Belk Place: Carolina Theater and Hotel Intercontinental

[JacksonH]

15 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Here is a Carolina Theater opened and still in business since 1927 in downtown Greensboro.   My grandmother would have gone here more than likely. 

Plus there is one in Durham opened too.  Oh yeah one in Winston Salem too just called Stevens Center part of the NC School of the Arts.  

One day Charlotte will rejoin this club. 

Asheboro also had a Carolina Theater, and also Hickory.

[DMann]

It appears that a cover has been placed over the elevator shaft for the Intercontinental.   Any one have any Insight as to potential activity?

[CLT>]

On 5/14/2022 at 3:44 PM, nicholas said:

Yeah I noticed that as well, is there any explanation for that because it looks like a monumental oversight.

I believe it was moved to the South Side of the street till the library/7th&Tryon project is complete,  then will shift back to the North side, that will also allow for the hotel loading zone to not be in a cycleway. But will be interesting to see  if they put in cycle specific lights otherwise cyclists will be diagonally crossing an intersection twice...

[DMann]

In the past 4 weeks they have unwrapped the cladding put on the elevator shaft for the Intercontinental and replaced it with different cladding called ExP.  I do not know if that is good or bad.  Can anyone weigh in on that?

 

[theronhobbs]

1 hour ago, DMann said:

In the past 4 weeks they have unwrapped the cladding put on the elevator shaft for the Intercontinental and replaced it with different cladding called ExP.  I do not know if that is good or bad.  Can anyone weigh in on that?

Gold Bond eXP Sheathing is just standard 1/2" exterior gypsum board. I'm hypothesizing, but it'll likely be wrapped in a vapor barrier/house wrap layer and maybe some finish material until construction on the hotel starts.

[norm21499]

No timeline yet on when the hotel might begin construction? I have hope for this one since Moxy is back on track.

[Mid South NC]

[norm21499]

Looks like the hotel on the top of the theater might be starting construction in the Autumn

[DMann]

And your source is reliable?

[AnonymousCanadian]

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/development/article264947589.html

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/development/article264947589.html

The 250-room Intercontinental Hotel will restart construction, likely in the fall, foundation president and CEO Michael Marsicano said during a Thursday afternoon Charlotte Center City Partners board meeting.

Construction on the upscale hotel, which will sit above the theater, was indefinitely paused last year, the Charlotte Observer reported at the time. Attempts to reach the Australia-based hotel developer Friday were not immediately successful.

[DMann]

[RANYC]

20 hours ago, AnonymousCanadian said:

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/development/article264947589.html

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/development/article264947589.html

The 250-room Intercontinental Hotel will restart construction, likely in the fall, foundation president and CEO Michael Marsicano said during a Thursday afternoon Charlotte Center City Partners board meeting.

Construction on the upscale hotel, which will sit above the theater, was indefinitely paused last year, the Charlotte Observer reported at the time. Attempts to reach the Australia-based hotel developer Friday were not immediately successful.

Says the theater will open "next spring," which I take to mean spring of 2023, yes?  Will certainly light up that part of Tryon Street.

[tarhoosier]

Re-upping my history with Carolina Theater: I saw the Muhammad Ali-Floyd Patterson fight there, closed circuit projection, 20 September, 1972. Before streaming, before pay-per-view, (but after recreation of live events from telegraph reports*) there were closed circuit broadcasts with projection on movie screen. It was a seven round fight.

Two or three years later during a fad for cheap "kung fu" movies popular with urban youth I accompanied a 12 year old whom I was mentoring. His choice for the outing. I knew nothing of the experience as niche cultural outposts were less well known in those pre-internet days. Was I the only white person in the nearly full theater? Why, yes I was, thank you for asking.

*https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/virtual-exhibits/reagan-and-baseball

Real question: What is the intended use for this theater? 

Edited August 27, 2022 by tarhoosier

[norm21499]

2 hours ago, tarhoosier said:

Re-upping my history with Carolina Theater: I saw the Muhammad Ali-Floyd Patterson fight there, closed circuit projection, 20 September, 1972. Before streaming, before pay-per-view, (but after recreation of live events from telegraph reports*) there were closed circuit broadcasts with projection on movie screen. It was a seven round fight.

Two or three years later during a fad for cheap "kung fu" movies popular with urban youth I accompanied a 12 year old whom I was mentoring. His choice for the outing. I knew nothing of the experience as niche cultural outposts were less well known in those pre-internet days. Was I the only white person in the nearly full theater? Why, yes I was, thank you for asking.

*https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/virtual-exhibits/reagan-and-baseball

Real question: What is the intended use for this theater? 

Fun fact: I was fortunate enough to meet Muhammad Ali at one of my former jobs. He was a really nice guy, of course he liked to brag a bit haha

[Windsurfer]

5 hours ago, tarhoosier said:

Re-upping my history with Carolina Theater: I saw the Muhammad Ali-Floyd Patterson fight there, closed circuit projection, 20 September, 1972. Before streaming, before pay-per-view, (but after recreation of live events from telegraph reports*) there were closed circuit broadcasts with projection on movie screen. It was a seven round fight.

Two or three years later during a fad for cheap "kung fu" movies popular with urban youth I accompanied a 12 year old whom I was mentoring. His choice for the outing. I knew nothing of the experience as niche cultural outposts were less well known in those pre-internet days. Was I the only white person in the nearly full theater? Why, yes I was, thank you for asking.

*https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/virtual-exhibits/reagan-and-baseball

Real question: What is the intended use for this theater? 

I think it was the same kung fu movie I convinced my buddies to watch on a lark down.,...er, uptown.  Was it the last movie they showed? I think the year was 1977,or posssibly 76

[tarhoosier]

In Chinese (or Korean or something) and sound out of sync with action. Lots of added Ka-Pow and THUD sound effects and whirling motions with kicks and kung-fu punching. (I know nothing about kung-fu or if they use punches.) It was not a "good" kung fu movie. No Bruce Lee, no Avenger just lots of Hawaiian looking men with tight abs throwing themselves around and shouting and disarming and crushing an army of opponents. It must have worked off some of the repressed sexual energy of the adolescents in the audience, and if so, good for them. 

Edit: How could I forget the hilarious captioning? Utterly devoid of relevance to the "action". Long before computer generated captioning these words at the bottom of the screen read like what someone wanted the script to be rather than what it clearly was. Voice, emotion, motivation, intent, all were from some other fictional universe than what was on screen. Laughable, but the audience was not there for the captioning, only the action and the KA-POWness.

The Dilworth Theater* was a Kung Fu cinema at this time also. I can tell another story that is something about that but not in this forum. Too bizarre for print.

*I saw Summer of 42 in Dilworth theater in late 71 or 72 at the end of its standard run experience. Jennifer O'Neill, whooo-boy.

Edited August 28, 2022 by tarhoosier

[san]

On 8/27/2022 at 8:19 PM, tarhoosier said:

In Chinese (or Korean or something) and sound out of sync with action. Lots of added Ka-Pow and THUD sound effects and whirling motions with kicks and kung-fu punching. (I know nothing about kung-fu or if they use punches.) It was not a "good" kung fu movie. No Bruce Lee, no Avenger just lots of Hawaiian looking men with tight abs throwing themselves around and shouting and disarming and crushing an army of opponents. It must have worked off some of the repressed sexual energy of the adolescents in the audience, and if so, good for them. 

Edit: How could I forget the hilarious captioning? Utterly devoid of relevance to the "action". Long before computer generated captioning these words at the bottom of the screen read like what someone wanted the script to be rather than what it clearly was. Voice, emotion, motivation, intent, all were from some other fictional universe than what was on screen. Laughable, but the audience was not there for the captioning, only the action and the KA-POWness.

The Dilworth Theater* was a Kung Fu cinema at this time also. I can tell another story that is something about that but not in this forum. Too bizarre for print.

*I saw Summer of 42 in Dilworth theater in late 71 or 72 at the end of its standard run experience. Jennifer O'Neill, whooo-boy.

Oh wow, that’s all really cool info. You seem to know a lot about Charlotte’s theaters, were you around for Cinema Blue by Eastway Dr?

[Windsurfer]

22 minutes ago, san said:

Oh wow, that’s all really cool info. You seem to know a lot about Charlotte’s theaters, were you around for Cinema Blue by Eastway Dr?

Don't ask him about The Plaza cat

[Hidden Valley memory]

On 8/27/2022 at 2:11 PM, tarhoosier said:

Re-upping my history with Carolina Theater: I saw the Muhammad Ali-Floyd Patterson fight there, closed circuit projection, 20 September, 1972. Before streaming, before pay-per-view, (but after recreation of live events from telegraph reports*) there were closed circuit broadcasts with projection on movie screen. It was a seven round fight.

Two or three years later during a fad for cheap "kung fu" movies popular with urban youth I accompanied a 12 year old whom I was mentoring. His choice for the outing. I knew nothing of the experience as niche cultural outposts were less well known in those pre-internet days. Was I the only white person in the nearly full theater? Why, yes I was, thank you for asking.

*https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/virtual-exhibits/reagan-and-baseball

Real question: What is the intended use for this theater? 

Ahhh, the memories of the "Kung Fu" movies back in the day. Yes! They were very popular in my community!!

[tarhoosier]

12 hours ago, san said:

Oh wow, that’s all really cool info. You seem to know a lot about Charlotte’s theaters, were you around for Cinema Blue by Eastway Dr?

Yes, certainly. My first day in Charlotte I went to see a movie at that theater at a shopping center at Eastway and Plaza. It was In Cold Blood Blood (I think). Scary enough that on return to the motel, the Alamo Plaza on South Tryon, that I locked the room door and moved the dresser in front of the door to block entry, and exit of course. The heart has its reasons. ~ten years later after the theater became an adult house I and several other friends, mixed genders, decided that since a few of us had not attended a porn movie that it made an outing. There was a special appearance of an "actress" who was also a director (these are her terms) making an appearance for this event. Who could remember the title of the show? They should give them numbers instead of names. To my question, she said her work gave women power and opportunity (my paraphrase) and she was proud of what she did. So there you have it.

The movie building was painted blue incase you did not catch the point at the time.

Edited August 29, 2022 by tarhoosier

[tarhoosier]

12 hours ago, Windsurfer said:

Don't ask him about The Plaza cat

Plaza was a solid theater and owned by the Schrader family, along with the Visulite on Elizabeth. I saw a strange and compelling movie there called Fantastic Planet, also known as Oms En Serie. Animated and without spoken language, and to a mildly herbed viewer it was an astounding conceptual achievement. I saw it later, somewhere, sober and it still had a punch. Animation is less formed by the time of its creation. I should check to see if it is available anywhere.

A few years later Plaza went blue and they played a grand double bill of Devil in Ms Jones and DeepThroat. These are classics of the genre, if I may be allowed to say.  A female friend wanted to have the blue experience and I agreed to accompany her for the performance. It was educational, as she said.*

Visulite remained the art house in Charlotte into the 80's. The Schraders employed a friend of mine, Hal Hinson, to run the place and he booked amazing films there. I saw Kagemusha-Shadow Warrior and Seven Samurai (the origin of The Magnificent Seven) by Kurosawa, Mean Streets by Scorsese, Kentucky Fried Movie, and a few others now lost to memory. Hal Hinson went on to be a well regarded film critic for newspapers in D. C., S.t Louis and maybe elsewhere as I lost connections with him when he departed Charlotte and followed him from afar.

*yes, I had some interesting friends.

Edit movie title. It was Devil IN Ms Jones, not AND Ms Jones.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-devil-in-miss-jones-1973  The star of the movie was Georgina Spelvin. George Spelvin is the name commonly and traditionally used by actors who, for whatever reason, prefer to be acknowledged anonymously. Thus "Georgina" Spelvin. 

Edited August 29, 2022 by tarhoosier

[CLTNative]

11 hours ago, Windsurfer said:

Don't ask him about The Plaza cat

Does anyone have info on this? I know the Plaza Theater was located where the Wells building currently sits at Central & Plaza. I’ve only found a handful of images. One shows the vertical sign, honored by the teeter’ corner design. 

image and info: http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/8263

 

Edit: thanks! @tarhoosier

Edited August 29, 2022 by CLTNative

[turbocraig]

Great pic!  I never knew there used to be a theater there.  It’s an interesting photo.  Car in the background looks like it’s from the 40s, Up in Smoke was from 1978 and Goonies was from 1985.  But both are playing at a discount theater so assuming it’s from the late 80s. At a glance it looks like a photo from the 50s.

[tozmervo]

On 8/27/2022 at 2:11 PM, tarhoosier said:

Real question: What is the intended use for this theater? 

Don't see that anyone answered this:
There is effectively no back of house and no way to add back of house, so there will be some limitations on productions. I would expect to see movie screenings, lectures, simpler staged productions (like what you see at Spirit Square - spoken word, comedy, etc) and smaller musical acts. 

[RANYC]

1 hour ago, tozmervo said:

Don't see that anyone answered this:
There is effectively no back of house and no way to add back of house, so there will be some limitations on productions. I would expect to see movie screenings, lectures, simpler staged productions (like what you see at Spirit Square - spoken word, comedy, etc) and smaller musical acts. 

Perhaps a group like World Affairs Charlotte will start hosting its series in the new theater versus in the Hilton Ballroom

https://worldaffairscharlotte.org/billrogers_nov22022/

Or perhaps a non-profit can model itself after a venerated organization like the Connecticut Forum and be based out of the Carolina Theater...

https://www.ctforum.org/

Edited August 29, 2022 by RANYC