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Preserving a cinema treasure

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published April 14, 2006

So, you like to catch your favorite flick on an uber TV screen while snuggled deep in the cushions of your down-filled sofa?

It's the way many of us watch movies these days:

At home.

But there was a time in America when you might have done things a little differently, plunked down a dime and watched the latest film in a grand movie palace, one with a vast single screen and an elaborate lobby, a place with a shining marquee and lavishly dressed ushers wearing fancy hats.

No doubt the movie would have been part of a much bigger extravaganza with singers and dancers, perhaps, and maybe newsreels or a Wurlitzer organ concert.

By the end of the 1920s, more than 90-million Americans flocked to the movies every week.

"Anyone under the age of 40 may have known nothing but multiplexes and theaters in shopping malls,'' says historian Ross Melnick, who, along with Andreas Fuchs, co-wrote Cinema Treasures: A New Look at Classic Movie Theaters. "But these local theaters once offered the best entertainment in the city, whether it was Lowe's Paradise in the Bronx or the Orpheum in Los Angeles.''

Melnick is a doctoral student in film at UCLA and creator of a Web site (www.cinematreasures.org) that tracks and indexes hundreds of movie houses across the country, providing the history and photos of many. He and Fuchs will speak at the Tampa Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday as part of a fundraiser for a newly formed volunteer group, Restoration, which is focused on keeping the historic theater in good repair.

"We were really excited when we got the call,'' said Melnick. "The Tampa Theatre really holds up the ideal: It's still showing movies and remaining true to its past.''

The goal of the 35-member group is to "expand awareness of the theater, its restoration needs, as well as generate funds for the actual restoration projects,'' said president Elinor Boushall.

Initial restoration projects include repairing damaged benches and statuary, conserving and cleaning deteriorated tapestries, and cleaning and preserving lobby light fixtures.

Group members will take on easier projects like cleaning. For everything else, they hope to raise enough money to hire the appropriate expert.

They plan to raise funds through an ongoing lecture series, bringing in speakers on such topics as history, architecture, art and antiques.

"We want to bring more people through our doors and let more people know this is a gem nationally,'' Boushall said.

The group is also raising money through the sale of limited edition gold and silver charms created by Allan Magnum jewelers. They will also sell gargoyles - patterned after the ones in the theater - created by Creatures of Delight in Ybor City.

The Tampa Theatre opened Oct. 15, 1926, and was designed by St. Louis architect John Eberson, a celebrated movie palace designer of the era, whose commissions included theaters in Miami, New York, Paris and Sydney, Australia. The Florida Mediterranean-style movie palace, which has touches of everything from Byzantine to Baroque, boasts 245,000 tiles in the lobby floor, 99 stars in the ceiling and 1,000 pipes in its mighty Wurlitzer organ. It cost $1.2-million to construct.

It was acquired by the city of Tampa in 1976 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places a year later. It was declared a Tampa city landmark in 1988.

"The ideology behind these theaters was that they provided the architecture of fantasy,'' Melnick explained. "The show began the minute you set foot on the sidewalks and saw the marquee.''

[Last modified April 13, 2006, 15:14:22]