Funeral for the Paramount

 If you are looking for a touchy feely kind of essay about the tearing down of the Paramount Theater downtown, go someplace else.  I can give you a list of sites bemoaning the “end of an era.”  At long last the single biggest eyesore remaining in downtown Youngstown is being torn down.  Not only was it decrepit ugly, it was unsafe and unsanitary.  I hated even walking by it.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am an historic preservation type.  Originally built by locals as a vaudeville house in 1918, the then named Liberty Theater was purchased by Paramount Pictures in 1929 which installed state of the art “talky” equipment. Its single architectural feature was its ornate terra cotta façade, a hallmark of many downtown Youngstown buildings,  which was covered up by an appropriately garish marquee and verticle sign. At the end of the day, of all of the Youngstown downtown movie palaces built during the 1920’s and 30’s, the Paramount was the worst of the bunch.   In my lifetime it was always dumpy!!!!  It had a crappy, postage stamp lobby, and the theater itself was singularly unimpressive.   

Youngstown had three grand movie palaces:  The Warner, The State, and the Palace.

For those of you who don’t know, Youngstown was home to the Warner Brothers…yes…the movie Warner Brothers.   They were a Polish family who settled in Youngstown around 1890.  They were purveyors of everything from soap to meat.  In the very early 1900’s they purchased a movie projector and traveled around the area showing movies in tents finally building a permanent theater in New Castle, PA, about 15 miles from Youngstown.   They began producing movies in 1907, moving their company to California in 1918. 

The Warner Theater (The DeYor Performing Arts Center)

The Warner brothers built the Warner Theater in Youngstown in 1931 as a memorial to Sam Warner.  It is a stunner.  In 1968 the Powers family dramatically came up with $250,000.00 just minutes before the wrecking ball was to swing, saving the building as a performance center for the Youngstown Symphony.  Power Auditorium has since morphed into The DeYor Center for the Performing Arts with its pavilion expansion and the addition of a second 900 seat auditorium to compliment the 2100 seat main hall. 

While the Warner Theater preservation was a success story, the State and the Palace theaters weren’t so fortunate.  The State Theater was built in 1927.  Although the front of the theater was on the main drag, the entrance was small and the lobby was long and narrow as the theater was actually the next street over.  Frontage was expensive back then!!  The State Theater hosted all of the late 1950-60’s blockbusters like Ben Hur, Dr. Zhivago, Funny Girl…selling reserved seats!!!!  Although not as ornate as the Palace and Warner, it boasted continually updated state of the art projection and sound equipment as movies became more sophisticated.  Going to see a movie at the State was a big deal.  The narrow terra cotta entrance to the State has been preserved…with an empty lot behind it!!

The real tragedy was the demolition of the Palace Theater in 1964.  Built as the Keith Albee Palace in 1926, also a vaudeville house, it was beyond stunning.  It was lavishly appointed with imported crystal chaneliers, marble staircases, private boxes and fireplaces.  It was located on the square.  The lobby was done in tones of antique white, red and gold.  Go to Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh to see what it looked like.  It closed in 1964 after only 38 years of operation.  Its ornate appointments were auctioned off and the building torn down to build a new downtown tower… I mean parking lot. 

The Palace Theater

Which brings me back to the Paramount!!!  There has been a lot of hand wringing and boo-hooing about its demolition.  It is sad to see another piece of downtown history knocked down, but time to move on.   The real scandal is it has taken so long.  It sat decaying right smack dab in the middle of the downtown for years.  God knows what vermin lived in the structure.  Up until recently there was a restaurant next door…really?   

Meanwhile, in Columbus, in the same amount of time it has taken to get the Paramount demolition to this point, they built a downtown mall with four major retail anchors…they closed the mall…they tore the mall down…and now built a city park with residential development surrounding it.  All of this while the Paramount rotted in Youngstown.

Downtown Youngstown is improving in ways I didn’t think possible just a few years ago.  It has become a regional Mecca for the arts, restaurants and night clubs.  Go downtown at night and there are people everywhere.  The Palace, the State, and the Paramount are gone (sob); but the Covelli Center, the DeYor,  Stambaugh Auditorium,  the Butler. the Oakland Theater, the Victorian Playhouse, the Rust Belt Theater, the Western Reserve Ballet.  the newly named School of Performing Arts and Communication with its Spotlight Theater at Youngstown State University, and the newly renovated Mahoning Valley Historical Society building  are leading the charge into the future.    

For Youngstown, my hometown, I am glad to bury the dead and join the living.