Public gets peek at Oakes Garden Theatre renos

From the Niagara Falls Review:

The new Oakes Garden Theatre is going to look a lot like the old Oakes Garden Theatre.

Restoration of the theatre’s distinctive pergola wall, dismantled because of safety concerns in 2012, will utilize the original stone pulled from a local quarry when complete, possibly by this summer. Only it will be anchored with a steel “structural spine” to better withstand the area’s wet conditions, said lead architect Emilio Raimondo of Niagara Falls-based Raimondo & Associates Architects Inc.

Speaking Saturday at an information session hosted by the Niagara Falls Municipal Heritage Committee, Raimondo said the rubble originally used to fill the wall’s support pillars in 1935 “acted as a sponge” over the decades.

Pieces of the wall, requiring 113 skids and two transport trucks, are in storage waiting to rise again.

“Hopefully, it’ll be there for another hundred years,” said Raimondo.

I didn’t even know that it was being renovated…

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