SFist Watches: Don't Bother Us, We're In Mourning
We knew it was coming, but we're still weren't ready when the news came down. SFist's beloved Coronet Theater is closing its doors forever this Sunday, in preparation for demolition by the owner of the property, The Institute on Aging.
We spoke to our friend Gary Meyer, owner of the Balboa Theater and SFist's go-to pundit on all things Movie Theater. He concedes that the economic pressures that impelled United Artists to divest themselves of this property (and apparently, they're on the way to ridding themselves of all of their San Francisco theaters) were inavoidable. He pointed out that it's impossible for UA to compete with the 800-lb gorilla of the Metroplex. He estimates that the Coronet has a weekly operating expense of $15-20,000, and, even though "we all like to have all this nostalgia and talk about how much we want to see movies in that kind of environment, but not enough of us put their money where their mouth is." (At which point we broke in "But we did!" Gary had to inform us that our occasional 10 bucks wasn't enough to keep the Coronet going.)
Coronet Photo from the Save Our Theaters (yes, the prop L people, but it's a nice picture) website
Speaking of nostalgia, did you know that the Coronet was home to the 2 night "sneak preview" (parent of the focus group, the sneak preview was an opportunity for filmmakers to test their film on a completely unprepared audience) of comedy classic Kentucky Fried Movie? Our man Gary had developed relationships with both the writers and director of the film, and was responsible for bringing the initial previews to the Coronet. In fact, Gary was instrumental in compelling them to edit parts of the film, based on an audio recording he made of audience reactions at the screening. This is just one of the zillions of great stories to come out of the Coronet, and one of the reasons that the destruction of this theater will be such a terrible loss to EssEff.
The greater issue, at this point, is what the new structure will do to the face of the Geary corridor. As we have covered in past posts, the design of the new Institute on Aging building is a point of contention for the neighborhood, as the current design has been described to us as "looking like a six-foot-tall wall".
We spoke to Howard Junker, editor of ZYZZYVA, "the journal of west coast writers & artists", and resident of the area suffering the greatest impact from the loss of the theater and subsequent construction of the new structure. He, too, admits that "as much as I'd love to have (the Coronet) there forever, economic realities are what they are." He says that Supervisor McGoldrick "is our man and is doing the best he can" (requests for comment from Supervisor McGoldrick's office were not responded to), but that "the City has kind of rolled over at the planning comission level on this one."
Howard also admits that the Coronet's not the most beautiful structure either, and describes it as "the monster we know and love". He feels that the Institute on Aging planners "don't live in the area, they don't care about the wind and shadows and what this massive building is going to do to destroy the neighborhood. And when we allow one neighborhood to be destroyed, others soon follow." Finally, he notes "I think the intentions of the Institute people are good -- taking care of our elderly is a good thing -- but do it at such an expense, and in such a way...it's just sad that their altruism and citizenship has such blinders on it, as if the ends justify the means."
So, this weeekend SFist is going to the Coronet to see the last movie ever shown there, Million Dollar Baby (which, incidentally, all began at ZYZZYVA), and we urge you to do the same.