Extra

The Shattuck Cinemas are a cultural treasure for Berkeley residents and the wider East Bay. Pre-COVID, the Cinemas were drawing 275,00 to 300,000 ticket-buyers per year. In 2017, members of Save the Shattuck Cinemas gathered well over 4,000 signatures of movie goers with addresses from all over the East Bay—people attracted to spending time and money in our downtown thanks to the breadth and high quality of films to be seen at the Cinemas, unmatched by any other East Bay theater.  

The Cinemas represent a model of the intelligent and economically successful repurposing of architecture to a new use, something this commission should particularly appreciate—the former Hink's Department Store into the Shattuck Cinemas, with 1920s movie palace Egyptian and Moroccan interiors including hand-painted murals and ten screening rooms. 

The Cinemas have enlivened our downtown since 1984, bringing people in significant numbers to the streets and downtown cafes, restaurants, and shops as no residential high rise can do. And they enrich our cultural lives, not only with their beautifully-embellished interiors but in furtherance of the art of film. A great film cannot possibly be fully appreciated on a home screen or, I would add, in private. Film viewing has long been a communal experience. Neither the pandemic nor the advent of Netflix et al will displace the experience of seeing films with other viewers on a big screen.  

I hope the Landmarks Preservation Commission will reject a demolition permit that would allow a Chicago developer to destroy our great movie theater and deprive current and future Berkeley residents of this enriching experience. The developer should be required to preserve the theaters intact and to build above them. This is the best way to serve the interests of the residents of Berkeley. Our elected representatives should not sacrifice our historical and cultural resources to provide additional residential units downtown, where we need commercial and cultural attractions, especially when the great majority of these units serve new high-income residents, not the below-median income residents who are being forced out of Berkeley by escalating housing costs.