For 5 years, which is how long I have lived in my apartment, I have walked by the corner of 20th and Florida almost every day.
For the first 2 of those 5, I also used to stop into “Visions”, the theater/bar/lounge/party space that was on that corner quite regularly.
That place was, for lack of better word, awesome:
Midnight showings of Donnie Darko and Monty Python, 2 dollar plastic cups of PBR in hand, vintage 20s porn instead of previews, nice staff, weird ass little movie festivals with always terrifically catered opening parties …NO WONDER IT WENT OUT OF BUSINESS in 2004 (I remember the disaster that is “The Brown Bunny” opening just a few weeks before, and I thought “I just hope this does not kill them”).
The DC movie world was devastated.
No really.
(please note that others blamed the curse of the Brown Bunny as well)
Anyhoo, the building, in prime real estate vulture location that it is has been empty and sitting their for, what, 4 years now?
THEY NEVER TOOK THE SIGN DOWN (ever), which I always took as a sign of a glimmer of hope, because you know, you have to believe
image from: MW JANTZEN’S flickr
BUT THEN
yesterday as I walked by en route to work:
THE SIGN IS DOWN
THE CONSTRUCTION IS IN PROGRESS
THE WHOLE INSIDE IS SHELLED OUT
SOMETHING IS BEING BUILT IN THERE INSTEAD
I did try to talk to people on the job site about it, but they all were glued to their cell-phones and very busy and important and I did ask everyone on BYT Staff if they knew anything (they didn’t) and I did look at all the obvious places (read:blogs) to see if there is even a mention of this (there isn’t) so…i think we can all do this together:
IF ANYONE KNOWS what is going on there, make my day and tell us.
Unless they are fitting it out for offices in which case, I don’t think my heart could take it.
I think the more important question is - WHO WAS PAYING THE ELECTRICITY BILL TO RUN THAT NEON SIGN FOR 4 YEARS?
August 28, 2008 at 11:29 amCale - ask eddie.
August 28, 2008 at 11:30 amGoogling the Visions address (1927 Florida Avenue NW) returns “FJ Corbett CO,” a construction firm which specializes in office space. Perhaps that’s what being built.
And there’s my amateur sleuthing for the day.
August 28, 2008 at 11:36 amWhen obama gets elected they’re going to start tearing down all the Targets and Harris Teeters in town and replacing them with woman-owned queer-friendly strip clubs and 24hr performance art/lemonade stand/indie knitting nooks until this place is indistinguishable from washington state. I for one welcome our organic overlords.
August 28, 2008 at 11:39 amwhoever was paying that bill was getting ripped off by those greedy giants, pepco, i can tell you that.
come on - nobody knows what is going on there?
August 28, 2008 at 11:41 amSpoke with the contractor today: its going to be another Au Bon Pain to add to the delectable options of corporate eateries sprinkled around DC.
August 28, 2008 at 11:45 amoh boy
August 28, 2008 at 11:52 amCale - did you know that eddie can read smoke signals?
August 28, 2008 at 11:54 ammy heart AND my soul just got destroyed
August 28, 2008 at 12:17 pmdownside - a part of DC that won’t be replaced is gone for good.
upside - chocolate crossiants with powdered sugar atop?
August 28, 2008 at 12:59 pmActually Visions closed because mainly because of the opening of E Street and other theaters like that. It’s the same reason that Dupont Cinema had to close last year. Visions was not the first choice for distributors and there are only a certain # of prints for each area’s theaters. There was no way to save this theater because they were just losing way too much money. I actually interviewed the founder of Visions, Andrew Frank, for a project for school.
August 28, 2008 at 1:04 pmmeg - why was E st. a choice over Visions? Any idea? I mean they’re kind of the same thing except Visions had a cool bar where I’d go and drink martinis and suck face with a chick from Kazakhstan who worked in my building when I worked in Dupot.
August 28, 2008 at 1:18 pmOh you’re fucking kidding me. An ABP?! You’re kidding me. I live across the street (in the Mad Prez) and every day I think “maybe someone will put another theater in there, seeing as how there ISN’T ONE AROUND and IT HAS A BAR which is cool and anyway IT’S ALREADY A THEATER.” You know, Wednesday night Mollie Ringwald marathons, TV-on-DVD-on-the-big-screen, cocktail hours with vintage war serials, the best big “theater” movies you never got to see in the theater when they were out the first time 2 years ago, etc, etc.
And instead: frozen SYSCO soup dressed up as “french” and a bunch of fucking yellow cups in my bushes. I hate everything today.
ps - Michael, I’ve had that song “Without You” in my head, every moment, as soon as I wake up, for days now. I blame you, utterly and completely.
August 28, 2008 at 3:02 pmI always thought one day we would get rich as an entity and buy it, redesign it and do all those things in it.
On top of my soul, my dreams are crushed too.
Jason - welcome to my hell. Change it around with the Sinatra/Sinatra “Something Stupid” and join me in the darkest circle.
August 28, 2008 at 3:43 pmRe: “there are only a certain # of prints for each area’s theaters” — Hopefully with digital cinema now there can be a sea change in distribution. Making a whole bunch of prints on actual film seems so unnecessary. Of course, the size of a 2K resolution, 2-and-a-half hour movie file is going to be enormous, so for now I would imagine distribution would still have to be by physical hard drive shipment, but that’s still cheaper than making and shipping filmstock that can only be used once.
So, I guess my point with that whole technical rant was… if one wants to start one’s own beloved little neighborhood theater, set it up for mainly digital projection and wait for everything to become a file.
There’s an old empty movie theater up here by me at Piney Branch and Flower that I often stare wistfully at… Any takers?
August 28, 2008 at 7:09 pmi worked at visions. a main reason it closed was the newly hired manager stole $10,000+ and left town, leaving the place without a) $10,000+ and b) someone to run it.
also Andrew had moved to Canada, so he couldn’t really easy step in and run it himself in the interim… and there was a rent increase issue looming as well, and landmark opening… so he felt he couldnt really keep betting on a bad horse anymore. a shame.
August 29, 2008 at 9:48 amI am almost certain that is not an Au Bon Pain, that area is not their M.O.
August 29, 2008 at 12:02 pmVisions was in the red from the day it opened, and never got out. Andrew completely mismanaged the place, got rid of the people who cared about making it work, and hired a douche who looked good on paper but ended up ripping him off and skipping town. Karma hurts, doesn’t it. Visions didn’t get AMELIE (and many other major studio releases that went to E St) because Andrew Frank was too much of a pussy to commit to the 3+ month run Miramax required.
August 29, 2008 at 1:59 pmI work in that building, and have heard that it’s going to be a conference center.
August 29, 2008 at 9:37 pmSort of big for an ABP, huh?
August 30, 2008 at 3:24 pmI too used to work there (one of the originals!) and it always seemed to me that the concept while a pretty cool concept was never fully thought out. It was only a barely functional restaurant, a barely functional bar and a barely functional movie theater. And really, I think the location sucked. It was just far enough away from the Metro Station that if customers were going to a later show they had to book it to get to the Metro by midnight and I don’t think there was a whole lot of natural foot traffic there.
However, Visions was the reason I moved from the burbs of Murrland to DC.
August 30, 2008 at 8:49 pmI noticed permits posted a few months ago and those permits indicated that it was going to be some sort of performing arts stage.
August 31, 2008 at 4:31 pmI also work in the building - it’s going to be used as additional conference space for AED (the biggest tenant of the Universal North and South buildings).
September 1, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I think it will be a Rite-Aid.
I saw vintage 20s porn in there on a first date, and it was her idea.
Women dressed as nuns were doing it. One was pregnant. There was a dog involved.
August 28, 2008 at 11:07 am