EAST GREENVILLE, Pa. - The Grand Theater in East Greenville, Montgomery County, turned 98 years old on Tuesday, and it was gifted quite the birthday present. The Heritage Conservancy in Doylestown granted it historic designation, making the building a landmark.
Inside the theater, you'll find the same ceiling and wall designs from nearly a century ago.
"We were able to reproduce everything almost exactly what it looked like here in 1924," owner Ed Buchinski said.
Buchinski bought the theater in 2004. And though he worked to reproduce its original architecture, Buchinski also added an organ in 2006, to keep the original nostalgia alive.
On Tuesday, the building had its 98th birthday. On the same day, it became a landmark.
"It's, I'm going to start crying," Buchinski said. "It's a proof of the amount of hard work, love and attention that we've given to the Grand Theater and its restoration."
For Buchinski, owning the building has been a lifelong dream.
"It started when I was four years old," he said. "The historic Lansdale theater which was demolished in 1978, my parents took me there to see Benji."
Buchinski was told the showing of Benji would be the last movie played before the theater would be destroyed.
"So I tried to convince my parents to buy the theater," he said. "They would not."
A picture of that theater in Lansdale hangs on the walls inside the Grand Theater, where Buchinski finally made his dream come true.
"Everybody thought I was completely insane, out of my mind when I bought this because it was one good snow storm away from collapse," Buchinski said.
He pointed to the ceiling.
"About right there we almost lost a roofer through the roof, that's how bad it was," he said.
"Ed put so much love into this building, bringing it back to its glory," Christina Landis, from East Greenville, said.
Landis, a self-proclaimed history junkie, helped make this piece of history happen.
"It is absolutely fantastic in here," she said. "I come here as often as I can. I love the silent movies."
Buchinski says the theater is one of just three venues in the entire world with two organ consoles. The other two are Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and a high school in Delaware.
The theater mainly shows first-run films and occasionally features silent movies.
Buchinski says movie prices back in the 1920s may have been around 15 cents per ticket. Though not quite that low nowadays, you can buy a matinee ticket for just $4 and an evening ticket for $5.
Buchinski calls the time spent restoring the building "11 months of hell." But now, the building's historic designation is closing the curtain to Buchinski's hard work.
"It feels really awesome," he said, "to be a 98-year-old official historic landmark in the community."
