The photo above was taken in the summer of 2000, when I saw the first "X-Men" at the Patio Theater on Chicago's northwest side. (The fourth "X-Men" movie, a prequel to the other three, opens today nationwide.) It was a huge second-run movie house (1,500 seats) that had never been split down into smaller screens like so many of its contemporaries (the Davis, Logan, Esquire, 400, Village, etc.), but it still did pretty good business and, even though it was old and well worn, it still had an unmistakable beauty to it.
The next year, the Patio shut down.
The theater's air conditioning had broken down and, for a theater as old as the Patio (first opened in 1927, according to the invaluable Cinema Treasures website), there were few people qualified to repair such a thing. (A friend/coworker who used to work in an old movie house himself assures me that the AC units for these buildings are massive, and that there are maybe half a dozen men in the country who could do the job.)
The Patio closed for "renovation" (so said the marquee) for weeks, then months, then years. It seemed the Patio was closed for good.
Then, last year, signs of life: the eastern corner of the marquee, which had been dinged by a truck, was repaired; the lobby was dusted off and repainted; the windows were cleaned. Could the Patio be rising from the dead?
Tonight comes the answer in the form of the Patio's grand reopening. It'll still be a second-run theater (the first film of its new life: "Thor"). The ticket price will still be comparatively cheap ($5). The renovation will continue. (The balcony is still closed until repairs are completed.) Even with the fresh paint job and reupholstered seats, it's still a well-worn movie house.
But it's back, after most folks (myself included) had written it off as yet another loss for the ever-dwindling Chicago theater population. And I'll be there tonight with both the Canon AE1 and the Kodak digital to document the event, smiling from ear to delighted ear.
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