PROPOSED - Norwich - Non-profit cinema

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Bulletin - New theater hopes to preserve temple's 'old flair' in Norwich Temple

Brad Wall and a dozen volunteers spent the day taking apart 900 seats in the Masonic Temple at Sachem and Washington streets. He plans to use them in a community theater he would like to locate downtown.

He's also scavenging the old building for pieces that will give the community theater an old-fashioned look.

Wall had his eye on oak-framed glass doors, brass rails from the theater balcony and "exit" and "silence" signs posted throughout the building.

The Mohegan Tribe, which now owns the building, plans to tear it down this summer. The temple was built on the tribe's sacred burial grounds at the beginning of the last century and tribal leaders have worked for decades to return the property to a burial place.

Nonprofit Cinema Plan Off To 'Good Start' In Norwich

Lester Gorin, owner of Gorin's Furniture, has donated space in his new Bozrah warehouse where the group can store the seats, doors and other items for 90 days.