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Jul. 21st, 2006 11:41 pmI saw a ghost on Wednesday.
Moira and I went out to a little café downtown for the meet up that she'd planned with some more locals. As it turned out, we were the only ones who showed up. So, we just had a couple of treats (a chocolate malt for me, some kind of coffee concoction for her), and read each other questions from a trivia game that we selected from the stack left conveniently near the tables.
Just as we were about to leave, a couple people from the Lakeside Players, the community theatre organization I've worked with, came by to talk to us and invite us to come back and get involved again. It sounds like things might be better there, and I would really like to be a part of things back at the theatre; we both expressed interest, Moira doing so rather to my pleasant surprise. I've been worried that that organization, one that I really do care deeply about, was on it's way to becoming a flicker from days before; I'm glad that that might change.
But that wasn't my ghost of the evening. That was simply a not unwelcome rattling of some spectral chains to the past.
The ghost I saw lives a few blocks south of the little café. I've seen her before; she's hard to miss, really. Her soul has been bound to the place of her birth since nineteen twenty-seven. Once an elegant woman of sophistication and means, now a shadow of her former glory.
I've been teased by sightings of she and her sisters ever since moving to the city. She and her local family used to be the center of attention of the entire town, bedecked in beautiful crystal, yards of the finest velvets and silks, and exquisite adornments from the best known craftsmen of Europe and America. Like so much other beauty though, theirs was fleeting; at least, in the minds of those who adored them. Men who once were overjoyed to dress in their finest for a weekend night out and join hundreds like themselves at gala events for a few hours of the grand dammes' company, found other diversions in time. Not all at once, and not without mourning, but inevitably, the stars of years gone by had lost their lustre.
There are few who remember her as she once was, and fewer still who connect what they can see of her now to the memories of greatness and circumstance. Her name is Kenosha, and I was privileged to have the chance to get to know her a little bit better that night.
There may be few who remember what she was like, but I could see that she does. It was there in the dignity of her stance. It's there in the way that the few fine baubles that she still wears suit her so perfectly; none of those who've come after her could hope to be so adorned without looking as though they were little children caught digging through mommy's jewelry box.
She called out to me, as she does every time I drive her street. That time, I did what I'd never done before; I answered her.
---
Andrea and I parked on the side of the street opposite the Kenosha Theatre. Had I really seen an open door? Yes! Though she was a bit nervous at first, I convinced her to come with me and look inside. There was an entranceway covered in plaster dust and the dirt of many years that lead off into a lobby where I could see a beautiful curving staircase. There was also a person on a scaffold working on a window frame above one of the sets of interior doors.
We introduced ourselves to him and to another of the volunteer workers there. The second one, Jim, was kind enough to give us a tour of the place. Though we didn't get to see the stage itself up close or the area behind it, he showed us everything else there was to see, from the grand lobby, through the expansive balcony, along the second floor mezzanine, and even the men's and women's rooms.
My god. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, faint, or wet myself as I looked through this building. I can't even begin to explain how beautiful it was. And how sad. The massive grillwork to each side of the forty-foot proscenium arch that the organ pipes once sat behind. The backlit archway that once held a splashing fountain between the entries to the balcony. The balcony itself, spreading open so wide, like the wings of a monstrous bird, row upon row of concrete platforms where seats once stood.
A hole in the plaster wall of the balcony access ramp laid bare her old bones, an I-beam big enough to hold up the entire damn world that forgot her. A circle of royal blue plaster, the top edge jagged as a mouth full of broken teeth, was the remnants of what was once the sky of a Moroccan courtyard. Our guide pointed out the remaining lights that used to be embedded in the domed ceiling, explaining that astronomy students from the University of Wisconsin had positioned them to match the constellations that would be seen from the court of a Spanish castle.
In patterns on the floor lay fallen plaster detailings from the walls, painstakingly reconstructed from hundreds of pieces, albeit on a plane offset ninety degrees from the original. A five foot long block of wood that once served as a seating chart, numbers and letters carved to represent the seats and slots next to them to hold ticket stubs, rested against a wall in the lobby. The Kenosha was built by Universal Studios, our guide informs us, keeping up a rambling history lesson as we walk, back before they decided they didn't want the same people building the theatres as made the movies.
The reason we didn't get to see the stage, the wings, or the flyloft, was that there was a rehearsal going on. The incongruity was incredible! Right here in this ruined jewel of the past, there was a full musical cast singing their hearts out on stage. The high schools sometimes rehearse here, we were told by our guide. It's one of the few stages in the city big enough to prepare and lay out an entire set before putting it on the main stage at the high school.
I wish I had had my camera to take photos of the rehearsal, even though I could have taken a thousand exposures and not managed to convey this remarkable combination of energies; living, vibrant, right-now voice mingling with a sense of the past so thick as to be tangible. I've never felt anything remotely like it. It's something that I think I will always remember.
Wednesday is their public work night. I'm planning to come back again and offer what help I can. I asked if I could come and photograph, and was given permission. I could spend days in an attempt to capture the spirit, the soul, of the Kenosha on film. And I think that it's very important to do so, before it's too late.
There is truly something ghost-like about buildings like this, and it's not just the feel of the past that fills and surrounds them. When I look at these buildings, I see an entity trapped between life an death; between this world and the next. The living, for the most part, have passed them by, yet here they stand; unable to live, but not yet gone.
I yearn for the possibility that they might live again; theatre buildings capture my imagination, my love, in a way that no other buildings can. But when I look around a theatre like the Kenosha, the signs of her many years of life hanging heavy upon her, I know that it's very much possible that she is not long for this world. I worry that Kenosha just doesn't have the popular interest necessary to raise the funds that would bring it's namesake back to life.
For now, I do what I can. I visit them, I get to know them, and I take my pictures to share with others. I do my best to keep the past alive in my own way. Old theatres epitomize my reasons for the urban ruins photography that I do, and I am honored to simply have the chance to see them, while they are still there to be seen.
Moira and I went out to a little café downtown for the meet up that she'd planned with some more locals. As it turned out, we were the only ones who showed up. So, we just had a couple of treats (a chocolate malt for me, some kind of coffee concoction for her), and read each other questions from a trivia game that we selected from the stack left conveniently near the tables.
Just as we were about to leave, a couple people from the Lakeside Players, the community theatre organization I've worked with, came by to talk to us and invite us to come back and get involved again. It sounds like things might be better there, and I would really like to be a part of things back at the theatre; we both expressed interest, Moira doing so rather to my pleasant surprise. I've been worried that that organization, one that I really do care deeply about, was on it's way to becoming a flicker from days before; I'm glad that that might change.
But that wasn't my ghost of the evening. That was simply a not unwelcome rattling of some spectral chains to the past.
The ghost I saw lives a few blocks south of the little café. I've seen her before; she's hard to miss, really. Her soul has been bound to the place of her birth since nineteen twenty-seven. Once an elegant woman of sophistication and means, now a shadow of her former glory.
I've been teased by sightings of she and her sisters ever since moving to the city. She and her local family used to be the center of attention of the entire town, bedecked in beautiful crystal, yards of the finest velvets and silks, and exquisite adornments from the best known craftsmen of Europe and America. Like so much other beauty though, theirs was fleeting; at least, in the minds of those who adored them. Men who once were overjoyed to dress in their finest for a weekend night out and join hundreds like themselves at gala events for a few hours of the grand dammes' company, found other diversions in time. Not all at once, and not without mourning, but inevitably, the stars of years gone by had lost their lustre.
There are few who remember her as she once was, and fewer still who connect what they can see of her now to the memories of greatness and circumstance. Her name is Kenosha, and I was privileged to have the chance to get to know her a little bit better that night.
There may be few who remember what she was like, but I could see that she does. It was there in the dignity of her stance. It's there in the way that the few fine baubles that she still wears suit her so perfectly; none of those who've come after her could hope to be so adorned without looking as though they were little children caught digging through mommy's jewelry box.
She called out to me, as she does every time I drive her street. That time, I did what I'd never done before; I answered her.
---
Andrea and I parked on the side of the street opposite the Kenosha Theatre. Had I really seen an open door? Yes! Though she was a bit nervous at first, I convinced her to come with me and look inside. There was an entranceway covered in plaster dust and the dirt of many years that lead off into a lobby where I could see a beautiful curving staircase. There was also a person on a scaffold working on a window frame above one of the sets of interior doors.
We introduced ourselves to him and to another of the volunteer workers there. The second one, Jim, was kind enough to give us a tour of the place. Though we didn't get to see the stage itself up close or the area behind it, he showed us everything else there was to see, from the grand lobby, through the expansive balcony, along the second floor mezzanine, and even the men's and women's rooms.
My god. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, faint, or wet myself as I looked through this building. I can't even begin to explain how beautiful it was. And how sad. The massive grillwork to each side of the forty-foot proscenium arch that the organ pipes once sat behind. The backlit archway that once held a splashing fountain between the entries to the balcony. The balcony itself, spreading open so wide, like the wings of a monstrous bird, row upon row of concrete platforms where seats once stood.
A hole in the plaster wall of the balcony access ramp laid bare her old bones, an I-beam big enough to hold up the entire damn world that forgot her. A circle of royal blue plaster, the top edge jagged as a mouth full of broken teeth, was the remnants of what was once the sky of a Moroccan courtyard. Our guide pointed out the remaining lights that used to be embedded in the domed ceiling, explaining that astronomy students from the University of Wisconsin had positioned them to match the constellations that would be seen from the court of a Spanish castle.
In patterns on the floor lay fallen plaster detailings from the walls, painstakingly reconstructed from hundreds of pieces, albeit on a plane offset ninety degrees from the original. A five foot long block of wood that once served as a seating chart, numbers and letters carved to represent the seats and slots next to them to hold ticket stubs, rested against a wall in the lobby. The Kenosha was built by Universal Studios, our guide informs us, keeping up a rambling history lesson as we walk, back before they decided they didn't want the same people building the theatres as made the movies.
The reason we didn't get to see the stage, the wings, or the flyloft, was that there was a rehearsal going on. The incongruity was incredible! Right here in this ruined jewel of the past, there was a full musical cast singing their hearts out on stage. The high schools sometimes rehearse here, we were told by our guide. It's one of the few stages in the city big enough to prepare and lay out an entire set before putting it on the main stage at the high school.
I wish I had had my camera to take photos of the rehearsal, even though I could have taken a thousand exposures and not managed to convey this remarkable combination of energies; living, vibrant, right-now voice mingling with a sense of the past so thick as to be tangible. I've never felt anything remotely like it. It's something that I think I will always remember.
Wednesday is their public work night. I'm planning to come back again and offer what help I can. I asked if I could come and photograph, and was given permission. I could spend days in an attempt to capture the spirit, the soul, of the Kenosha on film. And I think that it's very important to do so, before it's too late.
There is truly something ghost-like about buildings like this, and it's not just the feel of the past that fills and surrounds them. When I look at these buildings, I see an entity trapped between life an death; between this world and the next. The living, for the most part, have passed them by, yet here they stand; unable to live, but not yet gone.
I yearn for the possibility that they might live again; theatre buildings capture my imagination, my love, in a way that no other buildings can. But when I look around a theatre like the Kenosha, the signs of her many years of life hanging heavy upon her, I know that it's very much possible that she is not long for this world. I worry that Kenosha just doesn't have the popular interest necessary to raise the funds that would bring it's namesake back to life.
For now, I do what I can. I visit them, I get to know them, and I take my pictures to share with others. I do my best to keep the past alive in my own way. Old theatres epitomize my reasons for the urban ruins photography that I do, and I am honored to simply have the chance to see them, while they are still there to be seen.
