I was looking at a claim on another website about Proctor's being closed for "decades" while "downtown declined", and then I saw a site called Proctor's History where I believe that claim came from. I'm wondering, the theater was built in 1926, and the site claims that because of the Great Depression the theater closed for decades. I'm well aware that at one point tearing down the theater was considered, but that was in the 70's. I know that the theater was open in the 1960's, and my parents sure have given me the impression that there were theaters thriving downtown in the 1940's, so which decades was the theater closed? The thirties and the fifties? Does anybody know?
The cheerleaders (board) cheerleader for the DEMS (and the theft from the taxpayers to fund their rich downtown political cronies) telling more fairy tales---who did he get do a website?
Just lies.
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
Yeah, decades. It is disturbing to me because there are people throwing out the argument that Proctor's sat vacant for decades, and that had something to do with the decline of downtown, as an argument in favor of what is going on downtown right now, the taxpayer rip-off. That's pretty bad, revisionist history being put out there like that. It is rather sickening to me, in fact.
Proctors is the Holy Grail of all that Schenectady has and will be?!? That's just completely stupid!
You know, when the City had JOBS...JOBS....JOBS...that's when we flourished. One theater will never bring in families to the City, it doesn't help the tax base (being completely exempt) and it doesn't have many employees.
When GE left, the City went to crap. Let's call it like it is folks. The schools began their decline, the downtown retail fled and families left for jobs elsewhere.
Bring REAL jobs to the City...an industry with thousands of jobs...give the people what they need not simply what Gillen and Morris want.
In 1930, Proctors hosted the first public demonstration of television with the help of General Electric. However, the arrival of this exciting invention and the onset of the Great Depression led to the decline of the theatre, and Proctors was closed for decades. http://www.proctors.org/about
I found an article about WRGB using the theater for some kind of demonstration in 1936, so it was not closed then. The photograph on the masthead where I got this article looks like it was taken sometime in the 1940's, doesn't it? Look at the crowds, and the stores, just in that one photo. I remember seeing Easy Rider in that theater, but I'm pretty sure it was second run. That film came out in 1969, I believe. I'm a little bit shocked that anyone would actually put a ridiculous story like that out there, in black-and-white, and call it history. I mean, whoever did that had to know that he or she was inventing it, right? What self-serving propaganda. BTW, Proctor's was saved from the wrecking ball long before P. Morris came to town, and I'm pretty sure there were more stores and businesses (real ones) downtown when he got here than there are now."Closed for decades". My God. Who does something like that?
Logged
