Preservation
With its 86 foot (26 m) wide screen, advanced acoustics and 70mm film capability, the Cinerama Dome remained a favorite for film premieres and "event" showings. But by the late 1990s the motion picture exhibition business began to favor multiplex cinemas, and Pacific Theatres proposed a plan to remodel the Dome as a part of a shopping mall/cinema complex. Historical preservationists were outraged, not wishing to see another great theater turned into a multiplex or destroyed. At the same time, a small contingent of Cinerama enthusiasts had begun resurrecting the three-projector process. They and the preservationists prevailed on Pacific to rethink its plans for the property.
The preservation of the Cinerama Dome came at a time when most other surviving Cinerama theaters were being demolished. An example of this was the case of the Indian Hills Theater in Omaha, Nebraska, a round Cinerama theater boasting a 110 foot screen which was razed in 2001 (to make room for a parking lot) despite the vigorous protests of local enthusiasts and numerous Hollywood legends.
The Cinerama Dome was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1998.
Read more about this topic: Cinerama Dome
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