Save the Embassy: two days to spare

1971 — 1975

The fight the building's entry cannot hold: The Embassy Theatre's architecture and stage history are told in the Architecture section; what belongs here is the campaign. When the Indiana Hotel closed in 1971, the plan on the table was to convert the hotel to senior housing and demolish the theatre beside it for a parking lot of sixty-five cars. In 1972 the theatre's owner, Cinecom Corporation, declared bankruptcy, and the wrecking ball became a dated prospect. A handful of community leaders and volunteers, led by Robert Goldstine, incorporated the Embassy Theatre Foundation in late 1972 to buy the building instead.

The foundation's own history gives the campaign its famous margin: the "Save the Embassy" campaign raised the $250,000 purchase price "with just two days to spare." The paperwork took longer than the slogan — the foundation signed its agreement to purchase in 1974 and completed the purchase, for $250,000, in June 1975; the Architecture section's summary dates the purchase to the agreement year, and both steps are printed here from the foundation's anniversary account. In between, the saving was manual: volunteers — Donald Fox, Ray Danford, Chuck Wyss, Byron Fogt, Ellsworth Smith, Bob Nickerson, Bill Zabel, Ron Cayot, Becky Sumpter and others — fed coal bought with their own money into the furnaces so the Grande Page organ's pipes and the building's plumbing would not freeze, fixed roof leaks, and cleaned coal dust from the terra-cotta. In May 1975 organist Buddy Nolan, one of the organ's longtime guardians, played a benefit concert that filled the house. Later in 1975 the Embassy Theatre and Indiana Hotel were listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1976 the City Council approved the theatre's designation as a historic site. The campaign's institutional result outlasted the emergency: the foundation that was incorporated to stop a demolition still owns and operates the theatre.

Sources:

1. Embassy Theatre Foundation, "Our History" (fwembassytheatre.org) — the parking-lot proposal, the Goldstine campaign, the two days to spare, the volunteers' coal, Nolan's May 1975 benefit, and the 1975 Register listing.
2. Business People, "Embassy Theatre Foundation celebrates 40 years and 19 presidents" (February 22, 2012) — Cinecom's bankruptcy, the late-1972 incorporation, the 1974 purchase agreement, and the June 1975 purchase at $250,000.
3. Historic Theatre Photos, "Embassy Theatre, Fort Wayne" — the 1976 city historic-site designation.
4. Architecture — the building, the organ and the stage record, cross-referenced and not retold.