It would have been better had I been alone, running through the great castle-like lobby like Belle through the Beast's haunted corridors in Cocteau's film, the gold faces of the women on the pilasters turning their heads to watch as I fled by.
But I was not alone, and the mystery and power of the room had been appropriated by the mundane event that had made it possible: Cong. Mike Quigley announcing his run for Chicago Mayor. The assemblage was dominated by his many supporters, but I also sensed that no small number like myself, while not unsympathetic, were there to take advantage of one of the rare opportunities to see inside a legendary but hermetically-sealed space, even if the only part of theatre not roped off was the soaring foyer with its tall columns and medieval ornament.
There are two parts to this story, one atmospheric, one historic.
The first is what it feels like to be in this space. That's why we're here. Forget for the moment it's purpose, truth be told, was to be a holding pen, a place to keep the bodies until seats opened up for them, to keep them entertained enough not to bust up the place out of sheet, impatient boredom. (It was said to be designed to empty and fill the theatre in under 16 minutes.) And what was the sedative of choice? Splendor and spectacle. A bigger guild hall than even the most prosperous knight had at their disposal, ending in a spectacular double stair leading, not to lesser seats, but a promise of heaven.
A symbol of a delirious era, it was a little more than a blink of an eye from when people like the Balabans and the Katzs graduated from running nickleodeons in converted storefronts to spending millions to build palaces for showing silent movies, elaborate stage show included, no extra charge. Movies had become a national mania, with spectacle both on-screen and off, in theaters of escalating excess. The largest and most extravagant, like the Uptown, personified the irrational economic exuberance of the "Roaring 20's," when Prohibition's straightjacket failed at its stated purpose of coercing a higher morality, merely stopping-up humanity's natural appetite for excitement until the pressure, mounted to bursting, found its escape valve in the "hospitality" provided by the explosively violent criminality of the gangs of Al Capone and his competitors.
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| Oriental (now Nederlander) Theatre, Rapp & Rapp architects, 1926 |
And when the movie theater moguls imagined what would best entice the public, they didn't look to the future, but to the past. Like the bastard child of the "city beautiful" movement that aborted a distinctly American architecture as envisioned by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright with empire visions clothed in ancient stylings of Athens and Rome, movie palaces didn't evoke the streamlined American design found in cars, radios, iceboxes and other consumer goods. No, movie palaces would instead offer the illusion of wealth and power as personified in any number of fabulously delectable - if historically dubious - evocations of palaces and temples in styles French Empire, Turandot Oriental, Mayan and Egyptian. And they were fun! Full houses for everyone!
That was the plan, and it worked beautifully, for a time, but the palaces "built for all time" would have a shelf life of only a few decades before television and the suburban sprawl began eroding attendance. The final blow came with the death of openings exclusive to a single downtown theatre; I think The Godfather was the last blockbuster to have an exclusive run downtown, at the Chicago. The Uptown's palatial siblings, the Marbro on the West Side, and the Tivoli on the South, both closed in 1963, and were unceremoniously smashed to dust shortly thereafter.
For years, the big Hollywood studios had fought breaking up their vertical monopolies of owning both the making of films and the theatres that showed them, but by the time the Supreme Court finally enforced a consent decree to that effect in 1948, it wasn't a loss, but a favor, ridding the studios of aging, high-maintenance real estate just when their value began to plummet, as stay-at-home television depleted their audiences. By 1958, movie attendance had dropped from a 1948 peak of 90 million tickets a week to less than 40. Last year, although the U.S. population has more than doubled since 1948, the weekly average was down to 15 million.
By the time I started going to movies in 1960s, the Uptown was already a secondary venue. The prestige house was the Riviera, across the street. It was there, paired with the still-surviving, still endangered Portage on the Northwest side, that prestige pictures coming off their reserved-seat runs downtown were shown at "popular prices", meaning less than the cost of a ticket downtown, but elevated above usual neighborhood prices. The one exception to this pattern was The Sound of Music, which had become the highest-grossing film of all time. After a record 92-week run at the Michael Todd, Balaban & Katz, anticipating a sugar plum Christmas "popular price" opening, bypassed the smaller-capacity Riviera for the Uptown, to handle the anticipated crowds.
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| from the book The Uptown: Chicago's Endangered Movie Palace |
For the rest of time, the Uptown was one step above a grind house, double-features, week-in, week-out, small audiences adrift in the auditorium's huge main floor. I remember seeing a reissue pairing of Dr. No and From Russia with Love there, as well as Ursula Andress in She, Raquel Welch in Fathom, also The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It was the place I got my fix of lesser, late-career Doris Day - the Glass Bottom Boat, Caprice, Ballad of Josie. I remember big lobby displays for the last, and least successful, Hope/Crosby Road Picture, and for Paul Newman and Geraldine Page in Sweet Bird of Youth. I remember a pop machine where you watched a small paper cup drop down into an open door and the syrup, then the soda, pour into it. There were two auxiliary exists, one on Lawrence, one of Magnolia that led to the novelty of a theater parking lot, across the street. "Balcony Closed" signs were the norm, but I was too timid to sneak past them to see what was up there. My last visit, in 1973, was to a Chicago International Film Festival showing of Victor Erice's haunting, now classic, Spirit of the Beehive.
45 Years of Not Getting it Done: A Timeline from $40 million to $200 million
The salvation of the Uptown has had as many false starts as an eunuch's wedding night, each accompanied by a Malthusian increment in the price tag:
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8/18/1925 (my birthday - the date, not the year) 12,000 wait in line as the Uptown opens at a cost of $4,000,000 in 1925 dollars, over $70,000,000 in today's. At 4,381 seats, it is the largest theatre in the United States other than the Capitol in New York City. Chicago architecture historian Eric Nordstrom obtained a detailed listing of the expense of the various items that went into The Uptown's construction, which does not include the $400,000+ spent to obtain the land.
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| image courtesy Eric J. Nordstrom |
8/18/1965 (again, my birthday) The popular group the Dave Clark Five make a personal appearance to promote their film Having a Wild Weekend, which I saw at the Uptown on a double bill with John Frankenheimer's masterpiece, The Train (Wild Weekend was directed by John Boorman, only two years away from Point Blank). By the end of the 1960's, the bulk of the Uptown's artworks are auctioned off, metalwork scavenged.
10/31/1975 - The Tubes mark The Uptown's first event as a rock concert venue.
8/18/78 (still again, my birthday) Last regular showing of movies - Hooper, and The Driver
12/1983 - The Uptown is sold to a land trust controlled by slumlord Lou Wolf. Drainpipes are left to freeze and flood the theatre with water.
1986 - The Uptown is placed on The National Register of Historic Places
10/2/1991 - The Uptown is designated an official Chicago Landmark.
1995 - The Uptown is bought from Wolf for $1.6 million, with $400,000 owed in back taxes. When these aren't paid, the theatre is sold again at a tax sale.
2002 - Philanthropist Ivar Albert Goodman announces a $1,000,000 donation for what is labeled "an impending restoration" Not long after, the Illinois Attorney General's offices alleges the cash had evaporated on purchases at "luxury hotels, restaurants, and clothing stores." Sufficient cash to buy the theatre is never raised.
2006 - The minimum estimated cost for a full restoration is $30-$40,000,000.
2007 - The Uptown has a brief moment of high attention as Madison Square Garden, Live Nation, Equibase Capital, foreclosure court, and entities controlled by JAM Productions' Jerry Mickelson all battle for ownership. "Renovation would cost about $40,000,000," reports Crain's
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| Jerry Mickelson |
2008 - The minimum estimated cost for a full restoration is $45,000,000 - Jerry Mickelson's UTA II buys the Uptown out of foreclosure for $3,200,000. The building is stabilized, but investors for a restoration dry up with the year's economic meltdown.
2009 - Booth Hansen feasibility study estimates $55 million to become operational, $71 million for full restore
2011 - The minimum estimated cost for a full restoration is $70,000,000.
2013 - The city announces it is expecting a finance plan by December.
2015 - Curbed Chicago reports the $10,000,000 in grants for the restoration passed by Illinois legislature are about to be scotched by the budget cuts of then governor Bruce Rauner.
2015 - Chicago Infrastructure Trust deal announced to buy The Uptown from JAM's Jerry Mickelson for $5,600,000 and spend $120 million to make the theater as a non-profit, multi-purpose entertainment complex. In excess of $1,000,000 in pro bono work was contributed by architecture, real estate and law firms. Not long after, Mayor Rahm Emanuel replaces the entire Chicago Infrastructure Trust staff and the plan is dumped. (Crain's)
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| Jerry Mikelson with Rahm Emanuel (sorry, I've lost the credit for this pic - can anyone help?) |
2018 - Emanuel brings together JAM and Farpoint Development for what is announced as a $75,000,000 project, (Tribune drama critic Chris Jones calls the figure "eye-popping.") with JAM and Farpoint to kick in $26,000,000 in debt and equity, $13 million in TIF funds, $8.7 million in federal tax credits, $10 million in Building Illinois bond fundings, $3.7 million in City of Chicago Adopt-a-Landmark funds. A press release has Emanuel announcing $3.1 million in city funding approved for rehabilitation, with the design team included architects Lamar Johnson Collaborative and theatre designers Schuler Shook. Work to begin the following summer.
2019 - At a Chicago Architecture Center panel, Mickelson shares his vision for the Uptown: a start date in 2020, a general admission ground level dance floor, and hosting 100 shows each year. Then Alderman James Cappleman hosts his inauguration fundraiser at the theatre - 8 ticket package for $2,500 includes a guided tour. Mickelson tells the Trib's Chris Jones, "The investors are kicking the tires and doing their due diligence," with financing expected to be completed first quarter next year.
2020 - Cappleman tells Block Club Chicago funding should be in place by late spring, with work to begin soon after. Mickelson tells the Trib he hopes the Uptown will open for its first shows early in 2022.
2021 - Mickelson's partnership with Farpoint dissolves, reportedly a victim of the COVID pandemic. He tells Block Club Chicago a development partner is not critical to success.
2022 - The minimum estimated cost for a full restoration is $125,000,000. Mickelson sells an equity stake in JAM Productions, amount not disclosed, to SaveLive
8/18/2025 - The minimum estimated cost for a full restoration is $190,000.000 (I know, my birthday again), according to Block Club Chicago's Mack Liederman and Madison Savedtra,who report Mickelson saying he's poured $12 million of his own money into maintaining the building. He declines to have the theatre photographed beyond its lobby.
6/27/2026 - The minimum estimated cost for a full restoration is $200,000,000 - as reported by Leigh Giangreco for Block Club Chicago.
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| Loew's Jersey Theatre, Jersey City, New Jersey |
Although that price tag seems to be the highest I've come across for the rescue of a movie palace, it's always an expensive endeavor. Most famously, 1929's Loew's Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, abandoned in 1977 and left to rot, re-opened in 2015 after a full, spectacular restoration. Cost: $95 million. Loew's Jersey in Jersey City, New Jersey is undergoing a full restoration and is expected to re-open by the end of this year. Cost: $130 million. Locally, Bridgeport's (much smaller) 1929 Ramova Theatre, after being closed for almost three decades, was restored and re-opened as a concert venue in 2023 at a cost of $30 million.
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| Unveiling of 2025 Uptown Community Portrait at the Chicago History Museum left to right: Jerry Mikelson, theater caretaker Dave Syfczak, 46th ward alderperson Angela Clay, CHM curator Rebekah Coffman, Robert Loerzel, Andrew Pierce |
Last year, two events marked renewed interest in the Uptown. On August 18th, supporters celebrated the theatre's 100th anniversary with a second Uptown Community Portrait, repeating a group photograph first made in 2005. It's now part of the Chicago History's Museum Crossroads of America exhibit.
The 18th also saw the publication of The Uptown: Chicago's Endangered Movie Palace, co-authored by James Pierce and Robert Loerzel, an exhaustive history of the building with a truly astonishing collection of vivid photographs. (Now officially "sold out" on publisher CityFiles website, but a limited number of copies still listed on - if you'll excuse the expression - Amazon.)
So what are we left with? Why the continuing fascination, simmering below the level necessary to take action? How many parts admiration? How many nostalgia? Theatres like the Uptown that have undergone full restoration retain the ability to awe even the youngest audience, with no personal history with the place.
The experience has a commonality that bridges generations. The Balabans and Katzs and Foxes knew their audience, understood the human psyche and how to clinch the sale. "Give 'em the old razzle dazzle" is as old as the New Amsterdam, as new as the Las Vegas Sphere. Only the idiom changes.
Maybe, one day, a way will be found to make it happen for The Uptown. Right now the theatre is in a strangely profound, spiritual state, much as the Parthenon of today has a resonance far beyond its ancient contemporary experience. It's a tale amplified through the retelling, of the passage of time, of a concert promoter chasing the triumphs of his younger self, hoping to find people to pick up the check. It's the echo of emptiness, the slivers of light cast dimly on the lavish walls through breaks in the plywood board-up. The soaring columns and the foundational pilasters punctuate the repeating series of voids, leading to side aisles of a massive nave, terminating in the great altar of a double staircase you stand before half expecting to see Norma Desmond descend.
It's who we once thought we were, and what we thought we wanted, a source of joy and comfort now feebly whimpering for help, an aged parent not quite sure how it has come to this, wondering, hope against hope, if there can be a reprieve, a way to be made whole again. An unanswered question, a promise of new life trembling in deathly stillness to be born.
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| Dave Syfczak, the theater caretaker who makes sure the Uptown survives each new day |
