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Wealthy Theatre
9/19/11 09:45am
culture Nonprofit Dispatches

This dispatch was added by one of our Nonprofit Neighbors. It does not represent the editorial voice of The Rapidian or Community Media Center.

We had a lot of options when we started here in 2005. CMC opened this place up to the community. It's bigger than us. It always was. We just got out of the way.
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Preserve the past by embracing the future.

Wealthy Theatre's Centennial Sustainability Campaign is nothing short of groundbreaking - Grand Rapids Community Media Center is revolutionizing historic preservation, to national acclaim. PhotobucketThis visionary project respects tradition, pinches every penny and thinks outside of every box. The cost vs. benefit factor is immense - the filter for everything we've designed in the Imagine project. Containment of existing energies. Replacement where possible with alternative sources. Enhancing multimedia technology to remain relevant. Every dollar counts. We need your help: donate here. It's quick, easy and secure.

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by Erin Wilson
Wealthy Theatre Director

Wealthy Theatre closed its doors in 2004, just as things had begun turning around in Wealthy Theatre Historic District (Wealthy Street between Fuller Avenue and Eastern Avenue). Community and city leaders approached Grand Rapids Community Media Center (GRCMC) about giving this landmark theatre one last chance.

CMC did not enter into this stewardship lightly.
But I did. When I was asked to take over as director, I saw only the possibilities. This sounds romantic from a distance, and in many ways it served us well, but it bordered on naiveté. I had a lot to learn to be an effective part of what CMC hoped to accomplish in its twin goals of sustainability and accessibility.
I wasn't aware that neighbors and businesses actually refer to Wealthy Theatre as "the anchor of the neighborhood." Although I live in the neighborhood, I had no pretext for the impact that failure might have. I was unprepared for the immensity of the consequences of falling short. And maybe it's a good thing, in my first year here, that I didn't get tangled up in these realities - but I definitely know them now. These realities color everything. This is a weighty thing. And it matters.
There is so much history here, from present to distant past. 
Mayor George K. Heartwell (then a City Commissioner) volunteered to raise funds during the 1990s renovation. 
The matriarch of the East Side neighborhood, Ms. Carol Moore, spearheaded the renovation through most effective and relentless advocacy. From the day in late 1980s that she literally "broke in" to have a look inside, Ms. Moore dedicated herself to protecting this place. Even today some 30 years later, she's up on a 20 foot ladder outside a neighboring building, scraping old paint off its facade. 
 
Half a century ago, Mr. Peter Wege - today one of the most visionary philanthropists in the nation - worked here as a young usher. 
And decades before that, rumor has it the Marx Brothers performed here during a tuberculosis outbreak, with patrons required to sit one seat apart from one another as a "preventative measure." 
So it slowly started to sink in: I could call my "job" whatever I liked but I was in the business of historic preservation. 
Motivating. Who needs coffee when you're a caretaker for a member of an otherwise endangered species. Historic theatres are the gems of any city: preserving what is oldest and most important is a brilliant emblem of forward-thinking vision. 
Wealthy Theatre is an at-risk city landmark that resides in an at-risk neighborhood. These places are prone to fall into disrepair and vacancy. Yet they have the potential to be catalysts for neighborhood renewal, sparks for a renaissance. And over time, they have the potential to be the anchors of the neighborhood.
 
What these places mean
The qualities that make historic theatres worth protecting stem from what they represent: these places mean something. The walls are more than brick and mortar. The walls of Wealthy Theatre are the composite of a century of shared experiences. This is a sacred trust. 
 
This is Wealthy Theatre's Centennial year. We celebrate one hundred years of memories, applause, exultation, laughter, tears, and everything in between: all these experiences that are resonant, living inside these walls. It's part of the air in here. Generations have gathered to share in meaningful moments. Mothers have cried tears of joy, watching sons and daughters performing center stage. Families and friends have rejoiced at marriages and grieved at memorials, together. Open discussions have sparked revolutions of thought. Hundreds of thousands of souls have been moved by art and music, dancing and debates, cinema and social commentary, creating and sharing… in these precious moments, here, within these four walls. 
What a thing to be: the gathering place where all this has happened, and continues to this day.
 
It's bigger than us
We had a lot of options when we started here in 2005. CMC opened this place up to the community. It's bigger than us. It always was. And we just got out of the way. Wealthy Theatre has become in many ways a reflection of the community we serve. It's about trusting people. It feels like we’re in some kind of harmony with what this place was meant to be. At least… we’re getting close. 
 
Next time you're here in this place, feel invited to run your hands on the soft fabric of the walls. These porous walls that give Wealthy Theatre such amazing acoustics have absorbed the same frequencies that you've let wash over you, during concerts, movies and every other event that happens here. If you run your fingers on these walls, it's possible to feel the slow vibration of one hundred years of shared experience. These walls are an open vault holding the best of what makes us human: a century of gathering and being part of sharing what's most beautiful, simple, flawed, complicated, loud, quiet and original. The ambient pulse of everything and everyone that came before the next event, the next celebration of being in that space together, all at once.
So we're now in a phase of stewarding this venue where we know a little more. We know what has made it vital; we have some better ideas of how to keep it relevant. We know the value of keeping it: we are the keepers of this space, this lighthouse on Wealthy Street. We keep this for those who came before, those who are here now, and those to whom we pass it on to, after us. 
 
It's about this solemn responsibility
We are in the midst of a Centennial Sustainaibilty Campaign. And equally as much as we celebrate the glory of the past 100 years, this Campaign is about the future. It's about this solemn responsibility we have: to keep these doors open, to continue to remove barriers to free expression of ideas, shapes, sounds, colors, feelings and everything else that defines our humanity. The good, the bad and the ugly. 
 
So we have made the Centennial a tribute to all the romantic parts, the possibilities, the realities and the unknown. It seeks to address rising costs that threaten accessibility by containing energy - and replacing fossil fuels wherever possible with alternative energies. The Campaign also is designed to maintain and increase relevancy through upgrades in multimedia technology, with ongoing upticks in volume of usage and patronage of events, combined with greening strategies that reduce overhead. We feel strongly that we've got a good chance at preserving not only what's historic and precious but also what's most useful. We spent years with consultants, engineers, architects and other experts in innovation, designing a Centennial Sustainabilty proposal that consist of 30+ individual projects, all of which work together harmoniously to achieve our twin goals of increased volume of usage and reduced overheard. That is our formula for historic preservation at Community Media Center, for Wealthy Theatre.
 
We're nearly halfway there. Time is running out. The Centennial Anniversary is coming to a close at the end of January 2012. We need your help to turn this corner. It is so important.
 

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