Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 1, 1993 TAG: 9305010057
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
So he was disturbed when he learned that the Pulaski Theater had showed its last movie at the end of 1991, and mentioned his concern to neighbor Betty Sadler.
"And it sort of mushroomed from there," Henderson said of the effort to save the theater.
The newly organized Friends of the Pulaski Theater has asked the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors to delay a decision on the building's future until the end of September. The owners donated the building to the county after it closed.
"We would like to make this one of the showpieces of Southwest Virginia," Henderson said Friday.
"You realize, too, if this one's torn down, there'll never be another theater in Pulaski," he said. "We're thinking of it as sort of a civic auditorium."
Community meetings, musical programs and other cultural events could be staged in a renovated theater, he said.
"We don't want a Band-Aid job on this. We want it to look in pristine condition like it did when it opened in 1911," he said.
Originally known as the Elks Theater, it was designed for live stage productions from the vaudeville era, not for movies. Its stage was cut back when it became a movie house, and Henderson said the friends group would like to rebuild that.
It became a store for a few years, when its facade and interior embellishments were stripped away. Henderson said a goal is to restore the original facade but admitted, given financial constraints, that "this may be `phase two.' "
The county plans to approach the Town of Pulaski about sharing costs on patching the roof, at least until the building's future is decided.
A renovation will be expensive, and the county is in no financial shape to pay for it.
"It's going to take a lot of corporate help," Henderson said, as well as private donations "to pull this off."
The facility reopened in the late 1930s as a movie theater, which it remained until it closed in 1991.
Other than a leaky roof, there is nothing structurally wrong with the building, Henderson said. It can seat 800 people, and the company that made the original seats still exists and would be able to refurbish them.
"We just feel like this could be such an asset here, with the antiques and the art," he said. "The acoustics in there are terrific."
by CNB