Sunday, July 05, 2009

Spotlight on the Peery Egyptian Theater's 85th Anniversary Shindig

Added bonus: a well crafted Standard-Examiner documentary "tickler" piece

For those with a penchant for Ogden City history, the Standard-Examiner's Nancy Van Valkenburg provides a masterfully well researched documentary-style story this morning, chronicling the history of Ogden's wonderful downtown gem, Peery's Egyptian Theater. Ms. Van Valkenburg traces events surrounding the Egyptian Theater with a marvellous array of interviews and anecdotes. And we swear you're going to love the part where Ms. Van Valkenburg relates how a group of community minded ladies from the Weber County Heritage Foundation saved this very unique example of "1920's Egyptian kitsch" architecture from the wrecking ball in 1988... by stout-heartedly mortgaging their own homes, and taking the then-languishing theater off the hands of the former owner, who was fully prepared to transform it into another Godfrey-style dirt parking lot.

Read Ms. Van Valkenburg's full article here:
The show must go on
Ms. Van Valkenburg's article is of course plainly published as an introductory "tickler" for an important upcoming Ogden City event, namely, "The Grand Celebration" to commemorate the 85th birthday of Peery's Egyptian Theater (and the 75th anniversary of Ogden Pioneer Days,) which is calendared for this coming Saturday. For the full skinny on this event, click the following Egyptian Theatre Foundation information link:
Peery's Egyptian Theater - 85th Birthday Celebration
We do hope our readers will plan to attend. And we'll also snarkily remark in passing that we wonder what might have happened if former absentee owner Dr. Broadbent's planned Egyptian Theater demolition had been scheduled during Boss Godfrey's watch. Remember, it ultimately took the cooperation of "five entities," including Ogden City, to make the theater's restoration a reality.

So many questions... so few answers.

Who will be the first to comment?

5 comments:

Bob Becker said...

Rudi:

It is a really good article, as you note. The SE seems to be chock full of Ogden history today --- always a good thing, of course. Mr. Trentelman's "Wasatch Rambler" column today is one of his periodic pieces on local history, and a very interesting one. [Now how many columns have you read that manage to link gun repair, feisty Democratic newspaper publishing and exotic chicken raising? Today's Wasatch Rambler does.]

Worth a read, by all means.

Ogden Resident said...

Played golf on Friday morning up at Mt. Ogden. Got to take my hat off to the grounds people, the course is in great shape. But also if you haven't played it since last year, get up there. They have made the course so much more playable that it's hard to believe.

I'm a weekend warrior and usally loose one to two balls per side. I only lost one ball on Friday and that one I knocked into the park on the 18th hole.

Also when we finished up at about 11:00 AM, the #1 hole was empty and people were waiting for carts to come in so that they could use them to go out. Still seems like the course needs more carts.

Additionally only one person working the snackbar and people were leaving because the line was too long to get food or drinks. The course needs to man the snack bar with more than one person.

Curmudgeon said...

Comment bumped to top shelf

old timer said...

The Peery Egyptian Theater and the Ogden Eccles Center continue to be money losers and always will.

That is because the Theater is not large enough to hold enough attendees to ever pay for first class productions unless they are subsidized by taxpayers and Weber Univesity and Browning Funds, etc.

Weber County taxpayer funds also continue to subsidize the entire complex.

Every time the cost of the Marshall White Center comes up I expect someone to at least mention the subsidies being given to the Egyptian Theater and the Eccles Center. No one talks about them.

I guess that depends on which side of town you come from.

ozboy said...

Old Timer:

The Godfrey Administration's secret mantra to go along with their secret handshake:

"Millions for the wealthy, whitesome and delightsome, but not one penny for the poor, dark and underprivileged.

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