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In August 2001 I’d just taken a buyout from the Contra Costa Times after 18 years reporting and editing, hoping to freelance about topics of personal interest—including historic preservation. 

There I was, sitting around my home “office,” figuring out how to use the computer, when I hear Kiefer’s Furniture in El Cerrito had been sold to a developer. 

Back in 1988 I’d done a piece for the paper about “a hidden theater” that Harry Kiefer used as furniture storage next door to his store. Since then I’d luxuriated in the knowledge that this forgotten treasure existed. 

I didn’t have the heart just to sit back and let it go. 

EL CERRITO—People who oppose preserving the Cerrito Theater say it’s a thing of no value, neither old nor historic. Its façade was destroyed years ago, the neon marquee scrapped, and its vaulted interior seems cavernous and cold, until you catch sight of the murals—dancing gods and goddesses, half-naked and slender, plus Jupiter piloting a goat-powered chariot. 

Similar scenes can be found etched in glass and in the mirror behind the candy counter. 

Naysayers notwithstanding, when they toll those Golden Bells saving the Art Deco theater should count as my chief contribution to mankind—even though I did little of the work that went into saving it. 

The real, nagging work of building partnerships, putting dollars together and banging heads was handled by three or four city officials and a handful of El Cerrito residents more politically astute, better connected and harder working than me. 

While I rooted from the sidelines and delivered an occasional speech, other Friends of the Cerrito Theater spent hundreds of hours drumming up support, lobbying politicians, creating a website, and squirming through meeting after meeting. 

At the open house at the theater, a party with klieg lights and bands that attracted 3,000 people and helped convince the city council that, yes, people do care about the theater, I delegated to myself the job of “schmoozing with public.” Other Friends of the Cerrito Theater ran the show and kept the popcorn popping. 

I wasn’t even the guy who came up with the vision. The idea of taking a shell of a theater, a barrel-vaulted warehouse that hadn’t shown a movie in 40 years, and returning it to life as a movie house again—no, that didn’t seem possible to me. 

After all, the UC Theater in Berkeley, a longtime Mecca for movie fans, had just shut. What nut would propose opening another old theater on the heels of that disaster? (The “nut,” it turned out, was the city’s community development director, Jill Keimach—who then made it work.) 

But I did do one thing. I got the whole thing going. And if I hadn’t kicked it off, the theater would have been gutted, its murals shredded, and its etched glass panels and Art Deco chandeliers auctioned on eBay or sold at the Deco by the Bay show before anyone else in town knew a thing about it. 

I began by revisiting the theater, chatting to Kiefer (a personable guy who thought my idea of preserving the theater silly), and speaking to Art Schroeder, president of the El Cerrito Historical Society, who agreed the theater should be saved and gave me the society’s blessings. 

A few days before 9/11, I was on the phone to the new owner, hoping to persuade him to incorporate the murals, lights and glass as an amenity into whatever project got built there. No go. You want them? he asked. Come and get them. 

Well, I thought, it might come to that. I even called the town’s other Art Deco landmark, El Cerrito High, to see if they could be installed there. (Since then, the school district has decided to tear the school down.) 

For several months it seemed a quixotic quest, just me at home, brainstorming ideas, calling the one city council member I was friends with (Janet Abelson provided good advice), talking to the chamber of commerce, the city’s economic development board, and hauling the city manager and community development staff into the theater. 

Maybe, just maybe, I thought, the city would pressure the new owner to save the murals. 

Then the West County Times did a story and interest perked. The first call I got was from Jerri Holan, a preservation architect on Solano Avenue who suggested the murals be installed at city pool, which was about to be rebuilt. (Today Jerri is part of the Lerner-Hollan partnership that is designing the restored theater.) 

Jett Thorson, a preservation painter from Alameda, volunteered and was soon cleaning 30 year’s worth of nicotine off the murals. 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which identified saving neighborhood theaters as a priority for 2002, provided technical expertise and good cheer. 

In November 2001 the story took an unexpected turn when Jill Keimach decided this could be a keystone project for the city. She started looking for theater operators to revive the Cerrito. 

At one point she asked me if Kiefer still owned the neon marquee that once graced the theater. I laughed. Harry used to use the marquee to advertise furniture sales. The city had ordered it down back in the ‘70s because it didn’t fit the design guidelines for San Pablo Avenue. I asked Harry if he’d stored the sign in his backyard. He laughed. 

The city would need to put up half a million dollars to get the project rolling, Jill suggested. Could I bring a group of supporters to a city council meeting? 

I didn’t have a group of supporters. But I roped in friends and acquaintances and anyone who might be interested in beautiful old theaters. 

By December, the couple who own the Parkway Theater in Oakland were talking to the city about re-opening the Cerrito. But Jill’s enthusiasm wouldn’t be enough. El Cerrito is a fiscally conservative town, and city council support for restoring a long-lost theater was far from sure. 

Clearly we needed an organization. We got one when Lori Dair, the firebrand behind the group Sustainable El Cerrito, called. Sustainable El Cerrito had been involved in several environmental and planning issues in town. 

A couple of days later, mid-February 2002, Lori, Pam Challinor and I created Friends of the Cerrito Theater. 

Most of the friends were Lori’s, and she emerged as leader. Soon we had t-shirts, post cards and a website. In March dozens of people packed a council meeting to support the theater. Restoring the theater struck a nerve. Moviegoers and preservationists called—and so did people who were simply excited about bringing some form of an entertainment to an otherwise quiet town. 

We found people who’d met and fallen in love at the theater during their youth—or at least won dishes on Dish Night. 

In May 2002, we had the open house. The scene was dreamlike. For the first time we had bright floodlights hitting the murals—and for the first time I realized they were painted in silver leaf and glowed. 

Attendance far exceeded anything the fire department had warned us about—and helped convince the council that the theater could build community spirit. By the end of the month the council agreed to buy the theater for half a million dollars. 

Since then, the city negotiated a deal with the Parkway owners, and last month agreed to put up $3.5 million (mostly as a loan) to restore the theater. The vote was 4-1. Councilmembers said preserving the theater would protect a valuable historic resource, boost the city’s community spirit and pride, provide entertainment, and help business along San Pablo Avenue. 

The theater is near the revived El Cerrito Plaza, at the southern entrance to town. A neon Cerrito marquee will give the town a welcoming landmark. 

There will be two screens, the murals and other historic features will be preserved, and seating will be a mix of informal (couches, easy chairs) and theater seating. As at the Parkway, pizza and other food will be sold, along with beer and wine. The theater will also be available for a number of community events. 

We could be seeing movies at the Cerrito by the end of 2005. 

Friends of the Cerrito Theater, which eased out of the picture once the city began negotiating in earnest with Parkway, revived four months ago to raise funds to restore some of the historic features, including the murals and marquee. 

I’m playing a characteristically minor role, taking minutes and ensuring my name gets into the paper. Doing the real work are co-chairs Ann Lehman and Dianne Brenner and other members of a steering committee. We also have a list of volunteers who are waiting to help—and we are always looking for more volunteers. 

A few days after the city council approved the funding, we got a call from Friends of the Lorenzo Theater in San Lorenzo looking for advice. I told them everything we had done, building support, talking to city officials, getting expert advice. 

They’d done every bit of that too with no luck. 

The difference—the folks they spoke to with Alameda County don’t see the value of a historic building. The concept, I’ll admit, remains elusive to many people. 

When developers propose filling in a marsh or cutting a forest, everyone understands there are questions to answer, countervailing values to weigh, constituencies to appease, environmental impact reports to write. 

The historic preservation ethos, however, has not taken as firm a hold on the public mind. One of my goals as a writer is to change that. 

For the past three years I saw myself as the “historic preservation consciousness” of Friends, arguing that we weren’t fighting to save a theater business but a building with artistic merit, whose value will remain even if movie-going as we know it today goes the way of bear-baiting. 

No, the Cerrito is no Paramount-style palace. It’s a humble, neighborhood theater—but that makes it more important, since so few theaters of its ilk remain in as intact a condition. 

The theater is particularly important for El Cerrito, a city with a storied past of gambling, dance halls and sin, that has allowed most of its past to disappear. 

Recent developments, meanwhile, bring to town “neo-urban” pseudo streetscapes that do a poor job copying authentic buildings from the 1920s and ‘30s, and look like similar developments in every town from Buffalo to Burlingame. 

Shouldn’t El Cerrito keep something unique, something that will draw outsiders to visit, that residents will brag about? 

“A city without a past lacks soul,” I preached at one council meeting. “El Cerrito is not a faceless suburb. It shouldn’t look like one.” 

Dave Weinstein, a 22-year resident of El Cerrito, writes about architecture, preservation and the arts. He is a member of Friends of the Cerrito Theater, but the opinions expressed in this story are his own. For information about the theater visit ccc.cerritotheater.org. 

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