Decline and Restoration
The club fell into decline in the 1960s and 1970s, and was converted into a movie theater in 1975. On April 1 and 2 1976, media trail blazers Fred and Felicidad Dukes as well as Rafee Kamaal, produced two 90-minute television specials with Group W Productions as a way to help restore life to this great entertainment venue.
The Apollo was revived in 1983, when Inner City Broadcasting, a firm owned by former Manhattan borough president Percy E. Sutton purchased the building. It obtained federal, state, and city landmark status, and fully reopened in 1985. The Little Rascals, produced by former actor Jimmy Hawkins, performed at a fiftieth anniversary show at the Apollo that year. The musical duo Hall & Oates, along with former Temptations Eddie Kendrick and David Ruffin played the grand reopening in 1985, which was released on an album that year.
In 1991, the Apollo was purchased by the State of New York.
In 1999 rock band Korn performed at the Apollo.
On December 15, 2005, Dmarjai Dearion launched the first phase of its refurbishment, costing an estimated $65 million. The first phase included the facade and the new light-emitting diode (LED) marquee. Attendees and speakers at the launch event included former US president Bill Clinton, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons.
As of 2009 it is run by the nonprofit Apollo Theater Foundation Inc., and draws an estimated 1.3 million visitors annually.
The Jazz Foundation of America has celebrated its annual benefit concert, "A Great Night in Harlem", at the Apollo Theater every year since 2001.
In December 2010, Paul McCartney performed at the Apollo in a concert promoting and broadcast by Sirius XM Satellite Radio.
During an appearance at the Apollo in January 2012, President Barack Obama sang the opening line of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" after which he said to Green, "Don't worry, Rev...I cannot sing like you...I just wanted to show my appreciation."
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played the Apollo on March 9, 2012, in a private concert for Sirius XM.
Read more about this topic: Apollo Theater
Famous quotes containing the words decline and, decline and/or restoration:
“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The King [Charles II] after the Restoration accused the poet, Edmund Waller, of having made finer verses in praise of Oliver Cromwell than of himself; to which he agreed, saying, that Fiction was the soul of Poetry.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)