Uptown: Portrait of a Palace A Documentary by John Pappas and Michael Bisberg

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“What happens when a building slips through a crack in time? Leftover from an extinct era and useless in modern society, the Uptown Theatre has done just that. Closed in 1981, the 85-year old movie palace has sat in decay on Chicago’s North Side. This film explores the history of the Uptown and why the biggest and arguably most elaborate movie theatre in the country has been left vacant for almost thirty years. Is the Uptown a stoic remnant of the long-forgotten past, or is it, as Rapp & Rapp remarked when they built it, a theatre ‘not for today, but for all time’?”

Uptown: Portrait of a Palace (2006) by John Pappas and Michael Bisberg (25:58 min)

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