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Sad over the impending loss of a local theatre.


70sPercy'sPet

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I'm distraught, but hopeful for the future.

A lovely little art deco theatre, one of only two art deco buildings in my province and the very few in Canada, perhaps even North America and beyond, is slated to be demolished in short order.

I've just returned from a council meeting where the they said they could not do anything to help us. A local businessman has bought it, and plans to make an office building. When there are many empty office buildings in the downtown area.

Anywhere else, this wouldn't have been an issue. It would have been designated heritage and saved.

My grandmother performed in operettas there, and my mother practically lived there every weekend.

It has been closed since 1999. The previous owner was childhood friends with my grandmother and even called me in 2002 when I was interested in saving it, but I had neither the means nor a viable business plan to purchase it and do it myself.

In 2004, a cooperative was going to buy it, and it was agreed, but the owner thought the $189,000 wasn't enough so it was sold at silent auction. In May, this business man put in a bid and bought it. Turns out the owner was never fond of it, she called it an albatross.

Had I only known all this before, the group may have come together before and saved it, although, maybe not, since there was no political or commercial support for it even in 2004. However, the Facebook group, "Save the Vogue Theatre" is now 4,500+ strong. There is also a web site. We obtained over 2,000 paper petition signatures. All for naught.

The Vogue was structurally sound, she just needed some cosmetic work.

People wonder why there is outmigration of young people from this place. This is one good reason. If not for my Zep head boyfriend, and a plan B a little bird told me about, I'd be gone also.

I so wish I could (have) ask(ed) (one of) the Zep boys to help, but that would be dreaming of the grandest scale, and while I hate to be pessimistic, I am also realistic. That would be impossible.

I have made a video, and so has another lady who was on the first cooperative. Mine is in the Related Videos to hers, but I will post both links here.

& The Vogue Movie Night (aka Project Charlie). I'm the foolish one wearing a skirt in -10 degrees centigrade. The camera zooms in on me at about 1:08... I appear somewhere about :40 & again at 1:00. My video doesn't have me in it at all.

Thank you for reading.

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Have you contacted any of the people that were involved in the save The Ridge and Stanley theatres in Vancouver. I wish I could post a link but ..... they may be able to help you with some of the political manoevering that you need

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Have you contacted any of the people that were involved in the save The Ridge and Stanley theatres in Vancouver. I wish I could post a link but ..... they may be able to help you with some of the political manoevering that you need

Well, sadly, I fear it's too late... this business man has been carrying out seats yesterday... he plans to demolish it this week or next. Which will be expensive and release asbestos into the air.

He plan on putting a tribute wall in the lobby of his new office building. I guess it's something...

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Hi all,

Well, sadly, I fear it's too late... this business man has been carrying out seats yesterday... he plans to demolish it this week or next. Which will be expensive and release asbestos into the air.

He plan on putting a tribute wall in the lobby of his new office building. I guess it's something...

I'll say this:once it is gone you will never get it back,period.

Same is being consider for Wrigley Field and Fenway Park,a few building in my home town,...

Doesn't Canada have asbestos laws???? :blink:

KB

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That's too bad. I hate when they do that then put a big ugly modern building with grey metal siding and green tinted glass windows in it's place. They've done the same thing on my university capus- they levled the old engineering building a few years back. That was a shame because it was a lovely old building in need of just a bit of repair.

I also can't stand it when rich business men buy up farms or empty dunes along the lake and put up houses for the rich. <_< I had a friend who was forced to move because his farm was bought by a developer to put up a gated community for yuppies.

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Well, sadly, I fear it's too late... this business man has been carrying out seats yesterday... he plans to demolish it this week or next. Which will be expensive and release asbestos into the air.

He plan on putting a tribute wall in the lobby of his new office building. I guess it's something...

That's too bad. Maybe this will turn out to be a catalyst for saving venues , theatres and historical homes in the future.

I've watched Vancouver lose too many historical structures. Some have been saved but , too many have been lost. I can't imagine San Francisco without the old streetcars and heritage homes. Well that's what has happened to Vancouver , save a small section of the city. I'm not against progress, and I believe in employment. I do think however that both can be achieved with a little common sense. It does however take political will and that is where your group comes in. Continue expressing your view and become politically aware of what you have to do to save futher structures from being destroyed. Come up with a solution, otherwise you won't be listened to by the politicians. Like it or not, you're gonna have to convince them that it's in they're best interests.

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Well, sadly, I fear it's too late... this business man has been carrying out seats yesterday... he plans to demolish it this week or next. Which will be expensive and release asbestos into the air.

He plan on putting a tribute wall in the lobby of his new office building. I guess it's something...

Hmmm, I would think that by law they would have to remove the asbestos first before demolition. That's what I used to do for a living and the asbestos had to be removed before any demo.

And I feel your pain as I was a kid in San Francisco when they tore down the grand, beautiful Fox theater on Market Street. :(

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:( Looks like plan B has also been scrapped. Sigh. There are a few ideas kicking around, maybe he'd give us one of the empty lots he didn't use for the office building so we can build something from the ground up.

Or there's another old building in the north end that houses an arts and crafts centre and whatnot, that we may be able to convert to a theatre, sort of. Just not quite going to be the same, though.

Thanks for reading and commenting, though. All the info is at savethevogue.ca and the Facebook group "Save the Vogue Theatre". If anyone knows anyone with money who would like to invest it, now is the time. Money is the only way to talk to this business man... we wanted to raise $400,000. He bought it for something like $150,000 to $189,000.

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:( Looks like plan B has also been scrapped. Sigh. There are a few ideas kicking around, maybe he'd give us one of the empty lots he didn't use for the office building so we can build something from the ground up.

Or there's another old building in the north end that houses an arts and crafts centre and whatnot, that we may be able to convert to a theatre, sort of. Just not quite going to be the same, though.

Thanks for reading and commenting, though. All the info is at savethevogue.ca and the Facebook group "Save the Vogue Theatre". If anyone knows anyone with money who would like to invest it, now is the time. Money is the only way to talk to this business man... we wanted to raise $400,000. He bought it for something like $150,000 to $189,000.

Maybe Bill Gates can help or the people who keep the Paramount theaters going.

The company I worked for in San Francisco tore down the Haight Theater that we used to go to as kids.

:(

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it sucks when classic theaters are knocked down. it seems like there's never anyone with money with a sence of nestalga that can take over. and fix it up, or that maybe the present owner can revamp and move forward. i worked at a theater in the 70's that had became a movie theater. but there was an actual stage, where there was live acts, musical, and plays...i moved away, and at some point they sold it and made it aparking lot for the bank... just like in the song. "they paved paradice, and put up a parking lot". joan biaz must have been thinking of "the Grand Theater".........................

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Actually, this theatre also had a stage, my grandmother performed in operettas there.

Funny, we had a theatre across the street one time called the Paramount.

I'm not sure if plan B will ever be enacted, so though I'd like to mention it, I can't.

Oh, and wasn't it Joni Mitchell who sang Big Yellow Taxi? See my "From:" :)

Empire Theatres runs an old theatre in Halifax called the Oxford, but they don't like running single theatres, so that's why we didn't mention it to them. They only bought it when Cineplex/Odeon/Famous Players had to get rid of their smaller theatres.

But, the Oxford plays independent and second run films, which is what our group wanted, among live performances.

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I hate when people do this. There are some buildings that would be beautiful if they would put a little work in them instead of demiolishing them. It's no wonder the world is how it is. It's just becoming all buisness.

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That is quite a shame. The thing is, people who do care just about never have as much money because they're not really interested in exploitation. Politicians are concerned with keeping as many things out of the public eye so they can already have their pockets lined and the deal done by the time anyone realizes and asks what the hell is going on. They and the developers have a stranglehold and a circle jerk. It seems to be the same everywhere.

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  • 2 weeks later...

She was levelled yesterday. :'( :angry:

The level of coincidences in my life lately have been almost too unbelievable to call them coincidences.

One of the most recent posts in the Facebook group said, "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot."

To which I replied, "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone..."

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Aye. Thank you... I wish I didn't have to learn that at 29.

We had all the evidence that it could work, but it didn't matter. They clung to the belief and perpetuated the lie that she was completely rotten, and we didn't try to do anything for a decade, and most believed them. The previous owner herself never wanted anything done with it, she had liked the other theatre that was across the street more. Oh well. Just one more dream dashed.

A part of myself foolishly believes that, when the original owner rang me in 2002 when she knew I was interested in doing something, as she was a good friend of my grandmother's, even though I'll be damned if I can remember most of the conversation, I think she would have been willing to let me do something, but I had neither a committee, a business plan, nor funding for it. If you don't have money up front, forget it. My grandparents did pretty well for themselves... I assume that she might have thought I had the means.

Shrug. Off to my phone monkey job now. No offense to anyone doing this kind of thing, I just don't particularly enjoy it.

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