Sunday, September 18, 2016 The Kirby at 30 Sean McKeag | Times Leader The F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts has illuminated downtown Wilkes-Barre since 1986 and has been a bright spot on the city’s business and cultural communities. The Kirby Center has been the gold standard for events, but it started humbly – with a meeting between two giants By Bill O’Boyle [email protected] WILKES-BARRE — It was sometime in the mid-1980s when Gus Genetti heard a knock on his offi ce door. Genetti, whose family has owned and operated a hotel/convention center in downtown Wilkes-Barre since 1979 — the same hotel that opened in 1906 as the Reddington — got up from his desk and walked to the door. “When I opened (it), there was nobody there — until I looked down,” Genetti said. There, at his door, on his hands and knees, was Al Boscov, who had File Photos purchased the former “Fowler, Dick & In photo at left, Kirby Center catalyst Walker — The Boston Store” in 1980, Al Boscov, left, enjoys opening night at when he changed its name to Boscov’s. the venue on Sept. 19, 1986, with F.M. Al Boscov, who said he had seen a Kirby II and Kirby’s wife, Walker. In photo tremendous void in the downtown since above, the Times Leader front page from the former Paramount Theater closed the following day. in 1977, was there to ask Genetti, and eventually hundreds of others in the not just to the Paramount and fi ne arts, a Barnes & Noble, a movie theater and tial spending of $1.73 million at down- community, for help. but in areas such as health care, educa- the promise of a new hotel/convention town businesses every year. “Mr. Boscov crawled into my offi ce, tion, religion and recreation. center have, at the very least, improved And the number of stage perfor- and he made his case why we needed to The family made its fi rst big impact the look of center city, and all venues mances at the Kirby has increased by 26 reopen the Paramount,” in the business community when Kir- have attracted visitors. percent over the past fi ve years, going Genetti said. “It worked, by’s grandfather, Fred M. Kirby, opened Wico van Genderen, president and from 82 in 2010 to 103 in 2015. not just with me, but with his fi rst fi ve-and-dime store — Kirby chief executive offi cer of the Greater There have been 98 performances this just about everybody he and Woolworth — in Wilkes-Barre Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business & year, with more to come, Beekman said, approached. He was quite in 1884 on East Market Street. (F.M. Industry, said he has been to several adding that the shows nowadays are a guy then, and he still is Kirby II died in 2011.) places across the country and outside more diverse and more likely to be ones today.” As for the family’s donation to the of it, and he said the Kirby Center is that people in this region will attend. Boscov headed a fund- new performing-arts center, the amount a “diamond asset” for the community, “I think the key point here is that we Genetti raising team that raised was never specifi ed but was described both for its citizens and its businesses. are more active than ever in terms of about $3.3 million to as “extremely generous.” “And if the last three years under presenting our own concerts, family transform the shuttered, Nowadays, the Kirby Center — a Will Beekman’s leadership is any indica- shows and theatrical performances,” dark Paramount Theater into the F.M. non-profi t organization that this month tion, it will not only continue to grow Beekman said. “In past years, our Kirby Center for the Performing Arts, is celebrating its 30th anniversary — stronger, but will continue to make our schedule consisted mostly of fi lms and which opened on Sept. 19, 1986. is “more fi nancially stable than ever Public Square and downtown more performances that were coming in from That’s when the lights, as Genetti before,” according to Will Beekman, the vibrant,” he said. outside renters.” said, went on in downtown Wilkes- venue’s director since 2013. Beekman said that when attending Van Genderen said the refurbishment Barre. Over the years, the Kirby has drawn a performance, the theater’s patrons and reopening of the Kirby Center in The new venue was named in honor hundreds of thousands of people to spend an average of an additional $25 1986 was in many ways a turning point of businessman Fred M. Kirby II downtown, sparking a resurgence of per person at downtown restaurants for a city that had faced many hardships because of the Kirby family’s numerous Public Square and the immediate arter- and bars, parking or taxi services and in the 1970s and ’80s. benevolent contributions to the region, ies that feed into it. Restaurants, shops, child-care services. That equals a poten- See KIRBY | 12 Times Leader Sparkling onstage in Wilkes-Barre File Photos NEPA Philharmonic, 1999 Annie, 1991 Jethro Tull, 2001 George W. Bush, 2004 B.B. King, 2000 Coughlin graduation, 2013 2 SEPTEMBER 18, 2016 KIRBY CENTER 30TH ANNIVERSARY TIMES LEADER OUR VIEW 1938: Planting Kirby’s seeds 30 years later, By Mary Therese Biebel [email protected] Kirby Center WILKES-BARRE — If you scroll through the still glowing pages of Wilkes-Barre newspapers from 1938, Oh, those glorious lights. you’ll fi nd such chilling More than 900 bulbs add the glimmer to headlines as “Austrian the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Nazis Defi ant” and “Hit- Arts’ canopy, conveying to passers-by a sense ler Orders More Power of glamour about the place and calling atten- For Attacks on England.” tion to what – for 30 years – has been one of Closer to home, city Wilkes-Barre’s most appreciated bright spots. police searched for a “When the Kirby opened (in 1986), they gunman who had shot were the only lights on downtown. … There three people, and they wasn’t hardly anything else,” area hotelier Gus found him hiding under a Genetti has said. feather tick. The entertainment venue on Public Square Also, the Comerford became a community rallying point during the theater chain opened a 1970s and ’80s, and it remains a shining exam- luxurious fl agship on Pub- ple of what is possible when area residents lic Square. work together. The building would Formerly a movie house, the art deco struc- become the F.M. Kirby ture paved the way in many respects for sub- Center for the Performing sequent revitalization efforts in the city’s hub. Arts in 1986, but in its Consequently, the Kirby Center’s milestone original form, it promised anniversaries – 20 years, 25 years, and now to be a palatial attraction three decades – act not so much to mark the where audience members longevity of a theater, but to commemorate a could put aside their spirit. troubles. The building once seemed to be destined for “All roads lead to the a wrecking ball, but in 2015, the Kirby for the Comerford,” the chain fi rst time cracked Pollstar magazine’s Top 200 announced in August ranking of theaters, based on ticket sales for 1938 in one of several the year. It was listed at No. 114. full-page advertisements “We are not yet where we want to be,” Kirby in The Evening News, a Center Executive Director Will Beekman said forerunner of the Times at the time. “But we’re very proud of how far Leader. we have come.” A shimmering chande- Photos courtesy of Kirby Center Archives In the mid-year rankings for 2016, the Kirby lier, rose-colored windows Visitors mill around in front of the Comerford Theatre in downtown Wilkes-Barre before a screening is 99th. and air conditioning were of the theater’s opening film in 1938. Inset above: ‘All roads lead to the Comerford,’ according to this advertisement from August 1938, when the theater opened. Opened to the public in August 1938, the among the attractions, lavishly decorated destination was known as along with a taste of the erford basement. the Comerford Theatre. It was outfi tted with glamorous Hollywood The new The Michael Comerford Comerford air conditioning, hearing-aid-equipped seats world of Don Ameche, who brought the Comer- and “a nursery with a matron,” according to listed such ford Theatre — complete Alice Faye and Tyrone upcoming the Kirby Center’s website, www.kirbycenter. Power, all of whom films as ‘Too with a basement “nurs- org. starred in “Alexander’s Hot to Handle’ ery” — to Wilkes-Barre Ownership of the movie house changed in Ragtime Band,” the fi rst with Clark was born in 1865 in the 1949; it became known as the Paramount The- movie shown at the new Gable and village of Heckscherville ater. The building survived as a single-screen Myrna Loy, Comerford Theatre. in Schuylkill County, cinema for nearly three decades, then mostly and many raised in Plymouth, and Five screenings of the other shows. fell into disuse. It sometimes served as the site fi lm were scheduled for eventually settled in the of closed-circuit-television boxing matches. opening day, one after the Scranton area. Residents started a grass-roots movement other, starting at 1 p.m. According to a family in the 1970s to spare the building from likely And, in an attempt “to history at comerfordfam- demolition, and even got it added to the curb fantastic reports” that ily.blogspot.com, his National Register of Historic Places.