posted April 16, 2003 11:15 AM
Is Daryl suggesting that Adam has a photo of hideous neon? Please provide another hint. I've seen so much hideous neon that I have no idea what Daryl's talking about.
posted April 17, 2003 10:55 AM
Thank you Adam. Thank you very much.
You think neon indoors is great? Well then we gotta get ourselves down to Orange County so we can go check out EVERY SINGLE Edwards theatre ever built. More neon than you can shake a stick at... and believe me... I've tried shaking a stick at all that neon and usuall security comes to take me away before I've even gotten started.
posted April 18, 2003 12:31 AM
You don't even have to go as far as Orange County -- look at the tour of the Edwards 21 in Fresno. The architect must've owned stock in a neon company!
posted April 25, 2003 09:04 AM
Edwards started going hog-wild with neon around 1990. Most of their earlier "suburban" theatres were pretty much neon-free zones. I don't recall a single tube of neon at most of their 80s builds like the El Toro 5, Crown Valley Misison Viejo, Moreno Valley, etc. Neon might have started right around the time of their expansion into the mall in Newport Center (across the street from the venerable Big Newport).
posted April 25, 2003 09:52 AM
In response to Scott's April 14th post, I personally like the theatres that got chopped up in the 70's and have strange and bizarre auditoriums now due to multi-plexing. The Alexandria and Stonestown theatres in San Francisco are perfect examples. The Alexandria's balcony was chopped into two 'upstairs' theatres, and Stonestown had a wall built down the middle of a large auditourim making two separate auditoriums. The funny thing is they didn't reposition the seats at these theatres, so some of the seats face the wall. LOL. But I do find these theatres facinating. I do like the bizarre seating strange viewing angles. It's what I grew up with at the GCC Southland in Hayward, CA, which was also butchered at one time from 2 to 5 screens. I also seem to find these theatres more cozy and intimate than the new 20 screen megaplex fire traps. I'd personally rather go to an older butchered intimate multiplex than a new boring megaplex anyday. Also, check out the indoor neon on the tour for UA Metro Center in Colma, CA.
posted April 26, 2003 12:05 PM
Butchered multi-plex lovers of the world UNITE!
I would give my left nut for picturs of the inside of the Southland 5 or ANY good pictures of the GCC Hillsdale 4. I went into both these theatres "to use the bathroom" long ago and they watched me and my camera like a hawk so I couldn't go into the big auditoriums and take pictures of the tri-plex job they did on them.
I try to explain this to people all the time, but until you SEE it for yourself, nobody understands... but I'll give it a shot. They had a single screen w/ no balcony. They carved the rear section into two different auditoriums with a hallway running down between them to serve the front of the original auditorium. All three theatres use the original projection booth... basically above the entrance hallway there is a "canyon" painted black that gradually gets wider so that the projector can shoot from the back of the ORIGINAL auditorium from between the two carved out theatre's walls.
Oh and if pictures of the GCC Fashon Island exist I'd give my right nut.
quote:They carved the rear section into two different auditoriums with a hallway running down between them to serve the front of the original auditorium.
This is the same thing that was done to the Esquire in Cincinnati when it was triplexed (it's now a 6, using the building next door, I think).
(goes off to find photos of the Southland 5, the GCC Hillsdale 4 and the GCC Fashon Island and a pair of scissors)
posted April 26, 2003 05:29 PM
I just saw the tour for the Meridian Quad 6 and I must say 20 foot high numbers on the auditorum walls just make me want to go out to the lobby AND RUN LIKE HELL BACK OUT TO MY CAR. What were they thinking.
posted April 26, 2003 05:45 PM
...and they're BACKWARDS on the opposide wall! WTF is up with that??? (But then, really, what would one expect from a place called the "Quad 6"??) If you haven't already, take a look at the Hoyt's cinema mentioned in the "70's Fabulous" thread. Those doors with "11111" and "22222" on them are *almost* as bad as the giant numerals on the walls of the Quad 6.
posted April 26, 2003 06:02 PM
Perhaps it's so you can identify what auditorium you are in to your rescuers when your feet weld themselves to the floor from decades of spilled sodas. Did you notice something else each auditorium has different colored seats. and the walls are brick. That must have played heck with the acoustics