Let the Senator finally fade away
December 19, 2008
Back in February of 2007, the Senator Theatre survived a foreclosure threat only after community donations and a bridge loan allowed owner Tom Kiefaber to pay off his $109,828.64 debt to 1st Mariner Bank. That was the theater’s third near-death experience in the last 15 years, according to Liz Farmer.
A story in Friday’s edition of the Baltimore Sun describes a Thursday night meeting to discuss turning the Senator into a nonprofit venture (seems it already was one, and that’s the problem). This is Kiefaber’s latest idea to keep the doors open.
The 200-or-so attendees reminisced about “personal stories of first dates and kisses at the theater” and spit-balled ideas on what new purposes the building could serve in its extended life.
From the Sun story:
“There is something extraordinary about this place,” Kiefaber said. “There is an incredible energy in this theatre.”
No, clearly there isn’t. The free market has spoken — the Senator is dead.
I understand people have memories attached to the place, but all their praise and all their memories haven’t translated into the dollars needed to keep the theater running these past few years. So now it needs yet another bailout. Seems there’s a lot of that going around in this economy.
The market doesn’t want the Senator. It doesn’t care how many single-screen theaters are left in the U.S. It only cares about businesses that can sustain themselves — not those that can only tug on heartstrings every couple of years in order to eke out a little more time on the ventilator.
And if this latest plan does work — if the Senator ultimately does become some “multipurpose entertainment and education venue” — that means it won’t be what all these people remember. All that work, and what we know as “The Senator Theatre” will still be gone.
I propose we let it go for now. Maybe one day a new owner can come along and make it into what it once was — and fund it with ticket prices, not through pleas in a newspaper. The building’s only a shell, and closing its doors won’t mean the memories will vanish.
Give it some dignity. And stop spending money to slow its inevitable demise. There are a lot more important issues to deal with right now.
JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist
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For the record, I happen to disagree with Joe Bacchus’s stance that the Senator ought to be left to die. What good would come of that? The business would leave and the Senator would become another of Baltimore’s treasured vacant storefronts, unused and left to wallow in disrepair? Would Tom Kiefaber learn some sort of hard lesson that would teach him never to run a business into the ground again? Are we sending a message to the scourge that is small businesses that are becoming irrelevant trying to make a last grasp at survival by transitioning to a non-profit model? Who benefits, here, exactly, by euthanizing the Senator?
The history of this issue seems to suggest that the Senator has been mismanaged as a business, and that perhaps in other hands, may have been made more profitable. But to dismiss people’s support of it as petty nostalgia and not worth our time because “market forces,” in all their unchallenged primacy, have proven that no one likes the Senator anymore, is the wrong idea, as far as I’m concerned. There are some things in this world — like, for example, a beautiful building (the Senator is a gorgeous Art Deco theater — one of the last of its kind that still operates — and a pleasure to be inside), a historically important business, or a cultural relic — that are worth preserving. In fact, there are hundreds of organizations — most of them non-profits — set up to preserve them. I’m not arguing for handout or a reward for Mr. Kiefaber’s mismanagement, but I see no reason, if Kiefaber abides by the state-determined strictures of running a non-profit arts organization, why he shouldnt be permitted to switch from a business to non-profit model. At the very least, it would preserve the Senator, which is truly a treasure, for a generation or two to come.
Robbie Whelan
Daily Record Business Writer
The Senator is NOT dead, though it clearly requires a different business model, and I’m glad Tom and some of the theater’s friends are pursuing a new strategy. The original post seems to suggest an all-or-none approach; i.e. since the current structure makes it difficult to operate, let it close rather than adapt. Neither the free market nor the theater’s fans want that to happen. If for no other reason than the Senator is a huge property in a vital commercial and residential neighborhood, it is important to us all that it succeeds. I suggest the “Let it Die crowd” (hopefully, it’s a rather small crowd) tour Baltimore’s shuttered movie houses to see what the neighborhoods around those shells look like, and then think about whether that’s what we want for the Senator, for Belvedere, and for Baltimore.