Hidden treasures......

I was talking with my father last night. About theaters in the town I grew up in. I worked in a lot of them, so know a lot about them.

But I knew of one that was so hidden, hardly anyone knew about it. I guess I couldn't find anything really relevant on Google today, but it seems it was called the Variety Theater.

I later learned that Abraham Lincoln gave an important speech there.

And I discovered it by accident.... Had a paper route, and the door was open, and it was amazing.

You have to imagine a ten year old boy wandering in there, because... it was a discovery, hey.... This wonderful place one flight up no one had ever HEARD about? And it felt incredibly sad... The store beneath used it as storage. Lots of boxes, and dust.

I didn't know it at the time, but it was very European in design. Loges all around the sides, gilded, incredibly beautiful. So my jaw literally DROPPED. So I gaped.

It was like wandering into some sort of story that ended badly very long ago, and was enchanted somehow. I sometimes still dream about it. It could have been made a jewel again, and I can imagine the lights, the audiences, the excitement....

Except... the building got razed.

That's what they do, right? History means NOTHING to 'Murkins. They replicate it in some sort of Disney World. It REALLY means nothing to those in 'power'.

I spent ten years of my life working in a cinema. It was historical. It was the last 'palace' to be built before the Depression in 1929. After the opening, they thought they would have to fold, and they asked the staff ot forego two week's pay, and they would repay them.

And they all did, and it was good.

Solidarity, hey.

The building was Art Deco. People used to come and photograph it, it was a landmark.

It was innovative for its' time.... It had a cooling system for the dog days in August.... god-awful turbines I hated to turn on because I was sure they would blow me up, they had such rachitis... and would turn on the most ginormous fans I have ever seen.... and they would blow cool air into the place. But before... the ice men came in. There were holes under the rows, and they put the ice in there. And the fans came on, and blew it over the ice, and it was... whaddaya know, air conditioning.

I loved that building, I loved discovering all the secrets, it was phenomenal.

Just the lobby would bowl you over. Huge, high, chandeliers to die for... staircases you'd want do ascend and DEscend in gala clothes. If you were feeling nostalgic one day...

It was a palace. And I sort of lived there for ten years.

There are so many stories I could tell.

And today?

It's a parking lot, they razed it to the ground. I cried. It was home to me. But I know... somewhere in the front cellar, my name is in spray paint in yellow, so I'm there. We used to keep up the paint on the letters for the marquee, you see, and sort of messed around. We were young... once.

This is indicative of so many things I find wrong. If something is your heritage, you treasure it, and don't turn it into Disney World, or fuck it up.

So yes, it makes me sad.