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The Granada Theater
Topics: Granada, Bakersfield, Bakotopia, movie, theater, Wurlitzer, Susan Ochoa, BHAB, blog, classic, restored
Posted by Bakontributor Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:42:04 PDT
Viewed 279 times
0 responses 0 comments Location: 618 Kentucky St, Bakersfield, CA 93305

The Granada Theater
A drive-by inspires a tirade of revolutionary proportion in Old Town Kern

By Susan Ochoa aka BHAB, Bakotopia.com Contributor


The other day, I was driving down Baker Street when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that made me turn my car around. The Granada Theater’s marquee almost winked as it proudly announced: We have a Wurlitzer.

For those of you unfamiliar, Wurlitzer makes the most beautiful juke boxes, pianos and organs. All the old classic theaters that have survived from the silent movie days have big, old Wurlitzer organs that, on occasion, they’ll pay someone to come in to play.

If you’ve ever been to Avalon on Catalina and taken the trek to the Casino, then you’ve seen their Wurlitzer and you’ve probably heard the pre-movie concerts that fill the space with spectral wisps of swinging silk and seersucker.

I parked in front of the Granada and looked closer. Nope, still no notice of when or if they would be opening. So, what’s the point of letting us know they have a Wurlitzer?

I can only assume the intent is to rub their blissful joy in our faces since we will never get to experience it.

For over a decade, Jim and Lucy Spohn have been renovating the Granada.

Apparently, the Granada became part of the Baker Redevelopment area in 2001, but the most recent pictures I can find on-line are over two years old.  I still don’t think it will ever open.

While the Granada was built in 1927, I doubt that it originally housed 23 tons of pipe organ — that’s right, TWENTY-THREE TONS. Jim, what’s up?

Most guys just buy a sports car! All that pipe organ sound in that tiny space — it’s like the Ray Spector Pipe Organ Wall of Sound — I’m intrigued, but a little frightened by the size of your organ.

Thought I’d never see it, but like most obscene things, there are pictures of it on the Internet. Thanks to the film tech Web site, I’ve now seen it and I’m more pissed than ever!

This theater was never meant to house 23 tons of pipe organ. Jim built those big boxes to house the pipes and ruined the site lines for the side isles.  Yep — that organ is a tight fit and it’s making the poor ol’ girl walk funny, too!

I was saddened by the closing of the Nile and I literally cried when the Tejon Theater was no more. I had spent so many happy summer days in those old scratchy, sticky seats.

We always had to bring a sweater, even in August. The escape from bright, dusty Bakersfield for the afternoon was a welcome relief from the dank whirr of our swamp coolers.

Yes, we still have the Fox, but it’s a multi-purpose concert hall that occasionally shows movies. I’m talking about the movie house: The place where you shared a dream with a room full of strangers, the place you went on a Saturday afternoon and lost yourself in adolescent fantasies of romance and adventure, the place we came together as a community before home video and cable TV.

One after another, the great theaters of the world are closing their doors forever — only to be replaced by sterile, shoe box multiplexes devoid of personality, warmth or charm.

And yet, we have one of those great old movie houses right in our own back yard still standing, still ready for an audience and it sits locked and unused.
Well, that’s not entirely true.  Apparently, the owners do use the Granada from time to time:  Private parties for friends and relatives who watch classic films or listen to Jimmy Narducci play the saxophone.

But I guess the rest of us can just go jump in a lake. Quack … quack …

Many of us knew that the owners were enjoying their own personal time machine to a bygone era and had come to accept the fact that we’d never get into what we can only imagine is a beautiful old theater.

But to put up a huge sign to let us all know that they now have a Wurlitzer?

To say to the world, “we're having a great time, glad you’re not here?”

Does anyone else feel like a French peasant told to eat cake?

Private property laws say that they own the building and they can do whatever they like with it. But I can’t help the impulse to take up the red beret, grab my musket and storm the Bastille.

Viva la revolution!

**The Brutally Honest Arts Bitch is 32 year old East Bakersfield native Susan Ochoa, a regular contributor to The Blackboard during its run back in the day.

*Story originally printed in Bakotopia Magazine, issue 7, 7/27/07

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