Pickwick: The Movie Palace of Park Ridge
Nowadays, when going to a movie, people consider whether a theater is equipped with the best movie technologies to enhance their experience. In that regard, I always considered a movie theater worthy if it had good Surround-Sound and crisp projection. However, my expectations changed when I read about the history of the Pickwick Theater. I thought to myself, despite experiencing the beauty of today’s Imax, I really understood the beauty of theaters in the past after visiting and learning about the history of the Pickwick Theater. The Pickwick Theater is one of the landmarks of Park Ridge, Illinois. It opened for business in the year 1928, and it was designed by Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey in an Art Deco style. According to the website Cinema Treasures, “Art Deco is brought to prominence by the Paris Exposition of Decorative Art in 1925; the school of Art Deco sought to integrate technology and art. Art Deco is often signified by striking geometric patterns and structures using metals and plaster. Art Deco's prominence in art, architecture, and style lasted for nearly twenty years from 1925 through the 1940s.”
In my personal experience, the décor is breathtaking. As I went into the entrance, I saw that the lobby’s design contains many squares and zigzag-like lines, forming many intricate motifs. To one side, an interesting and beautiful statue of a female is seen from the concession stand, which beckons men to the lobby of the men’s bathroom. The main theater is “humongous.” Cinema Treasure claims there are 1540 seats in the main theater and in the multiplex of four screens in the back. Moreover, according to the Silent Film Society of Chicago, the cinema also features a Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ. It was used for silent films and community sing-alongs.
As a result of visiting this theater only once, it made me think how much better it was in the past during the Golden Age. Like other movie palaces of the day, the Pickwick would have been full of interesting people that truly luxuriated in its sense of fantasy, and the whole complex would have been in dashing new condition. According to the book A Short History of Movies, “[Movie palaces] were warm in the winter, ‘refrigerated’ in the summer. If you were a kid or out of work–particularly after 1929, as the Great Depression spread out from Wall Street to engulf the world–you could stay in that rich space all day long and dream.” Even now, watching a new movie in the theater is better than watching at home; however, if I lived in the past it would have been even better. Even though the era was around the Depression, watching movies was still affordable. I believe that being in a luxurious movie palace when poverty was everywhere would have made me better appreciate the movies, and going to the movies would have been like going to my home away from home. To conclude, learning the history of Pickwick Theater was satisfying. It made me realize that movies back then were truly an art form, and they offered a better sense of getting away from life’s problems. It made me ask myself, “Are we blinded by 3-D technology and digital sound? How come theaters nowadays don’t have any design themes like the Pickwick’s Mayan-inspired Art Deco style? And, if we were able to go back in the past and mingle with moviegoers, would I really want to boast about my movie-going experiences now?” I believe if I were in the past watching a film on the big screen of the Pickwick Theater, it would be an amazing experience.
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