Good afternoon.
There are well-documented challenges facing movie theaters and if you’ve screened anything in the past decade, you don’t need me to rehash those challenges here. (For one example, see the Osio Theater in downtown Monterey. Even before the Covid pandemic, the indie theater had its challenges, and a recent, heroic effort to reopen it fell apart amid negotiations with a demanding landlord.)
Sara Rubin here, noting that despite those challenges, I am not the only person who still holds movie theaters and other arts venues in high esteem in the way they fit into the fabric of our communities. Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue and Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce CEO Colleen Bailey have both been hyping the potential for the arts to serve as an economic development engine.
“Arts spaces tend not to be spaces that make money, but they make money for the community,” Bailey says.
During the month-long exhibit of Alebrijes & Nahuales Fantastic: Animals from Mexico, which ended on Sept. 4, one participating venue, Northridge Mall, documented 1 million visitors, a 20-percent increase over the comparable time period the prior year. “There’s no other reason to account for that,” Bailey says. “If you bring life to a space, you can draw people in.”
Bailey is a former arts organization executive, having helmed the National Steinbeck Center and the Monterey Jazz Festival. During her time at the latter, the organization was behind a stalled attempt to revive the Osio Theater.
This all leads me to downtown Salinas’ Maya Cinemas, which on Sept. 9 announced it was closing. Both Bailey and Donohue expressed some cautious optimism that the owner could be persuaded to change course, and I was skeptical—then on Monday, Sept. 14, there they were, alongside the Maya CEO and others, to announce the theater will reopen on Friday, Oct. 9.
This is great news for Salinas’ film scene. Maya was not only a place to see films, but also host to many unusual events—screenings of local indie films, Q&As with filmmakers, Spanish-language films, partnerships with groups like the Steinbeck Center or Watsonville Film Festival that you couldn’t see anywhere else. It truly was a cultural powerhouse in its heydey.
Maybe another heyday is ahead. Especially in a time when shopping takes place increasingly online, arts venues provide a critical attraction for downtowns, making them into destinations.
I admit that I’m part of the problem. I love going to the movies, and I went to theaters locally to see The Odyssey and The Devil Wears Prada 2 (loved both). But these days, I rarely go to the movies. In the same way I make a point of buying goods at local mom-and-pop shops—my shoes, books, pens and such come from brick-and-mortar vendors, instead of internet sellers—I hereby commit to more regular moviegoing in the future, as long as there are screens on which to watch the movies.
Now that the Maya is coming back, I’ll be there with popcorn ready to go.
-Sara Rubin, editor, [email protected]