Strand Theatre in Uphams Corner, Dorchester
- Thread starter Ron Newman
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Ron Newman said:
We don't want to demolish neighborhood landmarks. We want to allow the market to do its job and find the best use for land. It certainly should not be a municipality's job to own a theater.
Ron Newman
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Leave it purely to market forces, and you'll probably end up demolishing the Strand and building a one-story CVS with a big parking lot in front. It has happened in many other cities. That is not an improvement.
An example of a successful city-owned theatre, in a place with very strong civic consciousness: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
An example of a successful city-owned theatre, in a place with very strong civic consciousness: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
Scott
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http://www.dotnews.com/strandedinuphamscorner.html
From the Dorchester Reporter:
Stranded - in Uphams Corner?
The Theatre's chronic problem: If you fix it, will they come?
January 18, 2007
By Patrick McGroarty
News Editor
Ed Grimes remembers walking from his childhood home in Uphams Corner to see double features at the Strand Theatre for 25 cents. It was the 1950s, and the Strand had already been one of Dorchester's premier movie houses for decades, since it opened in 1918. That's right, movie houses, plural; there were others in Fields Corner, Codman Square, Franklin Park. Movie theaters were a recreational destination for the working class immigrants who lived in Dorchester's expanse of three deckers. The Strand was one of the prettiest, and also boasted some impressive live performances by the likes of Fred Allen (a Dorchester native), Milton Berle, and the Count Basie Orchestra.
But the movie industry changed after the 1950s, and so did Uphams Corner. Grimes, now executive director of the Uphams Corner Health Center, remembers how social unrest and unsavory lending practices, like "red lining" ate away at the neighborhood's largely Irish-American, blue-collar corps in the 1970s. Since then, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cape Verdeans, Haitians and other newcomers &endash; including a strong gay and lesbian community- have re-populated the surrounding neighborhood.
In 1979, then Mayor Kevin White made a late-administration move to revive the theatre, which had been closed for a decade, with a renovation and plan to lease the theatre to a non-profit management company called the Harriet McCormack Center for the Arts for a dollar a year. This model reached its full potential in the 1990s under the ambitious leadership of Geri Guardino, who transformed the dilapidated but stately movie house into a performance destination of respectable regional repute and an important cultural centerpiece for the neighborhood.
Today the Strand is floundering again &endash; the victim of several years of mismanagement and mounting maintenance problems &endash; while Uphams Corner appears poised for another identity change. The non-profit foundation that ran that Strand through an agreement with the city- which owns the property- dissolved in 2003 amid allegations of financial incompetence.
Now fully under the control of City Hall- and run by a city-appointed director- the Strand has been stabilized over the last two years. But it's also been in a relative state of hibernation, with fewer shows and community events using the venue and assuming, until last week's State of the City address, a very low profile.
During his annual address last week, Mayor Thomas Menino made the Strand's revival a key plank of his new year message, drawing the curtain on plans to renovate the theatre using $6 million in initial improvements with a larger renewal to follow.
Neighborhood leaders like Grimes say the plan, largely rehashed from a previous effort that went dormant a year ago, has commendable potential, but only if combined with the kind of nuanced strategy that helped the theatre flourish as a cultural center under Guardino in the mid-1990s and as a bustling movie house in the first half of the 20th century.
Current plans for the theatre, as confirmed this week by Julie Burns, director of Arts and Tourism for the city of Boston, include an initial investment of $4 million to make basic improvements to the theatre's infrastructure (heating, plumbing, dressing room and box office upgrades) during a seven to nine month closure that will begin at the end of this month. The goal is to follow that with $2 million to be requested in the city budget for fiscal year 2008.
During the closure, Burns and a re-assembled Strand Theatre Task Force will balance wooing private investors to contribute to a total renovation that could cost $25 million with developing a strategy for managing the theatre and marketing it to both performers and audiences.
"I think the concept for programming plans are to offer a mix of events, acts, shows, and programs that meets the demographics not only of Uphams Corner but of the surrounding community," said Burns.
The mayor told the Reporter last week that the Strand is part of his 'larger vision' for Uphams Corner, and indeed, several ongoing projects herald the beginning of drastic and potentially uplifting change for the neighborhood: The $100 million Kroc community center on Dudley Street, being spearheaded by the Salvation Army; a new CVS slated to move into the now closed America's Food Basket; a potential large mixed-use development on land along West Cottage Street owned by Hal Cohen, president of Uphams Corner Main Street; and renovations to the Fairmount Commuter Line that could transform it into subway-style rapid transit.
But even more frequent train service might not offset a chronic lack of parking around the theatre, a challenge that has blunted the enthusiasm of past Strand boosters.
The Urban Nutcracker, a Bostonian's rehashing of the classic holiday ballet, was staged at the John Hancock Hall in Copley Square this past season rather than at the Strand for the first time in its six-year history. Anthony Williams, founder of BalletRox, who mounted the production, said that on top of a past dispute with theatre management and years of headaches related to the theatre's poor condition, scarce parking was a primary reason that his board recommended the move downtown.
"I hope whatever the city does with the Strand Theatre they somehow create parking for patrons," said Williams. "Right now if there's a snow storm right before a show or something, they would have to come by the T. You just cut down on the number of people willing to do that."
While the downtown theater didn't have the same stately character, the results were evident; the Nutcracker ran for five additional, sold-out performances at Hancock Hall and twice as many people saw the show as in any previous season.
Guardino said that during her tenure, which pre-dated the Nutcracker's arrival at the Strand, her staff and hired security personnel would help direct cars to the lots on Ramsey Street and the two banks along Columbia Road.
"There was no magic to it. It was hard work," said Guardino.
Mayor Menino, Burns and the task force have pledged to return that hard work to the theatre; but a successful formula will include an equal amount of vision.
Leaders in Uphams Corner are talking about how best to use the Strand in a changing Uphams Corner, and Grimes already has one idea.
"There might be a successful link between the Strand and UMass-Boston, which is something that was discussed back in the 1970s," said Grimes. "The university could use it as a venue for their various arts programs, and work with the community in the theatre arts," said Grimes. "It could be a real rich cultural mix."
According to Drew O'Brien, vice chancellor at UMass-Boston, the university had not been approached by the task force. But he said the possibility of such a relationship, similar to that between Boston University and the Huntington Theatre on Huntington Avenue, was intruiging.
"I think it's a possibility because while we have the curriculum, while we have the interest from students and faculty, we don't have the facilities," said O'Brien. "The possibility of partnering with them in some way would be a progressive investment, a youth investment. The Strand is a neighbor that we'd really have to consider."
From the Dorchester Reporter:
Stranded - in Uphams Corner?
The Theatre's chronic problem: If you fix it, will they come?
January 18, 2007
By Patrick McGroarty
News Editor
Ed Grimes remembers walking from his childhood home in Uphams Corner to see double features at the Strand Theatre for 25 cents. It was the 1950s, and the Strand had already been one of Dorchester's premier movie houses for decades, since it opened in 1918. That's right, movie houses, plural; there were others in Fields Corner, Codman Square, Franklin Park. Movie theaters were a recreational destination for the working class immigrants who lived in Dorchester's expanse of three deckers. The Strand was one of the prettiest, and also boasted some impressive live performances by the likes of Fred Allen (a Dorchester native), Milton Berle, and the Count Basie Orchestra.
But the movie industry changed after the 1950s, and so did Uphams Corner. Grimes, now executive director of the Uphams Corner Health Center, remembers how social unrest and unsavory lending practices, like "red lining" ate away at the neighborhood's largely Irish-American, blue-collar corps in the 1970s. Since then, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cape Verdeans, Haitians and other newcomers &endash; including a strong gay and lesbian community- have re-populated the surrounding neighborhood.
In 1979, then Mayor Kevin White made a late-administration move to revive the theatre, which had been closed for a decade, with a renovation and plan to lease the theatre to a non-profit management company called the Harriet McCormack Center for the Arts for a dollar a year. This model reached its full potential in the 1990s under the ambitious leadership of Geri Guardino, who transformed the dilapidated but stately movie house into a performance destination of respectable regional repute and an important cultural centerpiece for the neighborhood.
Today the Strand is floundering again &endash; the victim of several years of mismanagement and mounting maintenance problems &endash; while Uphams Corner appears poised for another identity change. The non-profit foundation that ran that Strand through an agreement with the city- which owns the property- dissolved in 2003 amid allegations of financial incompetence.
Now fully under the control of City Hall- and run by a city-appointed director- the Strand has been stabilized over the last two years. But it's also been in a relative state of hibernation, with fewer shows and community events using the venue and assuming, until last week's State of the City address, a very low profile.
During his annual address last week, Mayor Thomas Menino made the Strand's revival a key plank of his new year message, drawing the curtain on plans to renovate the theatre using $6 million in initial improvements with a larger renewal to follow.
Neighborhood leaders like Grimes say the plan, largely rehashed from a previous effort that went dormant a year ago, has commendable potential, but only if combined with the kind of nuanced strategy that helped the theatre flourish as a cultural center under Guardino in the mid-1990s and as a bustling movie house in the first half of the 20th century.
Current plans for the theatre, as confirmed this week by Julie Burns, director of Arts and Tourism for the city of Boston, include an initial investment of $4 million to make basic improvements to the theatre's infrastructure (heating, plumbing, dressing room and box office upgrades) during a seven to nine month closure that will begin at the end of this month. The goal is to follow that with $2 million to be requested in the city budget for fiscal year 2008.
During the closure, Burns and a re-assembled Strand Theatre Task Force will balance wooing private investors to contribute to a total renovation that could cost $25 million with developing a strategy for managing the theatre and marketing it to both performers and audiences.
"I think the concept for programming plans are to offer a mix of events, acts, shows, and programs that meets the demographics not only of Uphams Corner but of the surrounding community," said Burns.
The mayor told the Reporter last week that the Strand is part of his 'larger vision' for Uphams Corner, and indeed, several ongoing projects herald the beginning of drastic and potentially uplifting change for the neighborhood: The $100 million Kroc community center on Dudley Street, being spearheaded by the Salvation Army; a new CVS slated to move into the now closed America's Food Basket; a potential large mixed-use development on land along West Cottage Street owned by Hal Cohen, president of Uphams Corner Main Street; and renovations to the Fairmount Commuter Line that could transform it into subway-style rapid transit.
But even more frequent train service might not offset a chronic lack of parking around the theatre, a challenge that has blunted the enthusiasm of past Strand boosters.
The Urban Nutcracker, a Bostonian's rehashing of the classic holiday ballet, was staged at the John Hancock Hall in Copley Square this past season rather than at the Strand for the first time in its six-year history. Anthony Williams, founder of BalletRox, who mounted the production, said that on top of a past dispute with theatre management and years of headaches related to the theatre's poor condition, scarce parking was a primary reason that his board recommended the move downtown.
"I hope whatever the city does with the Strand Theatre they somehow create parking for patrons," said Williams. "Right now if there's a snow storm right before a show or something, they would have to come by the T. You just cut down on the number of people willing to do that."
While the downtown theater didn't have the same stately character, the results were evident; the Nutcracker ran for five additional, sold-out performances at Hancock Hall and twice as many people saw the show as in any previous season.
Guardino said that during her tenure, which pre-dated the Nutcracker's arrival at the Strand, her staff and hired security personnel would help direct cars to the lots on Ramsey Street and the two banks along Columbia Road.
"There was no magic to it. It was hard work," said Guardino.
Mayor Menino, Burns and the task force have pledged to return that hard work to the theatre; but a successful formula will include an equal amount of vision.
Leaders in Uphams Corner are talking about how best to use the Strand in a changing Uphams Corner, and Grimes already has one idea.
"There might be a successful link between the Strand and UMass-Boston, which is something that was discussed back in the 1970s," said Grimes. "The university could use it as a venue for their various arts programs, and work with the community in the theatre arts," said Grimes. "It could be a real rich cultural mix."
According to Drew O'Brien, vice chancellor at UMass-Boston, the university had not been approached by the task force. But he said the possibility of such a relationship, similar to that between Boston University and the Huntington Theatre on Huntington Avenue, was intruiging.
"I think it's a possibility because while we have the curriculum, while we have the interest from students and faculty, we don't have the facilities," said O'Brien. "The possibility of partnering with them in some way would be a progressive investment, a youth investment. The Strand is a neighbor that we'd really have to consider."