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A fire started tonight at 5:30 PM at the semi deco long closed Lorenzo Theatre in San Lorenzo CA. The roof is on fire. The building has been closed since 1982. One of the best things about this former neighborhood cinema run for many years by Golden State Theatres, United California Theatres then UA was the black light art on the walls. Lets hope the fire dept can help save this classic movie theatre and the tower neon marquee sign. San Lorenzo is across the bay from San Francisco. We still don't know how it started.
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sad news...last time i was in the booth was early 1980 did some sound work on it...it was a pretty houseComment
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I don't know what the state of the interior was, the thing effectively being closed since 1982 according to information available on-line, but while the fire left the exterior facade of the building largely untouched, it seems it still did quite some damage to the interior, since there are big gaping holes in the roof, as can be seen in this twitter post.Comment
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Lou Rugani Cinama Treasures
Thanks Lou, looks like the black light art on the walls still is in place, a little singed but maybe cleaned? Just needs a new roof, electric and seats. They will probably demolish the place because of the cost to replace. To think The Lorenzo Theatre has been around since 1947 and now this! Was It a insurance scam like the United California/Golden Gate Fruitvale Theatre fire in Oakland CA many years ago? The Fruitvale sat there burned out for many years before they tore her down. Let’s see what they say caused the Lorenzo Theatre fire. I know It was a left over burning cigarette past closing in the balcony at the Fruitvale but the Lorenzo has been closed, maybe a homeless person was cooking or smoking inside. I wonder if they had a alarm system to prevent something like this disaster?Comment
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You never know about classic theatres that burn. The whole place is not ruined.
With state grant/seed/tax money and some fire insurance coverage some dot com company $ may be able to save the neon Lorenzo marquee tower and box office front of the old cinema that did not get singed.
It may be time for a new entertainment company to take over the re building of the ash covered Lorenzo Theatre .. Keep the black light cement art inner walls and put in a brand new 6 plex movie cinema in the shell of the Lorenzo or turn the place into a large event stage music venue.
Time for Live Nation or the company that runs the popular Fox Oakland Theatre to get involved to re build the inside for a up and coming area that is crying for some new live entertainment. Net Flix or Amazon need to come on board and help out. They need tax decuctions!
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What condition was the place in before the fire?
It's hard to tell from just one post-disaster picture but a random guess says it wasn't great. I assume that the photo is looking from downstage right toward the booth at the back wall. Yes?
It looks like most of the interior was gone and the seats had been removed. I say that because, if the seats had burned, I wouldn't expect cardboard boxes full of stuff to have survived. It appears that the roof burned and caved in but the mostly empty interior was relatively untouched. The booth appears to have been stripped and the rest of the building looks like just an empty shell.
Years ago, there was an old, historic building left over from the Koehler Brewing Company in Erie. The place was built in the 1890s but the company went under in 1978. The building was stripped, the equipment sold off and left empty until it was demolished in 2006. All during that time, many people said that the building was a historic place and needed to be saved. It was even placed on the National Register of Historic Places. There were a few developers who reportedly made plans to turn the old building into office space, retail shops, a restaurant or night club and I even heard whispers that somebody wanted to turn it into a movie theater. All of them failed to even get off the ground. At the end, the city refused to entertain any development plans because the building had become unsafe. Now, where the once grand, historic brewery once stood, there is nothing but a parking lot.
All those years, people cried out to save the Koehler Brewery but nobody actually lifted a finger... Not the city. Not the community. Not even the developers got much farther than to talk about it. When the building finally came down, there were a lot of people who bemoaned its demise. It even made the local news when the building was dynamited. (They had to blast it twice because the walls were so thick.)
It doesn't look like the Lorenzo is too far gone but i fear the worst.
It just seems like there are a lot of people who want to save old, historic theaters and other buildings but few who are willing to do the work and even fewer who are able to afford it. When the buildings finally get so old and decrepit that they have to be torn down, crowds of people seem to come out of the woodwork and say, "Somebody should have done something!"
Last edited by Randy Stankey; 06-09-2020, 02:03 AM.Comment
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Thanks Randy I think a few seats were still in the back part in the raised stadium part and a few in the back rows down stairs.
The main problem with the long closed Lorenzo Theatre was the roof water leaking going on for so many years. Mold stains had started to grow on the inside ceiling and side walls. . I have seen worse but the non profit people tried to start doing some tarps on the roof before they got funding to do a roof job.
I wonder how long It will take to find out what caused the inferno that seemed to take a long time to put out 3 1/2 hours? Sometimes fire departments just say just let it burn they are going to tear down anyway. But I think they did seem to try to save the old cinema or the front neon tower would have been gone and collapsed.
The whole building was closed to the public and had a security fence surrounding It with wire. I don't think any workers were working inside at the time of the fire. I have been told no power was on going into the theatre for a long time. On a tour a friend took last year they had to bring in their own lights and portable black lights to lite up the art deco jungle walls temporarily.
The fire department will find out soon with the arson squad involved. I may have been wrong and maybe the power had been re stored in places and a faulty attic wire caused the Lorenzo roof to catch fire.
At that time in the late afternoon early eveing ( 5:30 PM) It was still sunny out and I don't think any fireworks landed on the old dry wood roof?
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It would be nice if somebody could refurbish the Lorenzo theater and turn it into an events and conference space but it will take quite a bit of effort, time and money to do that.
Maybe the city could contribute and turn it into a conference center of some sort. The old Warner Theater in Erie was taken over by the Erie Convention and Visitors Bureau and, finally, run by the Council for the Arts. (or some such arrangement of which I don't remember all of the details.) The Erie Philharmonic Orchestra plays there, now, and they often hold concerts or community events there, now.
I don't see why something similar couldn't happen with the Lorenzo if there are enough people interested.
While some fire departments will say, "Let 'er burn," if the building is too far gone, they will usually go into what I have heard being referred to as "Containment Mode." In other words, they can't just let the building go because of the risk of fire spreading to adjacent buildings or property but they also don't actively try to save the building. They just get the building to a state where it burns "Low and Slow" until it goes out by itself or where they can snuff it out with minimal effort. If the fire department was on-scene for 3-1/2 hours, it seems like they might have gone into containment mode. If so, they likely would have protected the facade and perimeter walls to lessen the chance of collapse in the aftermath. It's kind of like when a pilot has to "belly land" an airplane. He knows that the aircraft is going to suffer damage but he tries to land soft enough to protect passengers and cargo in the process.
I guess that I'm saying is that the fire department might have decided that it was best to bring the building in for a belly landing and hope for the best.
As for arson, it's strange that an arson fire would have started on the roof. Electrical? Possible. Somebody fooling around on the roof where they shouldn't have been? Questionable because, if the roof was so unsound, how could somebody safely travel there? Fireworks? No in So-Cal! My girlfriend is from Ventura. She says that people there don't use fireworks, there, much because of the risk of brush fire. She was amazed at how many people shoot fireworks in this area because virtually nobody from where she lived used to do that.
My best hope is that some group or government authority will take over the building and turn it to public use.
It would be really nice if they did. Like I said, that was done with the Warner. No reason it can't be done with the Lorenzo.Comment
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If it was arson, I doubt if insurance fraud is involved. There are easier ways to start a fire than on the roof. Also, there may not have even been insurance on the building, at least not for fire. I've had an insurance agent tell me in the past that vacant homes and businesses are not eligible for insurance. I even had insurance for a theater I was operating failed to be renewed because the insurance company didn't think I was doing enough business to make it viable. I was barely breaking even, and they were afraid if business was bad I would torch the place. If a theater was closed for decades, I doubt it would be very easy to get fire insurance. Of course I've heard stories of long vacant places being torched for insurance money, but after my own experience I wonder how that could happen. Maybe things are different in California.
I could see someone committing arson for reasons other than insurance money. Maybe it was a property with a lot of protections or restrictions and somebody wanted to tear it down. Maybe somebody was tired of paying property taxes. Maybe it's cheaper to tear down a place if it's been burned first... less to haul away. Maybe burning is cheaper than mold remediation. Maybe there is a pyromaniac in town. Maybe somebody has a beef with the owner. Could it be that somebody threw a Molotov cocktail on the roof? Just some random thoughts here.Comment
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When I moved my mother out of her house a few months ago and put the house up for sale I talked to the insurance company and explained that the house will now be unoccupied until I get it sold.
Now I get to pay double the insurance premium that I was paying before, and get no coverage at all against flooding or vandalism. It's almost not worth the price to have insurance under those conditions.
I've insured it anyway but I'm still not sure if I've made a mistake or not.Comment
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I think you've chosen wisely to still have it insured. It's quite normal to pay more for unoccupied houses for most types of insurance than for occupied houses, which also makes some sense. Obviously, it's not the best time to sell houses right now, but if you're not living in a flood or earthquake zone, realistically, the biggest chance for catastrophic damage is still fire, which should still be covered...Comment
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