North Beach's theater of the absurd

"Vacant theater is a symbol of all that's wrong with North Beach," proclaims the headline over C.W. Nevius' doom-and-gloom column in Tuesday's Chronicle. Geez, Chuck, give it a rest, wouldja? How much are Marsha Garland and the North Beach Neighbors paying you to act as their shill?

Here's how bad it is, apparently. A few months ago, we were told in the national media that North Beach is one of the ten best neighborhoods in the entire country. A big reason for that is because, in an era of soulless homogenization, its denizens fight hard to retain the neighborhood's character and zeitgeist. They've been pretty successful at it, too, no thanks to Mme. Garland and the sheetrock crowd she hangs out with.

Now, according to Nevius and the people he interviewed for his column (who are the usual suspects of all-development, all-the-time in North Beach), this is a neighborhood in peril. A boarded-up movie house is now the herald of doom. We're suddenly on the verge of becoming Fort Apache, the Bronx.

This is a big issue for some of our District 3 supervisorial candidates. Joe Alioto Jr. told Nevius that the theater comes up in most of his conversations with potential constituents, and he refers to it as the "poster child for the boarded-up storefronts." For Lynn Jefferson, getting the condos built appears to be her only reason for running at all, and those are her red campaign posters plastered all over the plywood, helping to add to the clutter.

Even Tony Gantner, the most "North Beachy" of the candidates, just wants to forget about it and is ready to back a condo-over-restaurant project and move on. As part of the deal, though, he also favors closing off Powell Street between Columbus and Union for a leafy plaza, which is a nice idea. "We need vision, not mudslinging," he said.

OK. In a minute. I'm not quite done slinging mud.

If the pro-development types get their way and the place is rebuilt as luxury condos for the sake of its developer and a privileged few, it will indeed be the crack of doom for North Beach.

Look, the issue is not that something needs to be done with the old Pagoda-Palace Theater. Everybody knows that. The question is what should be done with it. The current plan for that space, the one being pushed by Garland's one-woman chamber of commerce and the develop-anything-at-all-costs North Beach Neighbors, is a lousy idea. It stinks like yesterday's fish for several reasons, lack of vision being perhaps the main one.

The Pagoda-Palace sits on some prime real estate, overlooking the only discernible green open space in all of North Beach. There's a terrific view back across Washington Square to Telegraph Hill. Whatever is built there will become a major fixture on the streetscape for years to come.

So we need a little more vision here than "condos over a restaurant with a couple of storefronts." Besides, why should six or eight guys with money, who almost certainly don't live around here now, get to claim that view as their own?

Why not rebuild it as a theater? Not exclusively as a movie theater, but as a multi-use facility with a stage and a pull-down screen. It could be used for live events, live theater, occasional movies and even rented out to businesses for use as a conference center. Maybe Yahoo could hold its next shareholder meeting there and Carl Icahn could run next door to get drunk when Jerry Yang finds yet another way of sticking it to him.

The actual theater space could be smaller than it is now, leaving room for ... what? A restaurant and a couple of stores, if you must, but there are myriad possibilities that can help with cash flow. Gantner said he could support something like that but sees no evidence of anyone willing to step up for a theater. OK, it requires some imagination, which I realize is beyond our pro-development friends. But North Beach has never lacked for creative and imaginative people. The time for you visionaries to step up and put in your two cents is now.

Nevius' sources for his latest foray into North Beach represented only one side of this issue, the pro-development side. He characterizes the Telegraph Hill Dwellers (and misidentifies Nancy Shanahan as THD's leader, which she isn't) as a bunch of stonewalling cranks hellbent on killing any development project that comes along. This isn't true. But THD will oppose projects and trends that are ultimately hurtful to the existing character of North Beach, and the Glittering Pagoda Condo project certainly qualifies.

Let me say here, in the interest of full disclosure, that I'm a dues-paying member of THD, although I do not participate in any of their political activities. (I occasionally help copy edit their quarterly, but that's because I'm an editor.) I pay dues because I agree that preservation is vital to protecting the character and way of life in this fragile neighborhood. They also throw some pretty good shindigs.

That said, I prefer THD's motives to Garland and the Neighbors. The main issue for them, really, is not safeguarding North Beach or the quality of life. Their interest lies in getting the property owner the biggest bang for his buck, regardless of its everlasting effect on the neighborhood. Garland, in fact, was quoted by Nevius as saying, "They (THD) cannot force North Beach back into the '50s or '60s. Those days are over."

Well, those days are fading, fading but they're not quite over yet. When they are, Marsha, that will pretty much remove any reason for coming to North Beach at all, and where does that leave you and your chamber of commerce? Tourists don't come here to admire yuppies in their condos, or to eat at another generic high-end restaurant with mediocre, overpriced food. They come here for the Italian cafes, for the European atmosphere, for the art and culture. Those things don't thrive in Yuppieland, except in a mutated, Disney-like grotesquerie of the real thing.

I walk past the theater almost every day and, like the rest of you, I don't like what I see. But I'm willing to live with a little plywood and a few extra pigeons (and even Lynn Jefferson's campaign posters) for a while longer in exchange for getting something built there that's worthy of claiming that important place on Columbus Avenue.