‘Rocky storage room’?

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about River Oaks Theatre on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:15 pm

Sorry about those repeat posts. My computer jammed up. It wasn’t doing anything, so I clicked ‘submit’ more than once. You’ll note they’re several minutes apart.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about River Oaks Theatre on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:13 pm

Sorry about those repeat posts. My computer jammed up. You’ll note they’re several minutes apart.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about River Oaks Theatre on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:07 pm

William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about River Oaks Theatre on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:06 pm

William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about River Oaks Theatre on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:02 pm

William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about River Oaks Theatre on Nov 18, 2006 at 1:40 pm

Thanx, William. Not very representative of the theatre, but it wasn’t an architectural marvel outside or anything. It WAS a very nice theatre inside—w/a smoking loge, in which the seats had ashtrays on the backs, so viewers could ash their cigs in them. The original intention of making it a twin screen has a little trivial interest, too. Funny, that, in the ad, it gives the phone # as ‘HO8-7948’. The ‘HO’ stood for ‘homestead’. Not too long after that, phone #s here, started using the numeric equivalents, on the phone dials. ‘HO*-7948’ became ‘468-7948’. Now it’s ‘713-468-7948’, due to the fact that we have 3 area codes in town now—or WOULD be, had the theatre not become a furniture store. it’s nteresting to see oshops in town, w/their phone #s long painted in their windows, which have never added their area codes.

Incidentally, the link you posted on 8/31, concerning

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Cine Ritz on Nov 15, 2006 at 8:36 pm

Cool. Looks just like it did, when I drove by last night.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Cine Ritz on Nov 15, 2006 at 6:27 pm

Jack—where’s the pic?

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Windsor Theatre on Nov 14, 2006 at 5:01 am

No prob, John.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Windsor Theatre on Nov 12, 2006 at 10:33 pm

You may recall that Weingarten owns the entire River Oaks Shopping Center—both sides of W. Gray. They floated a rumor, that they were tearing down the Black Eyed Pea restaurant & the rest of that part of the gorgeous art deco center—to build a multi-story Barnes & Noble. Public was pissed. The rumor includes the ROaks theatre possibly being razed for a highrise(they’re cluttering the area already)—so Weingarten could rent the space for more. the theatre is NOT doing badly.
We’re trying to get city council to strengthen preservation laws. Houston has some of THE weakest in the country.
Here: http://houstonist.com/

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Windsor Theatre on Nov 12, 2006 at 10:24 pm

Oh—no. Weingarten still owns them.
Prob is, w/the Alabama Bookstop, they had a lot of cross pollination w/Whole Foods & Cactus Records. Whole Foods moved out 2 yrs ago—in part, because Weingarten is a bottom-line company that refused to do some requested improvements. The Dailey brothers, who owned Cactus retired & shut down. Bookstop’s biz dropped off markedly. They’re still making a profit, but not as much as B & N want to. They want to pull out. Spec’s Liquor (which is BOOMING) wanted the Whole Foods space—w/improvements, which, as stated above—Weingarten can’t see happening. They’d rather sell to someone for a highrise.(end Pt 1)…………………………………..

..

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Windsor Theatre on Nov 11, 2006 at 4:56 pm

Well—when I went there, on Saturday mornings—it was a dance school. LOL.
Are you still in Houston? You know there’s a power struggle of sorts over the Alabama (Bookstop) & the River Oaks Theatre?

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Windsor Theatre on Nov 11, 2006 at 12:44 am

John—I took ballroom dance classes @ Dance City USA about 1963, during Junior High (translted to Middle School—for the youngsters), but didn’t realize that it was the same bldg I saw Hall & Oates @ around ‘80.
I saw The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Rollerball, Shenandoah &, best of all—Ice Station Zebra @ the Windsor. Wow! WRoatching that submarine navigating around those icebergs on that incredibly wide screen!!

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Majestic Theatre on Sep 15, 2006 at 1:02 am

Bill Bremer, if this theatre was built in ‘23 & it was the 3rd 'Majestic’ in town, & your gramps was treasurer of the first one—on Congress—where was the 2nd one? Any addresses or dates on the first 2? Why did they close?

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Galleria Cinema IV on Aug 23, 2006 at 12:50 pm

I saw Soylent Green (Edward G. Robinson’s last film) & Jaws there, too.

rogerscorpion
rogerscorpion commented about Metropolitan Theatre on Aug 3, 2006 at 2:13 am

According to the 8/3 Chronicle, “with the River Oaks Theatre threatened, more are joining the drive to change preservation laws.”.
US Rep Sheila Jackson Lee was in attendance @ the 8/2 City Council meeting, voicing her support for preservation.