Please visit the new home of Majikthise at bigthink.com/blogs/focal-point.

« BCCLA "Hotties and Naughties" | Main | 7x7 meme »

January 02, 2006

Brattle Theater may close

My friend Caitlin emailed to say that the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square may soon be forced to close.

I spent many happy hours at the Brattle when I lived in Boston. I saw my first Kurosawa movie there. It's a wonderful venue and a huge asset several university communities, including those of Harvard and Tufts.

Find out how you can supporthelp support independent film in Harvard Square.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c61e653ef00d8349e338369e2

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Brattle Theater may close:

Comments

That would be a huge loss. Every generation complains about the deterioration of Harvard Square, but that's because it's true. The number of bookstores has declined from 13 to three, last I heard, including Wordsworth. The Brattle really helps define the character of the Square, I hope they can save it.

Local establishment can't compete with online. Tax, selection size...etc.

Things like bookstore and movie place can't be only about book and movie anymore. Somebody else does it better and cheaper. It has to be an urban place. (meet people, cultural/social experiance..bla bla..)

Come to think of it. we go to the coffe just to hitch freebie WiFi and chat online.

okay...we are doom.

Fuck you all in you quest for the betterment of social appreciation of the arts. Fuck you all for thinking that through these posts some kind epiphany will occur, sweeping across the globe, carrying all of you on the peak of some collossal golden wave of enlightenment. OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES! We live in a world of commercial gain, of independant consumerism, of CAPITALISM! Let the Brattle Theatre burn to the ground, along with the Louvre and the Museum of modern art... When it's done we can clear away the detritus and erect a McDonalds. That's reality KIDS. Not this ideological view that the rest of the world gives a fuck about your pseudo intellectual gripes. OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES!

We have already lost so much culture in this putative culture capital of New England:

http://cinematreasures.org/theater/6492/

Not that the turnover in Harvard Square area isn't brutal: http://www.molotman.com/gone.html

I particulary miss Bailey's...where you could order up an absolutely obscene chocolate extravangaza and The Bicycle Exchange where, in spite of being across the street from some of the most wealthy undergraduates in the world, a poor student could still buy a reasonable bike from a knowledgable sales person.

Ah and how could I forget Sky Light Books? And Reading International...I have bought more books elsewhere but I read what I bought at those two stores.

And now Wordsworth, alas!


Spouse and self used to kill hours in the bookstores around the square but had stopped about 15 years ago. Sweet hours those and hardly wasted. Nothing there attracts me anymore. Eyeballing and fondling all thats new in print is NOT replaced by big box bookselling in the suburbs. The crowded shelves and coots old and young that crowded those shelves...Amazon does no replace them with anything but efficiency. The warn and warm and worldly familiar...I do miss it. Only saw one movie at the Brattle. Its preservation would not bring back the experience I used to enjoy.

If I have my way. I'll make sure the entire media are online and can be downloadable for free into iPod like device.

CLOSE ALL store, and turn the space into urban garden...

who needs stores.. feh.

(yeah I know, not very romantic, but darned environmentally friendly.

The comments to this entry are closed.