Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
- Photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have photographed abandoned theaters throughout the US for more than a decade.
- Their images show the decline of movie-going in American cities, though a few of the contemporary ruins are undergoing a transformation.
- Marchand and Meffre's collection of images will be showcased in April in New York City.
Decades before the decline of retail stores, movie theaters around the United States started to shutter. As cities lost residents to the suburbs around the 1950s, some of their most popular theaters, auditoriums, and opera houses began to empty out.
Around that time, television became a staple part of the American home, reducing the need to pay for entertainment. Newer movie theaters also built multiple auditoriums, each with fewer seats, to allow for more than one showing at a time. In a matter of decades, large, grand movie palaces became virtually obsolete.
With no customers to keep them afloat, buildings designed to seat thousands, like the Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia and the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn, were abandoned.
Recognizing this pattern of decay, photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre set out to capture deserted theaters across America. Their ongoing project kicked off in 2005 after they discovered an abandoned movie theater in Detroit.
Even though residents have returned to cities, refurbishing old theaters can be too costly for developers and city governments. Meffre said they've come across some theaters that were in decent condition, while others had a "post-war, apocalyptic" atmosphere.
Since many theaters lack windows, Marchand and Meffre sometimes take photographs in total darkness, relying on a handmade flashlight to illuminate certain details.
In April, their images will be showcased at The Photography Show, which is hosted by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers in New York City.
Here's a preview of some of the most striking contemporary ruins shown in their collection.
The Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia was in such bad shape, a developer purchased it for $1 in 2012.
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
The structure has undergone numerous transformations over the last 110 years. It was built in 1908 as a home for the Philadelphia Opera Company, but was eventually converted into a ballroom, sports arena, and, finally, a church.
By the mid-1990s, the crumbling structure was declared imminently dangerous to the public. City building authorities wanted to tear it down, but a developer, Eric Blumenfeld, wound up purchasing the property for a single dollar.
Renovations were stalled for many years before the entertainment company Live Nation swept in with a $56 million redevelopment plan. The newly renovated venue opened to the public in December 2018 with a concert featuring Bob Dylan.
The Blue Horizon in Philadelphia was one of the world's most famous boxing venues from the 1960s to 2010.
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
The building was first constructed as housing complex in 1865, before transitioning to a boxing venue in the late 1930s. By the 1960s, the arena became known as a place to watch boxing legends. The site was also used to shoot boxing scenes for the fifth Rocky movie and the 2006 film Annapolis.
In 2010, the Blue Horizon closed after reportedly running into tax issues. For nearly a decade, it seemed to represent the decline of Rust Belt cities in the wake of deindustrialization. Now it could be part of Philadelphia's revival. Marriott plans to convert the building into a $22 million "micro-hotel" with 140 guest rooms.
Developers in Newark, New Jersey, are revamping the city's Paramount Theater, which once served as a vaudeville house.
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
Like the Blue Horizon, Newark's shuttered Paramount Theater came to symbolize the plight of industrial towns during the 1980s. The building opened as a vaudeville house in 1886 and closed a century later after a long history as a movie theater.
Developers now plan to transform the structure into a mixed-use development. A key part of their vision involves preserving the "Newark" sign on the building's facade, which has become one of the city's most recognizable icons.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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SEE ALSO: Movie theaters are losing their battle to avoid the retail apocalypse
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