Whittier Film Palace Inspires Bid for Renewal
It’s a gamble, and Tom Paradiso knows it.
But the telephone company employee fancies old movie houses and has set his sights on restoring some luster to the aging Whittier Theater, a city landmark at the corner of Hadley Avenue and Whittier Boulevard.
In an age when multiple-screen complexes are the rage, theaters like the Whittier have all but vanished. It is one of only a dozen movie houses left in Southern California that were built before the Depression.
The Whittier, a 1,000-seat palace with a planetarium-like ceiling complete with twinkling stars and swirling clouds, is owned by Pacific Theaters. The big Los Angeles-based chain wants to sell the Whittier walk-in and a string of small shops that flank it.
Business at the box office in recent years has slumped, according to city officials, and even a switch to Spanish-language films to tap the area’s growing Latino population was a bust. And except for a karate school, the shops in the theater building are vacant.
But Paradiso, 30, says he is convinced that with a fresh coat of paint, new carpet and a 1980s-style marketing approach the Whittier Theater again can be a “beacon in the community,” attracting people from throughout the Southeast area to Whittier. Paradiso, a commercial account executive with MCI, envisions a mixed use for the theater, offering special film festivals with family-oriented fare and foreign flicks as well as small live concerts, mostly jazz or pop music. He also dreams of adding a bar with outdoor tables in the courtyard leading to the theater as well as boutiques and speciality shops in the 25,000-square-foot facility.
The idea has support from several city and regional historical groups, which view Paradiso’s effort as the best shot at saving what many consider to be a landmark worthy of permanent protection. Paradiso has also cornered interest in City Hall, where the fate of the highly visible theater is of more than passing concern. The theater is several blocks south of the city’s redevelopment showpiece, Uptown Village, and some believe that a restored theater would go a long way toward pulling new business into town.
“We definitely like the idea,” said Susan Moeller, a member of the city’s redevelopment staff.
Paradiso said he and a private investor have made an offer to Pacific Theaters to buy the Whittier and the adjoining property, but he declined to identify his partner or discuss details of the offer. Hugh Finley, an executive in Pacific’s real estate division, also refused to talk about the Whittier Theater, its troubles at the box office or Paradiso’s offer. He would only confirm that the theater is for sale.
On Nov. 12, the City Council bought negotiating time for Paradiso when it unanimously passed an emergency ordinance preventing the theater from being sold or torn down for 45 days. The action was taken under the city’s new historic preservation law which allows officials time to determine the historic value of a building before approving a new use or its demolition. The council, stung by criticism in the past for not doing enough to save the city’s historic buildings, moved quickly to protect the Whittier Theater upon learning it was for sale.
On Monday, the Planning Commission will meet at City Hall to decide whether to ask the council to add the Whittier Theater to the city’s list of historic buildings. Once it is on the list, a developer would be required to wait six months--while the city reviews plans for the destruction or renovation--before receiving approval for a project.
Theater historian John Miller, president of the California Society of Theater Historians, said he believes Pacific would rather see the Whittier Theater razed than operated by someone else because it might pose a competitive threat. The chain has two movie complexes, a six-screen and five-screen in neighboring La Mirada and a three-screen theater in Santa Fe Springs.
Paradiso said Pacific has told him that one of the conditions of sale is agreeing not to show feature films at the Whittier Theater. “It would seem that they are trying to discourage someone from buying it and using it as a theater,” Paradiso said.
Both Miller’s group as well as the Los Angeles Conservancy, a preservation group, have sent letters to Whittier officials urging them to give the theater permanent historic status. The city’s own historical society also favors saving the theater, according to Joe DaRold, executive director of the Whittier Museum.
Based on the architecture and age of the theater, Miller said he is convinced that the Whittier would qualify for the National Register of Historic Places. If it does qualify for the National Register, the theater would be eligible for tax credits that would help pay for the cost of restoring and developing the property.
Miller said the theater--built in 1929 as the McNees Theater--is the last “atmospheric theater” left intact in the greater Los Angeles area.
Theater builders of that era tried to create a “planetarium effect,” Miller said, by putting hundreds of tiny lights in the ceiling. As the main house lights were gradually dimmed and the theater grew dark, moviegoers felt like they were watching a sunset as the ceiling lights started to glow and then faintly twinkled amid the painted clouds.
“It simply enhanced the experience of going to a big-screen theater,” Miller said. The exterior of the theater, done like a Spanish hacienda with red tile roofs, has a six-story tower that can be seen for blocks.
For many, like Councilman Victor Lopez, the Whittier Theater holds fond memories of another time. “I got my first kiss in there,” said Lopez, a lifelong Whittier resident. “That theater means a great deal to a lot of people in this town.”
But nostalgia may not be reason enough to save the theater, Lopez said. Parking, he said, has always been a problem at the theater, and he does not welcome talk of turning a small park behind the movie house into a parking lot.
“It would be nice to see a dinner theater there, but frankly, the parking just isn’t there,” he said. “And there’s no way I would support paving that park. . . . As (the theater) sits now, it’s a white elephant.”
Paradiso disagrees. He cites the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, which reopened in 1984, and the highly successful Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara as examples of old movie houses that have been nurtured back to life through restoration and a diet of live shows. (Miller said it cost about $6 million to overhaul the 3,000-seat Wiltern, which is about three times the size of the Whittier Theater.)
The biggest plus in favor of the Whittier is its location, Paradiso said. It is, he said, in a good neighborhood only a mile or two east of the San Gabriel River Freeway along the city’s main east-west drag, Whittier Boulevard.
“Usually you find these theaters in bad areas; parts of town that have been forgotten or overrun with gangs, graffiti and crime,” said Paradiso, who has been searching since the late 1970s for a suitable theater to restore. He said he has always been “one step” behind the developers. His last disappointment was the Loyola Theater in Westchester, which was torn down last year.
Paradiso is not alone in wanting to bring live entertainment to the city. Whittier College is trying to raise $8 million to build a 500-seat performing arts center, which campus officials hope to complete by mid-1988. Paradiso said the two facilities would not compete because the kinds of entertainment the two plan to offer are different.
Wishing Paradiso well on his efforts to save the theater, Whittier College President Eugene S. Mills said: “The college’s performing arts center is widely and enthusiastically endorsed by the community. . . . and it remains imperative that we build. . . . “
To make the Whittier Theater economically viable, Paradiso said, he wants to create a “village atmosphere” by opening a bar off the courtyard leading to the theater. There would be outdoor tables and dancing inside. He also envisions strolling minstrels serenading theatergoers, who could browse past boutiques that would open in the now empty storefronts.
“I have always believed that these theaters are historic,” Paradiso said. “But more importantly they were and should be social hubs, where people meet and have a good time. The Whittier Theater can be that kind of place again.”
