Auditorium Seats (pre-2012)

 

Vintage Rocky Horror

 

Cover of the first newsletter for the No-Picnic shadow cast

October 1991

 

 

Covers from two programs for the Midnite Hour shadow cast

15th Anniversary (05/15/93) & Halloween 1993

 

Hosted Theme Nights

(taken from Halloween 1993 program)

 

(taken from Halloween 1993 program)

 



Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane re-release

05/03/91

Best Popcorn

Box Office/Concession Stand (1983 - 2012)

I've previously mentioned the bizarre box office/concession stand combo that was constructed in the Uptown around 1983 and remained until its decimation in 2012, but now here is photographic documentation! For the record, these pictures were taken in 1998, given the Love & Death on Long Island poster in the background.

For an added bonus, here's a look at the Lagoon Cinema lobby from around the same era, complete with candy scoops, Safety Last picture, and a Big Lebowski bowling shirt that currently resides in the Uptown basement.

The Lost Renovations: Found!

Upon searching through Minneapolis' property info website, new information regarding the 'lost' renovation has come to light. Namely, that it was actually two separate occurrences.

Building Permit 524099, issued 9/13/83, called for the installation of a ticket booth & snack stand combo. It was cleared on 7/3/85, so it's pretty safe to say that the bizarre lobby design was created shortly thereafter. Then, on 5/10/93, Permit 597847 was issued to replace loose and deteriorated brick on the northwest corner of the building (this was cleared almost immediately on 6/18/93). This would be part of the renovation alluded to on the minneapolismn.gov site and a 1991 movie theater rehabilitation guidelines document:

 "During the 1990s, the owners acquired the plans from the 1939 renovation and restored the lobby and the second floor lounge areas. In addition, the auditorium’s side walls are adorned with re-created carved murals of Acousti-Celotex." (from minneapolismn.gov)

"The Uptown is presently undergoing an extensive renovation...the owners have acquired the plans from the 1939 renovation of the interior and are restoring the marquee and recreating the Art Moderne and Neo-Baroque design elements of the lobby and second floor lounge areas." (from Neighborhood Movie Theater Thematic District: Guidelines for Rehabilitation, July 1991)

So, then, the mural recreation took place at this time. Because it didn't involve the lobby renovation, the theater likely never had to close its doors, hence why the Star Tribune didn't find it worth writing about. Mysteries solved, except for why the murals switched auditorium walls. The world may never know.

On a sort-of related note, the sales history of the Uptown was also discovered through this search. Lagoon Enterprises sold the area to Uptown Properties on 3/1/83 for $300,000, and then Cann LLC sold to Lagoon Partners LLC on 12/10/09 for $1,399,999. The more you know...

UPDATE (2.25.16)

Looks like the 80s renovation can be pinpointed to 1984:

When [Michael] Bender walked into the theater last fall, he was appalled. For too many years, bad management had let things slide to such an extent that the Uptown had become a pigsty. Smoking and drinking at shows was standard, giving the theater an earthy bar-charm that clashed with what was on the screen. The bathrooms were unusable. Kids snuck in. It was a mess, he says...

Bender and Landmark Theaters, which owns the theater, decided to do a little bit of construction. The result, though not quite finished, is impressive. With a healthy splash of lime paint, a few dozen feet of neon tubing and a lot of mirrored glass, the Uptown Theater has been transformed into a veritable art deco palace. The result has been a quieter, cleaner crowd. (from Twin Cities Reader, 5.15.84)

The Lost Renovation

The picture above is the final glimpse of the Uptown Theatre lobby stand prior to its current renovation. This destruction took place the night of January 31, 2012, after the old Uptown closed its doors for the last time.

The area was a bizarre architectural decision. Instead of a separate box office and concession stand, the design linked them together in an almost-circle, with the box office terminal at the top, concession terminals on the bottom left and right, and the popcorn popper in the center. There was little room provided for employees during busy shows, and the concession registers were so far away from each other, many customers never realized that both existed.

When this design was implemented is unknown. Occasional articles from the 80s and 90s vaguely refer to a renovation occurring either around 1983 or 1989. The latter date can be ruled out easily, as mention of it would have certainly appeared in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Yet there is nothing about it in their online database. However, this collection only goes back until 1986. In order to find proof of a 1983 event, the newspaper's microfilm had to be gone through month-by-month in the archives of the University of Minnesota. Daily movie showtimes were checked between the years between 1982 and 1985 - it's unlikely that the theater would've stayed open during a renovation that led to this circular design - but no gap was found. It is, then, a mystery.

The lobby was not the only strange occurrence of this untraceable event. The two murals inside of the auditorium were re-created, but in much less detail. Not only that, but the murals were placed on opposite walls on which they originally resided. The only clue of this design comes from an inscription found on the right wall stating that the re-creations were done by Mary Sue Wall-. Unfortunately (as previously mentioned in this blog), the auditorium stairs put in with the 2012 renovation cut off the second half.

This mystery renovation is the last major chunk of Uptown Theatre history that is not covered in this blog, and it's rather unfortunate that the investigation has hit a dead end. If any readers have information - or even memories - of when this change might have occurred and the reasons behind it, please leave a comment below.

Until then...

UPDATE (10/25/15)


"Minneapolis HPC asked the City Council for a one-year moratorium on building permits or demolition of six neighborhood movie theaters, including the Hollywood, to provide a chance to study their historic significance. The moratorium won preliminary approval on April 18, 1989, at a Minneapolis Zoning and Planning Committee meeting, where the 600-name petition was also presented. Ten days later, the Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to  support the one-year moratorium.” (from History of the Hollywood Part 2: Failed Development Efforts & Falling Plaster)

"HPC previously received from the City Council a demolition and building permit moratorium for the six theaters while the study and designation process takes place. During this moratorium period, HPC developed a working relationship with two theater owners (Avalon and Uptown) so that previously planned minor remodeling and necessary maintenance work could proceed." (from Preservation Matters, Feb. 1990: "Minneapolis Seeks Heritage Designation for Six Movie Theaters)

Given this information, it is possible that the renovation - occurring in the early 1990s - was not widely publicized because the Uptown had a deal to work on renovations during the moratorium while others did not.

(thanks to Katelyn Davidson)

Saga of the Split Screen

 

(photo taken from City Pages)

Facing declining ticket sales throughout the 1990s, innumerable single-screen movie theaters across the country were turned into multiplexes by splitting their balconies into one or two extra screens. While the Uptown Theatre thankfully evaded this fate, it spent this particular decade in limbo as Minneapolis citizens and City Council battled Landmark Theatres on the issue.

The beginnings of this story can be traced back to 1989, where a March 15 City Council meeting heard the proposal of the Uptown Village. This complex, a mere half-block from the Uptown Theatre, would include eight screens in a building also holding 30,000 square feet of retail space and 10,000 square feet of office space (East Calhoun News, v.16, no.11).

While this idea did not make it very far, a scaled-down proposal was taken into effect. Landmark Theatres proposed a $1.5 million, five-screen, 806-seat theater tentatively titled the Uptown 5. It was actually then-Uptown manager Bob Strong who wrote to Landmark in 1991 and proposed the new theater name to instead be the Lagoon, not only because it was on Lagoon Ave. and, 'the name conjured up romantic images with vaguely mysterious undertones that would not be found in a larger mall theater', but also because it was the original name of the Uptown in 1916. This would reinforce the affiliation between the two cinemas and both acknowledge and respect its heritage.

Not everyone was thrilled about this development. The Calhoun Area Residents' Action Group and the East Calhoun Community Organization both worried about potential traffic and parking problems, including Landmark only offering one hour of free parking to customers, and also that the planned one-story brick structure was 'uninspired' and 'ugly.' There were also rumors that City Council shut out opposition for development and fast-tracked this particular plan, which they of course objected to (Southwest Journal, Oct. 1993). Regardless, the Lagoon Cinema opened on February 16, 1995. (East Calhoun News, March 1995).

Despite this addition of five new screens in the Uptown area, though, talk of splitting the Uptown into three screens commenced. The plan was to wall off the balcony from the main theater and split it into two auditoriums of 100 seats each. This proposal did not make it very far at the time, as the City Council's Zoning and Planning Committee quickly approved a plan to limit growth of movie theaters in Uptown. Seven screens were already within two blocks of each other (including the Suburban World) and the owners of Calhoun Square were also talking with potential theater tenants, so the committee placed a two-and-a-half-year moratorium in order to study the effect of additional theaters on traffic and parking problems (Star Tribune, 6/21/95).

Talk continued of the split screens during this moratorium. The Twin Cities Reader reported in 1996 that while splitting the Uptown was proposed due to declining ticket sales, the Uptown was consistently among the top five highest-grossing theaters in Landmark's chain from 1989 to 1995 (unlike Landmark's other split-screen theaters, Denver's Mayan and Milwaukee's Oriental). Former manager Bob Strong also pointed out that the 300 extra seats in the balcony turned mere openings of films into legendary, gala events, and that, "For a lot of people, a theater is more than a revenue-producing engine. It's magical. It goes beyond profit and loss" (Twin Cities Reader, 11/20/96).

Discussions erupted once the moratorium was over in 1998. Over thirty people and a TV news crew showed up to a public forum meeting at Painter Park on February 10 with City councilmembers Lisa McDonald and Lisa Goodman, along with Landmark Theatres representatives Paul Richardson and Bert Manzari. Richardson called the Uptown a 'dinosaur' that rarely sells out any longer, stating that admissions have dropped from 200,000 in 1993 to 138,000 in 1997. The representatives then listed their previous experience with these sorts of renovations with the Mayan and Oriental, and explained that they could bring in more independent films and keep them in town for longer with additional screens. They also explained plans to restore the Uptown's murals, marquee, and pylon sign and add in a cappuccino bar (Uptown Association. v.20, no.1, Southwest Journal 2/25/98, East Calhoun News March 1998).

Another meeting was held for Lowry Hill residents on March 10, where citizens found it suspect that Landmark had this proposal in the works for three years and while they presented dropping attendance figures, they also sent more crowd-pleasing movies to the Lagoon Cinema while placing the less-attended experimental films at the Uptown. Councilmember McDonald proposed a zoning amendment that would require Landmark to provide up to 200 new parking spaces to alleviate parking concerns, but the company would only agree to 20 (Southwest Journal, March 1998).

These issues were presumably never cleared up to City Council's satisfaction, as the auditorium ultimately avoided the split. Rumors circulated again around 2012 during the building's extensive renovation, but this never came to be. The Uptown remains a single-screen movie theater.