Movie house lights up Main Street again

When Hildy Morgan rounded up a few friends in 1996 to restore an abandoned movie theater in their Pennsylvania hometown, she didn't expect any opposition from the community. But she got it.

"Some people in town thought we had no business doing this," says Ms. Morgan. "They couldn't make the connection between this and helping the economy." But those who felt this way, she says, have "since been proven wrong."

With the help of community volunteers, fundraising events, grants, and government assistance, the two-screen Dietrich Theater officially reopened in August 2001, pumping both movies and money back into the local economy.

But more recently, Ms. Morgan's larger vision began to take shape.

"I wanted this to be a real arts center," says Morgan. "And a place for the kids in town to experience all the arts." The theater now sponsors cultural events, ranging from children's art classes to after-school playwriting for high school students.

Efforts from people like Morgan and conservationists across America have helped switch the lights back on along Main Street, turning historical movie houses into "cultural destinations."

The Los Angeles Conservancy is preserving several theaters in a concentrated area of Broadway in L.A., where they show classic films and rent out the theaters for special events like weddings and graduations.

In Chicago, the Uptown Theatre is being renovated. Upon completion, the renovated facility will consist of three theaters, an art gallery, a small museum, and a radio station. In western Massachusetts, the Berkshire Opera Co. is turning a historic theater into an opera house.

Like many of these old theaters, the Dietrich Theatre - a vintage 1936 Art Deco movie palace - was built during the Depression. Its home, Tunkhannock, is nestled in the Endless Mountains region of north-central Pennsylvania. Population: 4,300.

"People in town all had wonderful memories tied to that place - Saturday matinees that lasted four hours, first dates, the place where they proposed to their wives," Morgan says, laughing.

But hard times closed the place down in the 1980s, and residents who wanted to see a movie faced a 35-mile drive to Scranton.

Businesswoman Lori Bogodin, who, with her husband, owns the Twigs Cafe and the Spice of Life Shop down the street, echoes the sentiment of other residents when she says: "The downtown was dying. Here was a good idea, a great idea, but it took us years to pull it off."

The restoration committee located an architect to help design an authentic interior. The lobby was turned into an art gallery, with display cases featuring works by local artists and works on loan from Scranton's Everhart Museum.

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