Painstaking work to upgrade the Uptown

By George Altamura

The essay from Joe Turner (“Its past time to fill downtown’s empty spaces,” July 6), which does not mention me by name, exercises the right we Americans enjoy of speaking our mind freely in a public forum. However, Turner has used innuendoes and suppositions in the place of facts.

To illustrate, he states that the Uptown Theater is in the category of properties that “crumble” and “decay.” He “knows” this, he writes, because he “walks by every few days and peeks inside.”

Had he made a simple inquiry, he would have discovered the following: Over the past two years, the theater’s magnificent ceiling murals were restored. Four master artists — whose works are known around the world — undertook the restoration when it was discovered that the Uptown’s original ceiling murals were still intact underneath three layers of paint.

Every square inch of the ceiling of the Uptown has undergone a transformation. Careful removal of the paint overlaying the murals was accomplished. Workers then photographed and prepared meticulous drawings of the ceiling to get a highly detailed picture of the murals before repainting.

It was necessary to install a complicated scaffold that rose 35 feet above the floor of the theater. A platform atop the scaffolding gave the artists a place to stand while they painted the murals over the 10,000-square-foot ceiling surface. Magnificent replica chandeliers were added to enhance the elegance of the theater.

Before this could begin, workers dismantled four theaters, from floor to ceiling, that the former owner had built within the main structure.

Restoration work is not like demolishing a building with a wrecking ball and then rebuilding it. To preserve a structure requires the work of many meticulous craftsmen who must work in phases. All 1,350 16-inch theater seats were removed and replaced with plush 22-inch wide seats. (Although it will reduce the capacity of the theater by 500, all 850 patrons will now have luxury seating). The old stage was made much larger. These phases alone required more than a year and a half to complete and were necessary before the mural restoration could begin.

At some point in the theater’s history someone “modernized” the exterior by cladding it with metal siding, which was removed. In order to restore the original art deco that it covered, it was necessary to repair literally thousands of holes. The entire building was then re-plastered, re-painted, re-tiled and returned to its original splendor.

When the Uptown is finished, it will be the showplace of downtown Napa.

Had Turner placed my development of properties in its proper context, he would have learned that the theater’s opening was intended to coincide with the opening of hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and the several-mile-long river walk. As everyone knows, the Ritz has been placed on hold because of the economic downturn. It is unknown when the river walk will be completed, although it was supposed to be finished in 2005.

In any event, notwithstanding the expense of the Uptown renovation (reaching millions of dollars), it will not be opened until it is completed. I would also point out that it would indeed have become a “blight” had I not purchased it. By now it would have started to disintegrate and would be just another empty old theater, useless for anything except perhaps the wrecking ball or a flea market.

Turner’s rhetoric, although intended to inflame the people of Napa‚ substitutes innuendo for facts. Perhaps he believes I would not respond merely because he has chosen not to mention my name. For his future reference, my name is George Altamura.

 (Altamura lives in Napa.)

Napa Valley Register Copyright © 2009