The Oregon Theater ( Oregon Theater or Oregon Theater [1] ) is a sex cinema located in the southeastern suburb of Portland ( Oregon , USA) . The building of the future theater was built in 1925. Initially, it contained an organ and a stage for variety shows. Later, when the building was re-equipped, films of various genres and trends were shown in it: both Hollywood and art-house, both English and Spanish. In 1967, the Meisels family became the owner of the building, and in the 1970s, after major repairs, a sex cinema opened in it. The cinema is still operating (autumn 2015), being the oldest existing pornographic cinema in the city, and remains the property of members of the Meisels family.
Oregon Theater ( Oregon Theater ) | |
 | |
| Entrance to the cinema in 2014 | |
| Located |  USA , Portland , Oregon |
| Appointment | theater |
| Status | acts like a movie theater |
| Design | Hubert Williams |
| Owner | Gain Meisels |
The cinema was described as "less disgusting than most of its kind," but was considered "inappropriate" in the newly developed South Street Division development plan. It is also considered the "last bastion of the passing era", due to the popularity of porn movies in the city in the 1970s and its status as the last property belonging to the Meisels family. In 2004, the Oregon Theater building was included in the list of “investment-attractive and authentic places” South Street Division Street as a building with a number of valuable properties for the local community, including a solid building, facing the facade and the local owner.
Content
Description and History
The two-story building of the Oregon Theater with an area of about 810 m² was designed by Hubert Williams [2] [3] [4] . The building’s design was designed in the with Streetcar Era Commercial style commercial elements. The brick structure is complemented by glass display cases, belts, sliding windows on the second floor, decorative laying of parapets and a flat roof [1] . A capacious auditorium is located inside the building [5] . At the time of the theater’s opening, it housed a Wurlitzer production office for $ 16,000, decorative lamps attached to a high domed ceiling, 750 chairs with high backs [4] , a theater stage and a screen measuring 4.9 by 6.1 meters [6] . The cost of construction of the facility amounted to 35,000 dollars. The opening of the theater took place on September 4, 1925 with the screening of the dramatic film "Steel from Mounted Police" [4] [6] .
The first owner of the building was JW McFadden. The theater was later owned by CC and Lidi Maudi, JS Middleton, Oregon Theater Co., Mary Watt and Ernest Bass. In 1930, JW Mcfadden Inc. changed the appearance of the front door and the box office of the theater, as well as completed a new box office [1] . In 1949, during the reconstruction of the building of the Congregational United Church of Christ Waverly Heights, located a few blocks from the Oregon Theater, it held church services and classes of Sunday school students [7] . According to the Puget Sound Theater Organ Society, the theater's organ was transferred to William Wood Organ Co. and then installed in the studio of the Portland radio station KXL . The main entrance of the theater, including its doors and ticket office, established in 1930, was reconstructed by Ferguson Cassady Co. in 1954 [1] [8] .
In 1967, the Meisels immigrant family became the owner of the building, who also owned several other movie theaters in the city, including the Aladdin Theater, now the demolished Walnut Park, and Encore, now known as Clinton Street Theater . In 1975, aluminum sheets were placed under the Marquise of the Oregon Theater and a Broadway Sign Co light system was installed [1] .
The cinema was built in an era when most of the US population went to the local cinema at least once a week, and until the 1960s, it mainly featured Hollywood films. However, with the advent of large multi-screen cinemas and television, most small cinemas ceased to exist or were redesigned. To somehow hold out, the Oregon Theater began to show art-house cinema and even films in Spanish [6] .
Sex Cinema
In the 1970s, the building was redesigned into a sex cinema . The impetus for this transformation was the huge box office success of the 1972 film " Deep Throat ", after which many cinemas across the country "went for the money" and reprofiled into sex cinemas. In Portland alone, more than a dozen such institutions appeared, including the Oregon Theater [4] [6] . However, the growing popularity of video cassettes and cable television had a negative impact on the attendance of sex cinemas, and by the 2000s the Meisels family had sold all of their property, with the exception of the Oregon Theater. As of 2015, one of the members of the Meisels family - Gain - still owns a theater, which continues to function and is the oldest functioning sex cinema in the city [4] [6] [9] .
After converting the institution into a sex cinema, sofas and soft chairs were installed in the room. In 2005, according to The Portland Mercury , heterosexual porn films were shown daily at the cinema, except Wednesday and Saturday, when bisexuals were shown [10] . In 2013, a Portland Monthly observer wrote in a description of a visit to the cinema that, having passed the green door, the visitor finds himself in an inclined corridor, the walls of which are lined with pornographic DVDs, and at the end the “indifferent doorman” requires an entrance fee of $ 8. Inside, several dozen men, mostly elderly, in almost complete darkness occupy seats on sofas [6] . Snacks, drinks and towels are available in the cinema lobby, and free condoms are also provided. There are toilets on the top floor, and the female one, usually locked, can be used from time to time as a room for private orgies. In front of the auditorium there is a fenced off place for couples. Nearby is a wooden structure with two rows of cabins (three in each), interconnected using a Glory Hole . There is also a massage table set directly in front of the screen [5] .
The Oregon Theater, along with other city sex movie theaters and pornographic literature shops, was criticized by local residents and public organizations, who noted the negative impact of these institutions on the value of nearby real estate, the increased crime rate and anxiety of local residents, and offered either close them, or take them to certain areas of the city. However, not everyone in Portland supported the view that such institutions should have been closed, and two petitions were sent in support of sex cinemas - one from residents and one from local businessmen. The first petition in support of the Oregon Theater collected 640 signatures, and the second eight. In 1981, the city authorities decided that such establishments can only be located in certain areas of the city, and 4 out of 5 sex cinemas, including Oregon, did not meet the new criteria. Later, the city council adopted a resolution according to which over the next six months, institutions that do not meet the new criteria will be under heavy police surveillance to determine their impact on the surrounding area. As a result, in 1982, the decision that all sex cinemas should only be in places designated by the Planning Bureau was approved. Despite this decision, all existing sex cinemas remained in their places and continued to demonstrate pornographic films, however, until 2007, not a single new similar institution was opened in Portland [11] .
Reviews
According to local film archivist and writer Gary Lacher, the fact that the Oregon Theater is Portland's oldest functioning pornographic cinema is "rarely celebrated publicly." He also called the theater "the last bastion of the passing era," referring to the boom in the popularity of porn movies in the city in the 1970s [4] [6] . In an interview, Lacher voiced his dream that the theater would return to showing more traditional cinema, but emphasized that he was glad that the institution was still not closed and the building was not demolished [6] .
In 2004, GNT Planning, led by Division Vision Coalition (DVC), which included members of local communities, included the theater in its list of “Investment Attractive and Authentic Places” in its report. DVC invests in “the economy of local entrepreneurs, in improving the appearance of streets that would attract local residents, as well as in environmental development”. The report indicated that the Oregon Theater building has a number of valuable features for the community, such as a solid construction, a local owner and a facade facing the street [3] .
In 2005, The Portland Mercury magazine wrote in its review that the abundance of soft sofas makes visiting the theater comfortable, but criticized the fact that the cinema has only one screen and that mostly heterosexual films show. The publication said that the building “is more like a real movie theater than a room for orgies (although it still cannot do without masturbation) ... The theater is not as bad as most of its kind, but there is even a bicycle parking inside” [10] . In 2012, a list of “the most rash places to celebrate Valentine's Day ” was published on the Portland website. An IFC article noted that “given the decreasing number of sex cinemas in the country, one can argue that the theater is part of Portland’s history and its visit is akin to visiting a museum ... but it’s better not to risk it and stay away” [12] . In 2013, Portland Monthly wrote that the building "seems out of place" and the dilapidated brick building does not fit into the surroundings of the recently rebuilt South Street Divijin Street [6] .
In 2013, the Willamette Week edition included several establishments from the Southern Division in its annual restaurant guide and made a humorous prediction about the possible future of some famous places. In particular, it suggested that the Oregon Theater could become one of the McMenamins Mophouse & Brewery establishments — a local chain of breweries, historic hotels, concert venues, and pubs. Willamette Week wrote: “When one of the last sex movie theaters in the country finally surrenders to the onslaught of the market, McMenamins reconstruct the building, preserving its historical appearance with peep holes between dining booths, a sticky dance floor and a VIP room in the projection cabin” [13 ] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Historic Resource Inventory: 8-227-03530 1–2. City of Portland, Oregon (May 1980). Date of treatment January 1, 2015.
- ↑ Site Information . Oregon Historic Sites Database . Oregon Parks and Recreation Department . Date of treatment October 23, 2015. Archived January 1, 2015.
- ↑ 1 2 The Power of Place: Building Community Character on SE Division Street (PDF) 1, 24, 57. GNT Planning (June 7, 2004). Date of treatment October 23, 2015.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lacher, Gary. Theaters of Portland . - Arcadia Publishing, June 10, 2009 .-- P. 103.
- ↑ 1 2 Oregon Theater . Erotisphere Enterprises. Date of treatment October 23, 2015. Archived February 15, 2015.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The Last (Dirty) Picture Show , Portland Monthly , Portland, Oregon: Sagacity Media (November 1, 2013). Archived April 27, 2015. Date of access October 23, 2015.
- ↑ History . Waverly Heights Congregational United Church of Christ. Date of treatment October 23, 2015. Archived December 11, 2004.
- ↑ Oregon Theater - 2/9 Wood . Puget Sound Theater Organ Society. Date of treatment October 23, 2015. Archived March 25, 2015.
- ↑ Division crowded with good eats , Portland Tribune , Portland, Oregon: Pamplin Media Group (July 26, 2012). Archived on October 7, 2015. Date of access October 23, 2015.
- ↑ 1 2 Will Gardner. Cinema du Sexxx: A Review of Portland's Porno Parlors Neopr . The Portland Mercury . Portland, Oregon: Index Publishing (July 14, 2005). Date of treatment October 23, 2015. Archived October 6, 2015.
- ↑ Elizabeth Mylott Morehead. Public Policy and Sexual Geography in Portland, Oregon, 1970-2010 . Portland State University (2012). Date of treatment October 23, 2015.
- ↑ Portland's Most Ill-Advised Valentine's Date Spots . IFC (February 14, 2012). Date of treatment October 23, 2015. Archived October 1, 2015.
- ↑ Martin Cizmar. Restaurant Guide 2013: Different 'Vision: Looking at the future of Southeast Division Street . Willamette Week . Portland, Oregon: City of Roses Newspapers (October 16, 2013). Date of treatment October 23, 2015. Archived October 1, 2015.
Links
- Oregon Theater on Cinema Treasures