Category Archives: My favorite things…

Grand Lake Movie Magic…

So after spending several sweltering hours in our dirty, heat-trapping, and bug-ridden garage reorganizing everything last Sunday, we decided to treat ourselves to a good ol’ fashioned summer blockbuster movie at a great ol’ fashioned movie palace… The Grand Lake Theater.

Tim knew which movie he wanted to see and when he went online to lookup the movie times, he went straight to the Grand Lake’s info… 7pm.  That set our pace for the rest of our late afternoon project, because frankly, despite the fact that the movie was likely playing at other local theaters at other times, he knew there was no place else I’d rather go.

grand lake movie palace, grandlake theater, rialto cinemas

The Grand Lake Theater is my favorite movie theater in the East Bay for the following reasons:

  1. It’s gorgeous. An old movie palace dating back to the 1920’s, its main auditorium is huge (rare these days) and the decor is elaborate and beautiful, definitely from a bygone era.
  2. They never ever play commercials.  And they never will according to an interview with owner Allen Michaan.  This is practically unheard of and I really know of no other theater that doesn’t except for the Paramount, which only occasionally plays classic movies.
  3. They play first run movies. A great place to see the big blockbusters… especially on opening night. The energy is amazing!
  4. Great location. Plenty of options for dining and/drinks nearby for before or after, or a leisurely stroll around the lake… always lovely.
  5. Their incredible rooftop signage. Only now occasionally lit, due to the extreme expense of running and maintaining, this spectacular rooftop sign is one of the few remaining constructions of its kind, rising over 50 feet above the roofline, with letters as tall as 12 feet!  It’s a real treat to catch it lit at night in all its glory, but it’s also a stunning Oakland landmark by day, everyday.
  6. Independently & locally owned and operated!
  7. The Mighty Wurlitzer played on Friday and Saturday nights. Taking you back to a simpler time, and often featuring a musical medley of classic soundtrack songs, this wholesome entertainment surprisingly sets an almost reverential tone for the big screen movie experience. Here’s a shot of the organ player on one of my weekend night visits…

mighty wurlitzer, organ player grand lake, grand lake theater organ

The Grand Lake was opened in 1926 by West Coast Theaters (also responsible for Oakland’s Fox Theater) as a vaudeville show and silent movie house. The Mighty Wurlitzer was a common feature of theaters dating to this era – its purpose to provide accompaniment to the silent movies.

I didn’t feature this theater in my Art Deco series because the building has very little in the way of Art Deco design, other than the added Streamline styled marquee.  I’m not sure what year it was added, but below you can see a historical photo from 1926 without the marquee.

grand lake theater circa 1926

courtesy acmeron

And below is the marquee from late 2007, adorned with one of the owner’s frequent lefty political rants. People either love this blatant politicking or hate it, some even boycotting the theater in protest. Personally, I find it refreshing to hear a local individual’s voice speaking out in an effort to better our society (regardless of whether I agree with his stances). This is one of the benefits of being independently run… not to be confined to corporate-driven consumer messages.

art deco streamline, streamline marquee, bush cheney political rant, grand lake theater politics

As you can imagine, running an old movie house like this can be quite expensive. When Michaan (technically his company Renaissance Rialto, Inc.) bought the theater in 1980, he spent $3.5 million on renovation and expansion. The balcony was converted into a second theater, and the Grand Lake Theater saw its heyday of profits shortly thereafter with a multi-month run of E.T. (1982) in which lines wrapped around the block.

Later in 1985, two adjacent storefronts were converted into additional auxiliary theaters, both with classic period decor for similar era movie palaces (Egyptian Revival & Moorish). Since then, the expansion of multiplexes like those in Jack London Square and Emeryville has increased competition for movie goers, and profits have dwindled. Owner Michaan is fiercely dedicated to the theater’s preservation however.

“I would feel really, really bad if something happened to this building – if it wasn’t a theater,” Michaan says. “The Grand Lake is special. It’s one of the last of its kind. I sort of feel like I made a lot of money here over the years, and I owe it to the theater, even though it doesn’t make me any money any more.” (For Grand Lake Theater owner, movies must go on (by Peter Hartlaub, SFGate))

Anyone who’s been in the neighborhood recently has surely noticed the new paint job the exterior has received, huge scaffolding set up on all sides of the building. Improvements like this, plus the new roof and recently added 3D projection system (comparable to Pixar’s private screening auditorium) don’t come cheap. It’s all part of Michaan’s effort to woo the public back to the “classic golden age of Hollywood moviegoing experience.” I hope he succeeds.

This gem is one of my favorite things about living in Oakland.

And here’s a wonderful little film featuring interviews with the theater’s owner, the wurlitzer organ player, the general manager, and projectionist. It’s fascinating, featuring history, finances (did you know ticket sales cover only the costs for the studio films and the PG&E bill?), and a neat glimpse at that amazing sign on the roof and the mechanics behind it…

More info…
Grand Lake Theater on Yelp
Grand Lake Theater on Flickr
Grand Lake Theater on Cinema Treasures (interesting comments thread)

Sum Sum Summertime Summertime Summertime!

Hey all… looks like I unofficially abandoned my blog last week. My apologies… June was tough and I’m hoping that now that I’ve officially moved (and mostly unpacked), celebrated two birthdays, hosted our first gathering, and nearly finished the remodel projects on my loft, that July will be a bit smoother sailing…

As last weekend’s temps hit into the 80’s and my BBQ guests wilted into the shady patches of my yard, I decided it might be nice to feature some of the best summertime hang spots in Oaktown. Here’s one of my favorites…

Lake Temescal (in Temescal Park)

oakland summer swimming spots, Temescal Park

Named for the Temescal Creek that flows into this waterway, this gem is perched at the intersections of highways 24 and 13 in the Oakland foothills, and as far as I know, is the only unclorinated body of water available for swimming in Oakland, other than the bay and your bathtub.

The creek was dammed in 1868 to create a drinking water reservoir for the greater East Bay.  According to Wikipedia, “the bulk of the manual labor of removing soil and digging to bedrock was provided by Chinese immigrants, who probably immigrated to work to build the railroads, [and] herds of wild mustangs were used to compact the tons of dirt that were brought to create the dam.”  Can you imagine herds of wild mustangs in the hills?

Temescal Park (including the lake) opened in 1936 as one of the East Bay Regional Park District’s first three parks.  It features lovely lawns (ideal for croquet, badmitton, etc), picnic areas galore under mature shady  trees, and small trails that skirt the lake. I’ve hosted at least three birthday parties here and they’ve all been beautiful fun-filled days!

lake temescal, oakland picnic spots, oakland swimming holes

We rushed over there during a particularly searing Saturday (a week ago) when we realized our local pool was already closed due to the late hour of the day…  the beach was packed, the water temperature perfect, and the beach attendant had just put away his cash box.  Woo hoo! (though the $3 fee normally required is certainly reasonable.)

The swimming area is roped off… shallow areas for free swim and a deeper section for lane swimming.  Lifeguards are on duty from 11am to 6pm, but you can swim at your own risk during any open park hours – 5am to 10pm – though the lake is closed to swimming from November thru March.

There’s a nice little beach area for sunbathing, a historic beachhouse constructed from stone by the WPA in 1940, and trails that surround the lake providing access for fishing.  The lake is stocked in the summer with catfish and rainbow trout in the winter, but also hosts largemouth bass, red-eared sunfish, and bluegill.

I love this spot!

NOTES:  parking lots are $5 and dogs are not allowed on swimming beach or in swimming area of lake

beach at lake temescal, oakland swimming holes, temescal park

Garden of Memory ~ Summer Solstice Concert

Did anyone check out this event?  I did.

I try to go every year and it’s easy to plan ahead because they always hold this event on the Summer Solstice, in the fantastical venue of the Chapel of the Chimes.  If you haven’t seen this incredible building, it’s one of the most precious architectural gems in Oakland… a real treasure.  So much so I think I’m going to dedicate a separate post just to the Chapel. But for now, let’s talk about this awesome event…

garden of memory, summer solstice concert, new music bay area

The event is organized by New Music Bay Area, an organization of composers, musicians, and new music lovers dedicated to promoting contemporary music in the local community. 

So what exactly is “new music”? It’s obviously contemporary, but it’s more than that.  I’m probably not the best person to explain it, but it seems to be primarily experimental in nature.  This is accomplished through any number of means… unusual treatment of conventional instruments (eg – using the body of a standup bass as a percussive instrument), unusual instruments (ie – fabricated concoctions out of organic or electronic materials), unconventional musical arrangements where genres are mixed, boundaries are pushed, and outcomes are completely unpredictable, and more.

It’s often not the easiest stuff to listen to, but as one who is completely uninterested in Top 40 music, and often bored by conventional mainstream music (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus… ho hum), I find this stuff fascinating.

This year there were just under 40 separate performances and an incredibly wide spectrum of musical styles and genres was covered…   It’s nearly impossible to see everything, but half the fun is wandering through the incredible labyrinth of rooms that comprise the Chapel of the Chimes to see what one can discover.

Here are some pics and video from my exploration…

new music bay area, summer solstice concert, garden of memory

This was the first performance I saw… Laura Inserra playing a type of drum that I have never even seen before. Completely mesmerizing…

This musician had fashioned a very Dr. Seussian contraption of an instrument… long plastic tubing from his trumpet climbed around the room, terminating in “speakers” made from the hollowed out gourds of seaweed. Crazy, right? It sounded amazing.

bay area new music, garden of memory concert

bay area new music, dr seuss, organic musical instrument

Here is Larnie Fox with The Crank Ensemble… I’ve seen these guys numerous times over the years. It’s always good fun. Wielding homemade instruments of the most unusual designs (and I do believe every one has to have a crank), all mic’d and connected through a sound board for amplification and sound mixing, they performed while two directors communicated changes to them through a series of small handwritten signs. Hilarious.

A short snippet here of a guitarist performing in one of the tiny cloisters… (regretfully I did not get the artist’s info)

summer solstice experimental music concert

Another brief snippet of the performance of Adam Fong, Ken Ueno, and Edward Schocker. I was particularly fascinated by the incredible sounds that were generated from these vases of water…

This installation (below) by Maggi Payne was really cool. She basically constructed a series of small devices to act as musical instruments, each triggered by the flowing water of a fountain. Essentially, the fountain was conducting its own mini orchestra. She was able to change the instruments by tapping an orchid linked to a motherboard programmed with varying instrument groupings. Incredible.

bay area new music, summer solstice concert

bay area new music, garden of memory

Last, here is a beautiful piece performed by the women’s vocal ensemble Kitka…

If you’re at all interested in this kind of music/performance art, there’s a cool event this weekend on Sunday evening at the lovely Kaiser Rooftop Garden near Lake Merritt…

Scenes from a Lingering Garden
Sunday 6/27
5 – 8pm
$5 donation suggested

From the website…

Oakland sound artist and composer Hugh Livingston presents “scenes from a lingering garden”, a combination performance and installation covering the 3.5 acres of the Kaiser Rooftop Garden in Oakland.

A field of gongs will occupy a back corner of the garden, designed and engineered by Matthew Goodheart.

Roving instrumentalists add to the mix of hidden speakers in magnolia trees, ornamental firs and a black bamboo grove. The soundscapes are composed from sounds of Oakland and around the world, calling attention to the presence of wind, water and birds. The scenes are a set of variations, providing different views of similar musical material, without a driving component of time, allowing each visitor to experience the composition at their own pace and according to their own tastes.

The Paramount Theatre ~ an Oakland Icon

I quoted a writer the other day in my post about the Floral Depot building, who argued that its restaurant Flora was the “anchor” of the Uptown district, and I agreed. But now that I think about it, I realize that it’s truly the Paramount Theatre that grounds this neighborhood, and has for decades.

Before there was the Fox-reopened, before there was Lukas, before Van Kleefs, before Flora and the Uptown nightclub, before Art Murmur and its slew of hipster galleries, before the condos Jerry Brown envisioned (now realized), before all of this… the Paramount Theatre stood, proudly serving this neighborhood for decades despite the departure of nearly everything around it.

I’m wrapping up my Art Deco Days series… there’s much more to tell – I haven’t even covered the gorgeous I. Magnin building – but I’m itchin’ to move on to other topics, so I’ll finish up with a bit more about this Oaktown icon.

We left off in the expansive and extravagant “redwood forest” lobby designed by Timothy Pflueger.  Additional features included the Egyptian Princesses cast in plaster and painted in real gold-leaf (remember, this was the time of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb and the world was captivated by Egyptian art).  These lovelies may appear identical, but there are subtle difference between them, in the number of folds of fabric draped behind their legs.  Attention to minute details such as this can be found throughout the entire theater, designed to ensure the patron’s experience of true artisan craftsmanship, rather than cookie cutter repetition.

art deco sculpture, art deco lighting, egyptian princesses

art deco sculpture, egyptian motif, paramount theatre lobby

Pflueger was considered one of the foremost architects of the Art Deco style – and like another famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright – he designed everything in this theater right down to each and every light fixture. It’s incredible. Though there are numerous influences (Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Polynesian), the same Deco styling is applied to all. And the same zig-zags, swirls, leaves, flowers, & vines can be seen throughout… on the walls in cast plaster, in the ceiling treatments of silver-fin metal work, in the carpeting, upholstery, and more.

paramount theatre, art deco architecture, art deco oakland

paramount theatre inside, paramount theatre oakland

paramount theatre ceiling, paramount theatre oakland

isis holding sun, art deco silver fin

art deco motifs, art deco designs, paramount theatre oakland

art deco cast plaster, paramount theatre interior

paramount theatre light fixture

The theater continued to show movies through the 1930’s and beyond. During WWII, the Paramount became a favorite gathering place to watch news-reel updates on the war. In the 50’s, a thousand youngsters came to see Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock. But as development moved to the suburbs and people were able to enjoy entertainment at home on their televisions, attendance at the Paramount declined. It was eventually closed in September 1970, to be later rescued by an unlikely candidate.

In the early 70’s the Oakland Symphony was looking for a new home and they considered both the Fox Oakland Theater and the Paramount. The story goes that the symphony was brought onto the stages of both theaters (both shuttered at the time) to determine which space had the best acoustics. The Paramount won hands down, and the Symphony later purchased the theater in 1972 for $1 million, cobbled together with some creative financing, including a 50% kickback from the seller.

The theater was completely restored to its original 1931 splendor by project manager and Art Deco expert Peter Botto with additional architectural firms consulting. Elements that were added mid-century, such as candy counters and popcorn machines, were removed; new seats were installed; the carpet was replaced (extreme care taken to exactly match the original carpet); and the entire theater received an intensive cleaning. Supposedly when the dust was blown out of the upper levels of the theater, the ground floor was filled waist-high with the debris. Years of smoking indoors also added thick layers of grime that needed to be carefully cleaned from all surfaces. The effort was not a renovation, but a complete restoration, our tour guides emphatically noting the difference. The complete restoration cost about $1 million dollars (the same price for which the theater was built in 1931). Compare that to the cost to renovate the Fox in the 21st century… a whopping $75 million, and you can understand why some folks thought the Fox would never again see its doors opened to the public.

I misspoke in one of my earlier posts on the Paramount, stating that it was still currently owned by the Oakland Symphony. Actually, the symphony went bankrupt just two years after purchasing and restoring their new home (oops!). But they made a deal with the City of Oakland, donating the theater to the city for the lump sum of one dollar, in exchange for an agreement that they’d be guaranteed 40 years of bookings. Pretty sweet deal, eh? The Paramount Theatre is now operated and managed by a small non-profit organization on behalf of the city.

The theater became a California Historical Landmark in 1976, a National Historical Landmark in 1977, and is considered one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in the country. We’re so lucky to have this treasure.

paramount theatre lobby, paramount fountain of light

View of Lobby from Upstairs Balcony

art deco architecture, paramount theatre oakland

paramount theater downstairs, paramount interior, art deco