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After 60 years of film exhibition
in New Haven, I have decided to close the York Square. It’s been a good, long
run, and we can happily reflect on our years of bringing to New Haven thousands
of choices in the best in foreign and domestic film. We are no longer able to
withstand the crushing pressure of the Showcase monopoly. We are simply not allowed
to choose new films to play, and to upgrade and maintain our traditional relationship
with our patrons. We have reached the point where we must say "Enough is
enough." The decision
is immensely frustrating. The York Square is able to produce long runs and high
grosses, frequently the highest in Connecticut, (most recently with Woody Allen’s
MELINDA & MELINDA) but these successes have long been ignored by the Hollywood
film companies. They will not allow us to play any film without the approval of
the Showcase, and that approval is increasingly denied. Films which our downtown
audience would expect to see at the York Square now play exclusively in Orange,
(this week it’s MAD HOT BALLROOM,) where they generate poor attendance. We are
powerless to change this. It’s a strange monopoly, where the concern is power,
and not profit. It’s as if the movie companies, and Orange, are in business to
take in the least amount of money. Everyone loses: the Orange Showcase, the film
companies, the York Square, and certainly the people of New Haven. Independent
theatres in the suburbs are all doing very well, able to choose and plan their
film offerings, beyond the monopoly’s reach. There
is no causal connection between the York’s difficulties and the new Criterion
theatre. They appear to have spent millions in construction, and report horrible
grosses almost every week. They are suffering worse than the York Square, but
the owners are fabulously wealthy and can easily afford their immense losses. The
papers have made mention of some difficulties with the York landlords, which was,
for us, "the last straw." Holes were knocked in our roof, terrible leaking
(especially in cinema 2) and flooding has resulted, with great and obvious damage.
Many patrons have commented on this.
The landlord has for years refused
to make repair, and it has become, for us, impossible. We have now each withdrawn
our claims. The inability to play worthy films is the real problem, and makes
pointless a protracted suit, even with our very strong claims, against the landlord.
The loss of the York
Square is sad and unfortunate and completely unnecessary. We’re in the midst of
a large, vibrant, exciting downtown. Tens of thousands of New Haveners live within
an easy and convenient walk to our front doors. Add to this our visibility and
university setting and you have a location prized by film bookers across the United
States. As the Vice President of Universal studios said to us when walking out
our front doors, "It’s just like Harvard Square!" We responded, "Yes
it is, but in Harvard Square your company makes a fortune playing first-run movies,
and with your boycott in New Haven, you don’t make a dime!" We
do not have the ability to change things. Mayor DeStefano has been great, better
than any mayor in Connecticut, and perhaps unique in the United States. We should
all recall his solid, but unsuccessful, effort to get Stephen Spielberg to relent
and allow his many first-run movies to play in New Haven. Spielberg‘s company
is personally owned and run, and he has had the ability to overnight change things
downtown. Just imagine Spielberg‘s WAR OF THE WORLDS playing at the Palace… or
the Shubert!: the grosses would be enormous, with an immense effect on all of
downtown! Spielberg could make this happen: it’s HIS movie! The
2 most significant institutions- Yale and Attorney General Blumenthal- have refused
to make any effort to "free" downtown. Indeed, in the midst of all this,
Yale brought Spielberg personally to New Haven for 2 days to honor him as a "humanitarian."
He proudly walked the streets of our city, where he refuses to allow his movies
to play. Spielberg was never a student at Yale; we logically assume that Yale
is ready to sacrifice downtown in an obvious pursuit of Spielberg’s money. We
were immensely disappointed when a very rich and well-known Yale alumnus from
Washington, determined to take over the York Square and "do something for
Yale and New Haven," was told by the Yale administration to stay out. We
mistakenly believed that Yale’s planners, who have been so publicly active on
behalf of wealthy downtown developers, have valued the presence of the York Square.
If they would simply step up and "make the call" to Hollywood, the resulting
benefits to Yale and to the City would be enormous. But they won’t. We
never looked for money from anyone, but we could certainly have used some alternative
support. The ADVOCATE, for example, never once mentioned our lawsuit during its
years of litigation. Editorial encouragement could have galvanized community support.
A small place like the York Square, fighting for ALL of New Haven, needs that
easily-available helping hand. You’d be hard-pressed to find any mention of the
York at all in their pages, not even for the opening of our hundreds of art exhibits.
As we close, it appears that their editors have suddenly surfaced, for some with
bizarre, wrong and self-righteous comments. We don’t know why. We’ve
always pursued the future with optimism. The 1970 decision to build the York Square
was a statement of our lifetime commitment to downtown, and to not flee to the
suburbs, like so many others. We were happy with our decision then, and are happy
with it now. We are, and always have been, New Haveners. We still believe that
downtown New Haven is a place of great possibility, and regret that we will not
be able to continue to serve our very special patrons. |
