Hollywood Remake : New Cinema District Aimed at Restoring Film Capital’s Glitter

With all the customary flourishes in a place famous for elaborate hyperbole and unabashed self-promotion, Hollywood business and community leaders announced Monday the creation of a new Cinema District intended to revive the once-glorious movie palaces of Hollywood Boulevard.

Huge speakers blasted “Hooray for Hollywood” near the newly restored El Capitan Theatre as ersatz stars Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Clark Gable paraded before a chorus line of cameras and dumbfounded tourists. Hollywood bigwigs from Jeffrey Katzenberg of the Walt Disney Co., which owns the El Capitan, to Los Angeles Councilman Michael Woo, who represents Hollywood, predicted the second coming of Tinseltown.

“We are launching the beginning of Hollywood’s next Golden Age,” Woo said in announcing formation of an eight-block district, which by the end of the year will include 15 screens in six theaters. “It was the movies that put Hollywood on the map in the first place, and it is the movies that will mark the renaissance of Hollywood again.”

The announcement and hoopla--a huge billboard on wheels was parked across the street from Mann’s Chinese Theatre, and the Gothic pillars of the former Masonic Temple were clothed in bright tubes of fabric--came two days before the grand opening of the El Capitan, once one of the city’s most spectacular movie houses and now Disney’s $6-million gamble that the boulevard will rebound.

The restoration, a joint venture between the Pacific Theatres chain and Buena Vista Pictures Distribution Inc., the distribution arm of Walt Disney Studios, will become the flagship for Disney’s movie releases. The 65-year-old theater, which closed two years ago, has been restored to its original condition and will reopen with the premier of “The Rocketeer.”

“The filmgoing experience is above all a magical one,” said Katzenberg. “This is the only word to describe what happens when the lights dim, the curtains part and some flickering light projected on a screen makes us laugh or cry along with several hundred strangers in the cool darkness of the movie theater. The experience becomes that much more magical when a great movie is viewed in a great theater.”

Katzenberg and the others, standing on a thoroughfare that has become synonymous with the film capital’s faded glory, hyped the new Cinema District like used-car salesmen talking up last year’s model. In addition to the El Capitan restoration, they boasted about new bicycle police patrols and deals in the making to bring free parking for moviegoers--improvements intended to lure moviegoers from the comfort of suburban shopping mall cinema complexes.

Not mentioned was the graffiti-strewn sidewalk across the street, the boarded up storefront a block away, the homeless men and women, and the still unbuilt “mega-projects” city officials have been promising on the boulevard for years.

“It is so dirty and trashy looking,” said Kay Cunningham of Sacramento, who was visiting with her husband and two young children. “Right now we are looking for a restroom, and I don’t know if I want to go into any of these buildings.”

Abdallah Osseiran, a tourist from Lebanon, was equally unimpressed.

“I think Beverly Hills is more better,” he said.

Indeed, though preservationists and community leaders have been unanimous in their praise of the restored El Capitan, theater operators on Hollywood Boulevard face the daunting task of convincing moviegoers that the boulevard is safe. The boulevard has become a popular cruising thoroughfare for teen-agers, and police say weekends also bring gang problems. The roadway is regularly frequented by panhandlers and homeless people.

“At shopping malls, the walk from the parking lots to the theaters is safe,” said Robert Nudelman, a Hollywood activist and film buff who pushed Disney to restore the El Capitan. “The walk to theaters here is considered part of the evening entertainment.”

Woo said city officials are aware of the problem and have been negotiating with theaters and local businesses to provide lighting and security at parking lots. In addition, the Los Angeles Police Department has placed 14 officers on bicycle patrol, a move that has doubled the number of arrests on the boulevard and neighboring streets since last September, according to Sgt. Jim Blum.

Woo and the Community Redevelopment Agency, which oversees a 30-year renewal project of central Hollywood, have also set aside money to hire “star sweepers,” theater employees in black trousers and bright caps who will patrol the eight-block stretch with brooms and dustpans and answer questions from tourists.

“There are a lot of people walking around talking to themselves, but then I’ve seen people do that in Beverly Hills,” said Audrey Higgins, who works at a news stand at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. “There are a lot of homeless people and derelicts, but they are harmless. I think it is the outsiders who make a big deal out of it.”

Even if the nascent movie district is able to overcome the boulevard’s public relations problems, some say it may be smothered by the coming of Metro Rail. Construction of the extension of the Red Line subway from Vermont Avenue west to Highland Avenue is expected to begin next year and take four years. Judging by traffic jams and parking problems during subway construction in downtown Los Angeles, some Hollywood Boulevard merchants are predicting disaster.

Woo and Metro Rail officials, however, say they have learned from mistakes downtown and will take special precautions in Hollywood. Woo said building contracts will include provisions requiring the removal of graffiti on construction sites, the daily sweeping of sidewalks and the posting of signs directing shoppers to nearby businesses.

Hollywood Cinema District

Hollywood business and community leaders have announced the creation of a new Hollywood Cinema District, with plans to eventually house 15 screens in six theaters. 1. General Cinema’s Galaxy Theater 2. Mann’s Chinese Theatre 3. Pacific’s El Capitan Theatre 4. United Artist’s Egyptian Theater 5. Vogue Theater 6. Ritz Theater