The People's Senator

Why, In This Economic Climate, Does The Possible Demise Of This Theater Stir So Much Feeling?

What makes the Senator Theatre so special? Why all the fuss when it sounded like it might be shuttered? Why is cash-strapped Baltimore proposing to buy it? Why are people flipping through the memorabilia for sale in the building's lobby and walking away in tears?

An awful lot of attention over the past few weeks has been paid to a single struggling business, at a time when businesses everywhere are fighting desperately to stay afloat. Why all the concern over one North Baltimore movie theater that's been an economic basket case for years, that employs just 23 people and sometimes strains to attract even that many paying customers?

/[There's a simple answer to that: The Senator is special because it is, in fact, special. It's the last single-screen movie theater in Baltimore, a city that once boasted dozens. It is the last place in Baltimore where people can go see movies as they originally were meant to be seen, in a quirky building, emblazoned with all sorts of attention-grabbing designs (like that rainbow-colored marquee, or those murals that loom over the lobby), aimed at transporting audiences into a land of fantasy even before the movie starts. It has, for 70 years, been a gathering place for people of all kinds, where experiences have been shared, friends made, imaginations nurtured.

It's one of the few places left in this city where, 365 days a year, a community can actually be a community, not just a bunch of individuals obliviously chattering away on their cell phones, rushing from one fast-food drive-through to the next.

On those glorious nights a great movie is playing, and the melted real butter is oozing its way through the popcorn, and your best friend can't get over how cool it is that John Travolta's autograph is right there on the sidewalk, and Bill up in the projection room has everything running just perfectly and the Dolby sound is threatening to lift you out of your seats.

On those nights - and they can happen as frequently or as infrequently as you want - the Senator is an experience to be treasured.

The Senator has been standing watch over its North Baltimore neighborhood since 1939. Once one of the crown jewels of Baltimore's Durkee Theater chain, it's now the last remnant. Since 1988, it's been run by Frank H. Durkee Sr.'s grandson, Tom Kiefaber, who grew up there and brought a showman's flair and a zealot's stubbornness to the place.