The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
40 YEARS OF ENTERTAINMENT
Lorain Palace celebrates anniversary with community
It was a day filled with memories July 8, as the surviving members of a committee formed to revitalize the Lorain Palace gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their efforts.
Those members and their family members piled in for a luncheon that kicked off a day of community activities at the historic theater celebrating the anniversary including a free showing of Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 remake of The Great Gatsby.
According to Barbara Macgregor, an organizer and onetime president of the committee, another version of the film spurred one of the fundraisers that kicked off the purchase of
“We were all in this together; one big happy family. All those people I mentioned, we are all still friends.” — Barbara Macgregor
the emblematic building.
She said a three-day Palace Madness event that included a hurdy-gurdy man and bears, at the tail end of that event there was a Great Gatsby party.
“That was the big thing on the stage, Robert Redford,” she said referencing the 1974 version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic novel. “We had the organist play along with silent movies in between our own people doing their dances. It was just a lot of fun, but it was packed.”
Macgregor said the popularity of the event spurred the group into presenting the theater as a possible civic center for the entire community to enjoy. She said the group then contacted all the local social clubs and unions to see if they would support the theater if the group purchased it.
“They all said yes, and it sounded like a good idea,” Macgregor said.
Macgregor said the group paid $25,000 in May
of 1977 to put a down payment on the building. By Christmas of that same year the committee had collected the $100,000 to purchase the theater.
“We burnt the fake mortgage on the stage at the Christmas party,” she said.
With the building bought the group began the arduous task of refurbishing the already nearly 50-year-old facility.
According to Macgregor, the facility had already fallen into disrepair and it was through the efforts of the committee and various other volunteers.
“It was a mess, but it was fun,” she said.
Another member of the committee, Laurie Hoke, wanted to make sure the assembled did not forget the inspiration for their refurbishing work.
“Ray Shepardson,” she said. “none of this would be here but for him.”
Shepardson is credited with leading the revitalization of Playhouse Square in Cleveland, and according to Hoke, he helped the committee to do the same with the Lorain Palace.
“When we saw them
doing it in Cleveland we said ‘Ooo,’” Hoke said. “We brought him in here and he brought the people from Cleveland to tell us how it should be painted and what it should be.”
While many of the assembled had their minds firmly rooted in the past, Ken Kramer, vice president of the theater’s board of directors, was thinking of what’s needed now and in the future.
He said the theater needs a new roof over the stage, they’re looking to redo the lights both in the theater and in the marquee as well as waxing the marble in the entrance.
“To keep an old theater operating safely, by the fire marshal and OSHA, it takes a lot of money,” he said.
For Macgregor, though, the original refurbishment four decades ago was built on and by the community, and if the city could recapture that everything would be all right.
“It would be wonderful if it could be done,” she said. “We were all in this together; one big happy family. All those people I mentioned, we are all still friends.”