Page 42 - The Peorian Vol 3 Issue 1 Winter

42 thePeorian.com
W ith the coming of
the New Year it
is important that
Peorians look back at the past as
well as towards the future. Peoria
has lost all but one of its historic
movie theaters. The Madison
Theatre in downtown Peoria is
the last of the old 1920s picture
palaces in Peoria and it too, could
be lost forever.
The Madison was built in
1920 and was originally home
to Vaudeville acts, silent movies
and eventually sound pictures.
It continued to function as a
movie theater for many decades
before becoming a popular venue
for live music in the 1990s. In
1980, it was put on the National
Register of Historic Places and 10
years after it closed, it made the
2013 Illinois Landmarks 10 Most
Endangered Historic Places.
“This is important [and]
significant architecture and it just
doesn’t exist anywhere else in
Peoria,” said Jim Bateman, vice
president of the Central Illinois
Landmark Foundation. “It’s very
high quality. It was a premier
theater in its day. It was not just
a slapdash auditorium. It was a
grand theater.”
But the years have not been
kind to the building’s interior,
which was not properly
maintained over the decades.
The seating, the plumbing and
everything electrical are among
the long list of items needing
repair.
“A lot of the charm of the
theater is in all of the plaster
and the artwork, and it’s quite
intricate,” Bateman said. “It’s
actually in very good shape. Most
old theaters are not in as good
of shape as the Madison. We’re
fortunate that we have had very
little water get into it, and water
is the thing that wrecks a theater
or anything that’s made out of
plaster.”
While the theater has
limitations and getting the
estimated $12 million to $18
million for renovation is a
problem, the real issue is making
the theater economically feasible,
which Bateman said is the key
to saving and restoring the
building.
The CILF has discovered a
number of theaters that have
found a way to stay open a way
and in some cases, even turn a
profit. Those theaters used a large
variety of programming ideas.
HAS THE MADISON
THEATRE SEEN ITS FINAL
CURTAIN?
By Tim Rosenberger
The Future