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Future of Des Plaines Theater Still Uncertain
posted by
btkrefft
on
December 19, 2003 at 5:31 am
DES PLAINES, IL — While the Des Plaines Theater has been spared from the wrecking ball for now, with its November purchase by Dhitu Bhagwakar, the future of the 79 year-old movie house is still cloudy, according to the Des Plaines Times.
The Des Plaines Theater Preservation Society envisions purchasing the theater from Bhagwakar, according to Paul Saletnik, a founding member of the Society. “Our first objective was to save the theater from the wrecking ball,” says Saletnik,“The second was to acquire the building, and we haven’t done that—yet.”
However, before the Society moves ahead with that plan, it is waiting for Bhagwakar to have the theater listed with the National Register of Historic Places, which has not yet happened. Bhagwakar seeks to bring live performances to the Des Plaines one day, but first wants to remove the wall splitting the original 1,000 seat auditorium in two.
Before that, however, Bhagwakar has said that he will be screening movies in the two auditoriums, one showing Bollywood fare, the other, second-run American features.
