Empire Theatre
From Fargo Filmmaking
The Empire Theatre, located at 415 DeMers Avenue in Grand Forks, North Dakota, is the city's last surviving downtown movie house. It showed movies under three different names from 1919-1994, and currently operates as the Empire Arts Center.
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[edit] About the Empire Theatre
[edit] Beginnings as the "New Grand"
It was the first theatre in Grand Forks constructed specifically for exhibiting motion pictures, all previous movie houses in town having been adapted from legitimate or vaudeville houses, or storefront businesses. In early 1919, there had been a fire in the old Grand Theatre (which had originally opened as a vaudeville theatre called the "Empire" in 1907, changed to the Grand in 1909, was later known as the Orpheum, and finally the Dakota Theatre before it was demolished in 1971). The management of the Grand decided to build an all-new theatre for showing movies, the "New Grand," while the old Grand was refurbished and reopened as the Orpheum Theatre under different management.
Opening night for the New Grand was November 10, 1919, and despite a severe blizzard that day, nearly all of its close to 1000 seats were filled (nearly 900 of which were on the main floor). The first program began with a live accordion recital on the small, seven-foot-deep stage, followed by a weekly newsreel (Kinogram), and the Paramount-Artcraft feature The Witness for the Defense. The theatre had its own five-piece orchestra to accompany the films, and later installed a small pipe organ, whose pipes and blower were located under the stage.
Throughout the 1920s, the New Grand (eventually dropping the "New" to be just the "Grand") was one of the town's three large movie theatres, its major rivals being the Orpheum and the Metropolitan Theatre (often known as "The Met"). Several smaller theatres (there were as many as eight Grand Forks/East Grand Forks movie houses operating at the same time in the early part of the decade) generally ran second-run movies, independent releases, and westerns.
After the Fargo Theatre upgraded its technology to the new Vitaphone sound process, it started advertising the innovation in the Grand Forks Herald when it played The Jazz Singer in early 1928. The Grand soon decided to follow the trend towards "talkies." On June 17, 1928 the Grand became the first Grand Forks theatre to convert to sound movies, starting with talking shorts before silent features. The Vitaphone "part-talkie" feature The Jazz Singer played in July, and the first all-talking feature, The Lights of New York, played September 24-27, 1928.
[edit] Major Remodeling into "The Paramount"
In early June 1930, the Grand closed for ten days for extensive remodeling. The stage was extended about an additional four feet from the back wall, covering the small but now-unecessary orchestra pit, and a new, larger, suspended screen was installed. The 9'x12' original, which had been painted directly on the plaster of the rear wall, was now partly obscured by electrical equipment for the sound system. The small projection booth at the rear of the balcony was also now enlarged to its front edge, so that it divided the balcony in half, 20 seats on one side and 30 on the other. Acoustic tile, painted with an art deco floral pattern, now covered the plaster walls, and there was a "washed-air" cooling system installed to lure patrons in from the summer heat. Films could be shown with sound on disk or sound printed on the film itself. The building reopened June 18 as the Paramount Theatre. Within a few years the Vitaphone disk equipment was removed, and all films utilized optical sound on film.
[edit] "The Empire" After More Renovations
The theatre remained the Paramount for another 25 years, with at least two different marquees during that period. In May 1954, the Paramount introduced another technological development in film exhibition to Grand Forks when it installed a CinemaScope screen, the largest indoor screen in the Red River Valley, as well as four-track magnetic sound. Gradual remodeling continued throughout the year, including adding a new street-level front of polished granite siding, enclosing the area around the boxoffice to make it part of a larger lobby, and moving the entrance from dead-center to the side previously occupied by a barbershop. On January 8, 1955 it changed its identity once more, when the huge new marquee displayed its new name, the Empire. The main floor auditorium seats were replaced in 1965 with those that are still in use today.
The Empire Theatre was by now the major downtown moviehouse, its sole rivals being the Dakota Theatre and the Forx Theatre most of the year, along with the Star Lite Drive-in Theatre during the summer. In 1968 the Cinema International on the south end of town became the city's premiere showplace, and the first local multiplex, the Plaza Twin Theatre, opened in 1973, also on the south end of town. The Dakota was gone by then, and with the opening of the Colony Twin Theatre near the University in 1978, the Forx also closed, leaving the Empire as the last theatre in downtown Grand Forks (although an independent bargain theatre called the Center Cinema had opened across the river in East Grand Forks in the mid-1970s).
By the late 1970s the Empire gradually fell into disrepair. Midcontinent Theatres acquired the building when it bought out the rival Plitt chain in 1986, and decided to close the theatre in January 1987. Six months later, however, Midco re-opened the Empire as a bargain theatre when the Center closed. In summer of 1993, the Empire switched back to full-price first-run movies, but closed for good on April 7, 1994 during its 75th continuous year of showing films.
[edit] From Movie House to Arts Center
On December 22, 1994, the Midcontinent Corporation officially donated the Empire to the North Valley Arts Council. NOVAC moved its offices into the building, and programmed occasional events while raising money for a thorough renovation. The projection booth was cut in half to make room for an elevator and an entry into what had once been used for the manager's apartment. The empty second-floor apartment, which had been used for storage since the 1970s, was gutted and turned into a modern office space now entered from the theatre instead of from a stairway to the street. The balcony was converted into a technical area with a lighting board, sound rack, and room for spotlights. Main floor seating was reduced to about 400 to make room for a full-size stage and a new orchestra pit. (Several more seats were eliminated when the sound booth was later moved from the balcony to the back row of the main floor.) The sturdy 30-year-old seats were reupholsted and repainted to match the auditorium's new color scheme, which preserved the 1930s floral wall design but repainted in new colors. The 1950s exterior granite facing was removed and replaced with dark brown bricks that matched the upper half of the building and approximated the style of its original appearance. However, the boxoffice still remained to the side to avoid losing space in the lobby, which now was enlarged to absorb the building next door. That building now provided extra lobby/gallery space, main floor restrooms, and a scene shop next to the stage. Its basement became dressing rooms and meeting space, and a hole was knocked into the Empire's basement hallway to connect the two buildings both upstairs and down. Partway through the reconstruction process, the Empire's main floor and basement were devastated by the disastrous flood of 1997. However, local arts patrons persevered and on March 27, 1998 the revitalized landmark reopened as the Empire Arts Center.
In 2002, the Empire separated itself from NOVAC and currently operates as an independent entity, although still as a nonprofit corporation. It initiated the Forx Film Fest that December, and occasionally programs movies, but the Empire primarily hosts a wide variety of stage and concert events, workshops, meetings, and art exhibits, as well as weddings and special events. Downtown activity has increased dramatically since the renovation of the Empire. In December 2007 the River Cinema 12, several blocks down the street in East Grand Forks, became the first new first-run movie theatre to open downtown in thirty years.
In 2005-06, the Empire building served as the primary location for the movie Music to My Ears, which was written with the theatre in mind and was co-produced by the Empire Arts Center. Its interior was also used for scenes in Dark Highways in 2003, and its basement tunnels were a key setting in Dangers from Within, shot in 2007. The theatre's exterior and marquee appeared in Working Nights and Pros and Cons.
[edit] External Links
- Empire Arts Center website
- Empire Theatre history site
