The Ramova gets a lifeline — and the Avalon Regal and Central Park theaters should be next

Now that city officials are helping turn the long-shuttered Ramova Theater into a dining and live entertainment center, how about this for the next coming attraction: reviving the Avalon Regal Theater at 79th and Stony Island and the old Central Park Theater in North Lawndale.

Closed since 1986, the Ramova, 3518 S. Halsted St., is in line for a $22.9 million renovation that would turn around the decaying movie house. The city, which owns the Ramova, will convey the building to new owners, One Revival LLC, and contribute $6.64 million in tax increment funds to the project.

The save would bring new life to a disused stretch of Halsted Street in the Bridgeport neighborhood. And along with the planned $75 million restoration of the North Side’s Uptown Theater — aided by almost $50 million in public subsidies — the move is a pronounced shift away from the days when the city heartlessly wrecked its spectacular movie houses with barely a thought toward reuse.

Now it’s time to put the spotlight on the Avalon Regal Theater, 1645 E. 79th St., and the former Central Park Theater, 3531 W. Roosevelt Rd. The two historic movie houses are worthy of preservation and reuse.

Getting the lights back on

Built in 1927, Avalon Regal, though ragged on the outside, has a largely intact interior that is among the most dazzling lobby and auditorium spaces in the country. The 2,500-seat theater — originally called the Avalon — was bought in 1985 by Soft Sheen hair products founder Ed Gardner and his wife Bettiann and renamed the New Regal Theater, honoring the legendary (and demolished) Regal Theater at 47th and King Drive.

The theater’s current owner, Jerald Gary, bought the building out of foreclosure for $100,000 in 2014, but is struggling to raise the capital — and City Hall assistance — needed to restore and program what should be an architectural and cultural asset of national importance. Earlier this year, rapper Kanye West promised to give $1 million toward the theater’s reopening, but we’ve seen little evidence of that pledge.

The mayor’s office, and the city’s Department of Planning must pull together with Gary and figure out a way to get the lights back on.

Same for the old Central Park Theater, an important West Side building that is vacant and increasingly dilapidated. The terra cotta and red brick building was the first mechanically air conditioned building in the world when it opened in 1917.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the 2,800-seat Central Park was the first major theater designed by the architectural firm of Rapp & Rapp, who later designed the Uptown, Oriental, Riviera, Tivoli, Chicago and other theaters. A restored Central Park Theater should be critical to city efforts to re-start Lawndale’s west Roosevelt Road, a once important commercial strip that has mostly been fallow since the 1970s.

Why it matters

Fixing the Avalon Regal and the Central Park theaters will be expensive but worthwhile endeavors. In their prime, the theaters were neighborhood and regional gathering places; spots that put their communities on the map and contributed to their vitality.

If buildings like this can be saved in Bridgeport and Uptown, similar faded gems in neighborhoods of Avalon Park and North Lawndale also deserve a second act.

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