Admiral Twin progress February 16, 2012
Posted by Ron Warnick in Businesses, Movies, Theaters.add a comment
On Thursday afternoon, on the Admiral Twin Drive-In theater‘s Facebook page, it said construction workers had started installing panels for the double movie screen at the Tulsa landmark.
Sure enough, they did. The gate was locked by early evening, but I shot this image over the fence:
The concrete structure below the screen skeleton will be the concession stand and rest rooms. It’s hoped the drive-in will be reopened by mid-summer.
The historic double-screen was destroyed in a fire in September 2010.
The drive-in first opened in 1951, and its second screen was built a year later. The Admiral Twin sits just off the older Admiral Place alignment of Route 66.
Even as the number of drive-ins in the United States dropped over the decades, the Admiral Twin continued to show first-run movies.
In addition to its association with Route 66, the Admiral Twin served as an inspiration during a scene in Tulsa native S.E. Hinton’s famous novel, “The Outsiders.”
Admiral Twin rising again February 1, 2012
Posted by Ron Warnick in Theaters.3 comments
Those who doubted whether the Admiral Twin Drive-In theater in Tulsa would rise again after a devastating fire in September 2010, take a look at this:
That’s a big concrete structure at the bottom, where the new concession stand and bathrooms will be. The steel skeleton of the big double screen is rising from that. These pictures were taken about noon Tuesday. A few more beams were added later that day.
I walked over to the concrete structure and shot this image of the inside:
More steel beams for the double screen were strewn around the Admiral Twin’s grounds. Clearly, more work will be done.
It’s doubtful the Admiral Twin will reopen in time for the usual beginning of the season in April. Word is that the theater’s owners are shooting for a July reopening instead.
The drive-in first opened in 1951, and its second screen was built a year later. Even as the number of drive-ins in the United States dropped over the decades, the Admiral Twin continued to show first-run movies.
In addition to its association with Route 66, the Admiral Twin served as an inspiration during a scene in Tulsa native S.E. Hinton’s famous novel, “The Outsiders.”
Manning’s Coffee sign being restored December 29, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Preservation, Restaurants, Signs, Theaters.2 comments
The historic Manning’s Coffee Store rooftop sign in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles is being restored, reported the Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch.
Manning’s Coffee went out of business in the 1960s, and the sign’s neon lighting hasn’t functioned for many years. Las Cazuelas restaurant now occupies the building.
The area is part of the North Figueroa Street corridor in Los Angeles, which contained Route 66 from 1931 to 1934 and again from 1936 to 1960.
Here is an image of the unrestored Manning Coffee Store sign.
According to the story, a cost-share grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program is being used to restore the sign. Community leaders and volunteers are covering the rest of the cost.
“It turns out, it’s kind of important in terms of signage history because it combines neon with opal glass, and there’s very few of those in existence,” said Amy Inouye of Future Studio. “As well as the fact that there’s not any signs like this from Manning’s that we know of at all on the entire West Coast.” [...]
Richard Ankrum, a neon restoration expert, is currently working on painting the sign and is scheduled to install the neon lights later this week. A note on the flyer for the relighting ceremony taking place at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 10, states that original materials will be used in the restoration and only missing and broken pieces will be replaced.
According to Future Studio, the Manning sign was erected in 1933.
The newspaper also says the groups consulted with the Museum of Neon Art to ensure that the original neon colors are used in the sign.
Nearby, the historic Highland Theatre rooftop sign was restored and relit to much fanfare in May.
Historic Albuquerque theater gets $1 million donation November 11, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Preservation, Theaters.1 comment so far
The Hiland Theatre in Albuquerque received a $1 million donation from a foundation to help restore the historic theater along Central Avenue (aka Route 66), according to the Albuquerque Journal.
The gift came from the Sydney & Andrew Davis Foundation. With that, the National Dance Institute of New Mexico has received $10.5 million of the $13 million needed to renovate the building, the newspaper said.
The first phase of construction is already complete, and 350 to 400 children now use five dance studios at the site after school and on Saturdays. The initial work included office space, locker rooms and restrooms.
The second phase – work is under way now – includes renovating the main theater space. [...]
The National Dance Institute, a nonprofit group, says its work helps students learn about nutrition, fitness and good school habits.
Andrew Davis was moved to see children from diverse backgrounds perform together through the dance programs. According to the New Mexico Business Weekly:
He urged attendees to experience the emotion of seeing 500 children from all kinds of backgrounds dancing at an NDI event.
“They’re happy and doing something as a unit, a team,” he said. “After you [see] this, you won’t just want to be a donor, you’ll beg to be.”
CinemaTreasures.org says the Hiland opened in 1950 and showed its final movie in 1995.
Tough miles ahead for old theaters, drive-ins September 26, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Movies, Theaters.1 comment so far
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune tells about an upcoming development that likely will lead to a rough era for drive-in theaters and older movie houses — digital film distribution.
According to the article, the Route 66 Twin Drive-In in Springfield, Ill., remains the state’s only digital-projection drive-in. Obviously, the SkyView Drive-In on Route 66 in Litchfield isn’t digital, and it’s probably safe to say the other surviving drive-ins on Route 66 — 66 Drive-In in Carthage, Mo., and soon-to-be-rebuilt Admiral Twin in Tulsa — aren’t digital.
Some stark data about theaters converting from film to digital:
Right now it costs about $75,000 per screen to convert to digital projection. That’s $150,000 (lower if he waits a couple of years for used equipment) for a weather-dependent outdoor theater open four or five months out of the year [...]
Film distributors commonly spend $1,200-$1,300 to strike a single 35 mm print, plus shipping costs. Digital delivery of a new release, by contrast, is more like $100, according to Cinedigm’s McGurk.
The studios have been steamrolling this one for several years while squabbling with exhibitors over the bill for the digital conversion tab. The industrywide conversion to digital has been financed by what’s called a virtual print fee (VPF) formula. Digital projection equipment costs between $50,000 and $80,000 per screen on average. The majority of those costs will be repaid to the theater owners by the studios.
But it takes up to a decade. And the studios are saying that after September 2012 they won’t be striking any new VPF deals. No deals, no subsidy. [...]
Right now North America has about 39,000 movie screens. (Worldwide estimates run between 100,000 and 150,000.) Cinedigm has already handled the digital conversion on 10,000 of those North American screens. In all, 22,000 screens have gone digital. That’s more than half, and that means 35 mm is going to have a very hard time hanging in there for very long, outside the realms of archives, academia and the most purist-driven of the revival and art houses.
That likely would also leave a bunch of small, historic theaters — such as the H & S Theater in Chandler, Okla., and the Odeon Theatre in Tucumcari, N.M. — out in the cold. (Incidentally, the Odeon’s been for sale for about $60,000 for months, with no takers despite being the only theater for at least 100 miles.)
The film industry is yet another sector likely to be severely disrupted by the rise of the Internet. With Netflix streaming, Amazon on-demand, and even Facebook eventually getting into the home-movie sector, it’s going to be difficult to see how many movie theaters will remain financially viable in the coming years.
Perhaps a few of these old film venues can survive by hosting concerts, showing classic films, or becoming beer-and-a-movie places like Alamo Drafthouse. But, in the meantime, you’d better enjoy them while you can.
Notes from the road September 8, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Books, Motels, Museums, Preservation, Restaurants, Road trips, Theaters.add a comment
I’ve got a few short items that I need to pass along. One is that the 100th Meridian Museum in Erick, Okla., received a new paint job a few weeks ago.
The museum can be seen pre-face-lift here.
Locals told us it was repainted by Jimmy Webb — a local painter, not the famous songwriter who hails from nearby Elk City.
The museum remains open only sporadically or by appointment. It tends to be overshadowed by the museum across the street to native son Roger Miller.
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We recently enjoyed coffee and homemade snacks at the new Circa espresso bar, attached to the Historic Route 66 Motel in Tucumcari, N.M. The Art Deco-inspired establishment has been open for a few weeks, and includes free Wi-Fi.
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The Chicago Tribune published a story about two historic fried-chicken palaces that are within a few miles of each other on Route 66 — Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket and White Fence Farm. Both places serve excellent food.
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The Tulsa World reports that the Blue Whale of Catoosa, Okla., is the subject of a new rock opera at Nightingale Theater in nearby Tulsa, titled “Blue Whale of Catoosa,” appropriately enough. The curtain will rise on the production for the next three weekends.
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Kevin and Nancy Mueller, the new owners of the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, N.M., are asking for photographs of the motel’s building during its Lillian Redman days or shortly after. The couple wants to return the structures back to its original pink coral color, and need older photographs to compare. They can be contacted at the website.
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Jim Hinckley, author of “Ghost Towns of Route 66″ and other such books, will go on a short book-signing tour next month. Stops so far include the Berwyn Route 66 Museum in Berwyn, Ill.; the Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Mo.; Route 66 Museum in Lebanon, Mo.; and the Powers Museum in Carthage, Mo. Go here to check the dates, times and future additions to Hinckley’s itinerary. Authors Joe Sonderman and David Clark will join Hinckley on part of the tour.
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A reminder: The new owners of the Boots Motel in Carthage, Mo., will hold an open house from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday, before the restoration efforts begin in earnest.
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Finally, here’s this video about the Ride for the Relay cancer fund-raiser that made a stop a few days ago at Afton Station in Afton, Okla.
Admiral Twin’s reopening delayed to 2012 August 20, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Movies, Theaters.add a comment
In what was increasingly apparent, the Tulsa World reported today that the Admiral Twin Drive-In theater would postpone its planned reopening to next year.
The historic drive-in’s fabled twin screens burned down during a fire in September 2010. After more than $30,000 in donations and securing a loan, co-owner Blake Smith announced the theater would reopen in August.
But save for some earth-moving, little activity could be seen on the Admiral Twin’s grounds all summer. The report tells why:
As a condition of new construction – the 60-year-old, nine-story wooden screen tower went down in flames last Sept. 3 – co-owner Blake Smith had to prove that the drive-in site was not located in a floodplain. Until that happened this month, he couldn’t get a building permit.
Until he got the building permit, he couldn’t order the steel for the new fire-resistant tower, and until he bought the steel, it couldn’t be fabricated for assembly of the two-sided tower.
“I don’t know when we’re opening now, but we finally got our permit, and we finally got our steel ordered, and (surveying determined that) we’re not in the floodplain,” Smith said with a sigh. “It seems ridiculous, and I don’t want to jinx things, but I have to think we’ll be having a grand opening in April of 2012.”
Smith said he hopes to test the new double screens late this year.
It’s probably just as well the Admiral Twin didn’t reopen this summer. Oklahoma is enduring what almost certainly is the worst heat wave in recorded history, and attendance at outdoors events in the past few months has suffered.
The drive-in initially opened in 1951, and the second screen was built a year later. Even as the number of drive-ins in the United States dropped over the decades, the Admiral Twin continued to show first-run movies. The Admiral Twin sits very close to the Admiral Place alignment of Route 66 in Tulsa.
The Admiral Twin also was used in a prominent scene in the movie adaptation of “The Outsiders.”