Tag: Oregon Historic Theatre Restoration

Oregon Historic Theaters: Highlights and Lost Footage

Posted on by Julia Havens

One nice pleasure from researching Oregon theaters has been reading the popular success stories. As we continue to move forward with understanding the results of our theaters’ needs assessment, we wish to highlight some of our findings. Here, we take a look at two theaters that have sustained operations and one theater forever lost.

Liberty Theatre, Astoria
Oregon Historic Theaters John Jackson Rodney Bohner CPW Community Planning WorkshopThe Liberty Theatre located in Astoria, OR is a place that is very dear to the people that live there. The theater offers a self-guided tour through its complex, and is considered a treasure my many. Built in 1925, the building housed a stage, Movie Theater, radio station, dance studio, and roughly two-dozen businesses. The Liberty quickly became a hub of entertainment for the area. It contributed to the community economically, culturally, and socially. Currently the Liberty stage is home to a number of events. These include the Astoria Performance Arts classical and operatic presentations, town hall meetings, and different national forums. The community has spent a lot of time in the past 10 years renovating and restoring the theater. It’s something they are proud of, as the theater is part of the town’s history and identity.

Majestic Theater, Corvallis
The Majestic Theater is a well known theater in the southern Willamette Valley region. Located in Corvallis, OR and opening in 1913, the theater has served the area as a movie theater for over a century. The interior of the theater is something to be marveled. Inclusive with 800 chairs in leather upholstery, mirrors, tiled entrances, three double doors in front, and an exit on each side the theater is fully loaded with everything a historic theater needs to be a success The towns Gazette-Times wrote an entire article on the grand opening of the theater and gave the theater a great review and promising endorsement. By offering live theater and live music, the theater keeps busy by offering over 200 events per year. Being one of the oldest theaters in the state, the movie theater has remained loyal its customers and continues to serve the community of Corvallis and the surrounding area.

Oriental Theater, Portland
Oregon Historic Theaters John Jackson Rodney Bohner CPW Community Planning WorkshopThe Oriental Theater, which existed in Portland, OR from 1927 through 1970, is an example of a lost cinema treasure. Due to lack of operational revenue, the theater was closed, demolished, and remains to this day as a parking lot. The theater’s life is captured in a vintage documentary available on YouTube. The short and somewhat obscure video (1,272 views at press time) tells the story of the fantastic theater. “Before the Dark: Portland’s Oriental Theater” takes us back among the revelry of New Year’s Eve 1928, when the theater opened its doors for the first time. As the name suggests, the theater displays elements from the Far East including life-sized elephant busts protruding from the walls. These and other sculpted plaster decorations maintained an exotic excitement. The loss of this gem is a reminder to the care required to preserve these architectural icons.

Link to video about the Oriental Theater: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oZ88y4i9BY

As we prepare recommendations and solutions to the difficulties facing historic theaters, it is important to examine both gains and losses. The Liberty and Majestic demonstrate the possibilities and diversifying theaters’ business model. In the case of the Oriental, the demolition demonstrates a break in the downtown fabric and the loss of an icon. Moving forward, our team hopes to identify paths to saving these threatened structures.

 

John Jackson Oregon Historic Theatres Community Planning Workshop CPWAbout the Authors: John Jackson is a Midwesterner turned West Coaster and a first year Community and Regional Planning Masters student at the University of Oregon. Growing up both in Chicago, Illinois and Lincoln, Nebraska, Jackson is an avid geographer who has taken his talents to the Pacific Northwest to study the craft of urban planning and the unique ways of land use, built environment, and transportation that U of O has to offer. In his spare time, he enjoys drumming, playing basketball, and working out at the campus recreation center. He is an active member of U of O LiveMove.

 

Rodney Bohner CPW Community Planning Workshop Oregon Historic TheatresRodney Bohner is a concurrent Master’s student in Community and Regional Planning as well as Historic Preservation at the University of Oregon. Originally from Pennsylvania, Rodney has worked on cultural resource projects in the Keystone state as well as Colorado, West Virginia, and Massachusetts.

 

Photo Credits
Google, Inc. (2014). Retrieved from Google Maps: www.google.com/maps
Krefft, B. Oriental Theatre. Retrieved from Cinema Treasures: www.cinematreasures.org/theaters/2728
Speer, D. (2013). Liberating the Liberty: Honoring the Liberty Theatre of Astoria, Oregon and Other Historic NW Theatres. Critical Dance. Retrieved from Critical Dance: www.criticaldance.org

Works Cited
Greiff, C. (Ed.). (1972). Lost America: From the Mississippi to the Pacific. Providence: Pyne Press

A Lucky Break

Posted on by Julia Havens

Oregon Historis Theatres Community Planning Workshop CPW

The opportunity to work on the Oregon Historic Theater Project with the Community Planning Workshop has inspired me to seek out and visit historic theaters every chance I get.

On a recent trip to Bend, Oregon, fellow teammate, Craig Wiroll, and I stopped by the Tower Theatre, an Art Deco Moderne style theater in the heart of downtown. While taking pictures of the neon marquee at sunset, we noticed a woman sitting at the front desk. We both knew that we had to go inside and ask her a few questions, it was too tempting not to!

We were in luck and found the woman extremely friendly and supportive of our Oregon Historic Theater[i] research project. She encouraged us to explore the space at our leisure and ask as many questions as our little hearts desired. We ventured into the grand theater immediately and, standing on the balcony, were in awe of the grandeur of the sprawling stage and intricate architecture.

THE TOWER THEATRE

Oregon Historic Theatres Community Planning Workshop Grabbing some pamphlets about the renovation and ultimate immaculate restoration of the place, I learned that the Tower Theatre is a historical community icon that the community has supported for decades. Originally constructed in 1940, the Tower Theatre delighted audiences with a wide variety of first-run films and live performances. As years passed, the rise in popularity of multiplex cinemas drove patrons away, forcing the theater to close its doors in 1994. The Tower’s story might have ended here, however a group of concerned citizens rallied to restore the theater to its original glory. Through community donations and support, the building was restored at a cost of $4.2 million and reopened on January 30th, 2004.

The inspiring story continues as we learn that the theater is still run on an enormous amount of financial support from the community. Not only do residents support the theater by volunteering to clean, and usher, and provide concessions, but they also purchase memberships that make up 20% of the theaters operations.

SOMEWHERE TO CALL HOME

The story of the resurrection of the Tower Theatre is an inspiring one, but it is not the only one. What I have discovered through my research is that every theater in Oregon, and in the country, has unique and important story to tell, and I feel that part of our job here at the Community Service Center is to broadcast those stories. Theaters are community assets; they are community treasures. As Tower Theatre Executive Director, Ray Solley, and Board Chairman, Matthew Bowler, observe in the Tower Theatre Foundations Community Report in 2009, “So much more than a building, the Tower Theatre has become a real community gathering place, an embodiment of everything that makes this not just somewhere to live, but somewhere to call home.”

[i] As part of the Community Service Center at the University of Oregon, students in Community Planning Workshop are partnering with Travel Oregon, Pacific Power, and Oregon Main Street to inventory historic theaters across the state, prepare a needs assessment of theaters, and develop marketing strategies to improve cultural heritage tourism.

 

Dana Nichols Community Planning Workshop CPWAbout the Author: Dana Nichols is a first year Community and Regional Planning student who enjoys cooking, gardening, and playing with her cat, Dinkus. Although she is a New Jersey native and could live off their delicious pizza, Dana would much rather be watching a Packer game in Wisconsin or sailing on a boat in Maine.