It's been awhile since I had something to post for my Revitalizing Brookline series. Today, however, I came across this article on the Post-Gazette. For those of you who don't want to follow the link, the gist is this: A 26-year-old man named Brian Mendelssohn who has been something of a mover and shaker in community urban redevelopment, has decided to build, from scratch, a big-screen second-run art house movie theater in Lawrenceville. The theater, to be called Row House Cinema, will also house a restaurant and craft brew beer pub.
Community theaters are enjoying something of a resurgence these days, although many are struggling to adapt to the new digital medium that's being required by all the major distributors. It's an expensive prospect, and it's causing financial difficulties for some theaters, who are facing the prospect of having to close their doors, not because business is bad, but because the major film studios won't lease them films on 35mm anymore, and the equipment to show digital "prints" is hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost. Some think that this is a move by the major film companies to put small neighborhood theaters out of business, and if that's the case, it's kind of failing, as more and more neighborhood theaters are finding the support of their community in gaining the funds to purchase the equipment. Mendelssohn is doing it right by incorporating it from the start.
However, I digress.
We have, right on Brookline Boulevard, a classic large-screen cinema building. The building was once the home to the Boulevard Theatre, which opened its doors in 1937 and was originally operated by Warner Bros. The theater was taken over sometime in the 40's by Circuit Management Corp. and ran into 1952, at which point it closed its doors as a theater and was run as the Cedars of Lebanon Banquet Hall (to this day, the Cedars sign still hangs on the outside). According to the Brookline Connection, the final showing was a double-bill: The Abbot-and-Costello films Noose Hangs High and Africa Screams.
The Cedars Banquet Hall remained in operation for the next fifty-plus years, until in the 2000s, CompuLink, Inc., moved in. CompuLink is something of a mysterious business--apparently a technology company, it has no website that I can find on the Internet, and there's precious little information about it out there. Nor do I ever see anyone going into, or coming out of, the building. Very strange indeed.
It's kind of like some creepy government conspiracy. How apropos for Halloween.
In any case, the building still stands, and by all reports still has much of the architecture of the original theater intact, as well as both old-style projectors in the projection room.
Why bring this up?
It's high time we had a community movie theater back in Brookline, that's why. While I'm sure CompuLink does good business, it does little for the neighborhood, and does it really need such a gigantic space on the Boulevard, when there are so many empty storefronts that could just as easily accommodate?
I don't think a first-run theater, showing all the current hits at $15 a pop would be sustainable. Rather, what the developer would aim for is to create an art house theater, a venue that shows foreign films, second-run and classic movies. Wouldn't it be great to be able to see Ghostbusters in the theater again? What about Back to the Future? or Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein? It's possible; the AMC theater at the Waterfront has been doing it on Wednesdays for ages, and the films sell well--there's a market for it.
While in the late 80's and 90's smaller theaters disappeared one by one from the landscape, there is a recent trend of them popping back up. Things go in cycles, and the time for neighborhood cinema is returning.
It would be really something to see someone move in, buy out CompuLink, and renovate/reopen that theater as a new community theater that could show second-run, third-run, and classic films. Similar to what we see in the Hollywood in Dormont, it could become a cultural and art house hub for the community. And since it would ostensibly be showing different films than the Hollywood, it wouldn't have to be in direct competition. It's precisely the kind of business that could give the local economy a kick in the pants, and nobody can even claim that it wouldn't succeed, because we haven't tested it for over sixty years.
And note I'm not saying this should happen at the expense of CompuLink. What I am saying is that a savvy developer would buy out the lease at a good, fair price, allowing CompuLink to move into a different space in the community. As I said, there are many that would likely suit the company just as well as, if not better than, the old theater, which could be put to a far better use for the neighborhood.
Had I the money, I'd do it in a second.
I'm sure there will be a number of nay-sayers who will claim it just wouldn't work, that they've heard it before, etc. But I say that a business like Cannon Coffee proves that there is room for a thriving cultural business district on Brookline Blvd. Sure, I've given them (and other local businesses) guff about their hours, but one cannot deny that the business is overall rather successful, and it's not entirely because Nate's a really good guy (though that's probably more than a little of it). No, there's definitely room in Brookline for quirky, cultural businesses.
Think on this: movie theaters by their nature tend to be open later. They also, by extension, draw crowds to the neighborhood later. A movie theater could become an anchor business that suddenly makes it much more viable for other small businesses to keep later hours. I personally think it'd be awesome to see an anchor business open late, that isn't a bar on the Boulevard. I was mentioning this to Sal while getting my hair cut this weekend: when the only businesses open after 8:00 are bars, your neighborhood has a problem to be addressed.
It's been pointed out time and again that there's just not a reason for businesses to stay open late--they get little patronage and it costs them money. But if there was an anchor, like a movie theater, that drew people of the less-shady and more family-friendly variety to the Boulevard later, that might change.
I think it's high time we had a neighborhood theater open on the Boulevard again. I wonder how I could get in touch with Mr. Mendelssohn to pitch the idea to him...