From glory to gone

Fifty years ago, the Von Lee Theater offered a movie and hot popcorn. Today, it offers bare walls and dusty air.\nAccording to the Cinema Treasures Web site, the theater was built by local investors in 1928 as The Ritz. The theater was reopened in 1948 by the Vonderschmitt family, who renamed the building the "Von Lee." The Vonderschmitts also opened the Indiana Theater on Kirkwood Avenue, which currently operates as the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.\nA spacious single-screen cinema, now converted into three smaller auditoriums, the Von Lee rests on the border between historic downtown Bloomington and the IU campus.\nDuring the 1950s, Bloomington was a city much like today. For a city built around youth, the Von Lee filled an important void. \nGregory A. Waller, professor and chair of the department of communication and culture, said a new trend was movies being shown directed to a younger audience. During the 1950s, Waller said, drive-ins and theaters showed primarily mainstream movies.\nKerasotes Theaters purchased the Von Lee in 1976, and suspended the operations in 2000 as the company built two multiplexes in the city, making the historic cinema expendable to their operations.\nNow owned by Artemis LLC, a private company, the Von Lee has been the center of various community efforts to reopen or otherwise "Save The Von Lee." It has also since been designated a historic site by the city of Bloomington.\nChancellors' Professor of Communication and Culture Jim Naremore said it is extremely important to Bloomington that the Von Lee be independently operated because the city would then have a downtown movie theater providing the community with an alternative to the kind of viewing the city has in its shopping malls.\n"All over America, there is a renaissance for reviving these old time theaters," he said. "It is just as important to the culture of the city as a museum or a music hall."\nCities around the country have revived historic theaters, including Iowa City, Iowa and Ann Arbor, Mich. \nChris Sturbaum, organizer of the "Save the Von Lee" committee, said the Von Lee is part of the soul of Bloomington. He has collected over 1,650 signatures in support of the committee. Sturbaum added the Von Lee has been part of the IU experience for many years, and there is just something about a public space like to which people feel personally connected. \nIn the period of the late 1960s and '70s, foreign films were shown in the historic theater. For anybody who went to college in those years and was interested in movies, it was a special place, Naremore said. \nArtemis LLC is currently contemplating opening a restaurant or bar in the Von Lee building. The Monroe County Alcohol Beverage Board will decide on Jan. 7 if the theater will receive an alcohol permit.\nSturbaum, who attended the Von Lee when he was a child, said a good memory was going to see a Woody Allen film and in the theater seats there were a broad cross section of the community sharing a good movie. \n"Local businesses used to call the Von Lee and see what time the movies got out, anticipating the rush," Sturbaum said. \n-- Contact city & state editor Michael Malik at mjmalik@indiana.edu.