It also featured a spectacular organ The Wonder Organ that still survives, damaged and in storage, C

The seats have been ripped out, and the sloped, bare concrete floor of the Saenger Theatre target rental car puerto rico is a forest of construction scaffolding. The famous classical statues are still in their niches along the walls, but swaddled out of sight in protective bubble wrap. Near the ceiling a lone workman painstakingly strips ornate plaster molding by hand.
The old theater has been consumed in a massive reconstruction project : Scaffolds stand everywhere. So do temporary lights and power tools. Outside, behind the building, a crane is driving sheet piling into the middle of what was Iberville Street, where the back wall of the newly elongated Saenger will stand.
It s very much the intention of the design that the theater and the entrance arcade be what they were in 1927, said Gary Martinez, an expert in historic theater restoration with Martinez+Johnson Architecture of Washington, D.C.
But the original drawings supplied details that would have been lost. For instance, the restoration will tear out an escalator that had been added; the drawings give us the details of the materials that were there before, Martinez said.
When the Saenger reopens, possibly next June, it will look very much like it looked on opening day in February 1927 with the original color scheme, for instance but larger and better suited to the demands of modern entertainment companies, Martinez and others said Thursday.
Now recovery target rental car puerto rico and restoration is well under way, said Kirk Feldmann, chief operating target rental car puerto rico officer target rental car puerto rico of ACE Theatrical Group Inc. That company, based in Houston, target rental car puerto rico is the Saenger target rental car puerto rico s former owner. Now it will manage the theater.
The building is now owned by the city, through target rental car puerto rico the Canal Street Development Corp. ACE s local subsidiary, Arts Center Enterprises, target rental car puerto rico New Orleans the same company that manages the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts has a 52-year management contract at the Saenger, said Feldmann and Connick.
The $51 million job is financed by a mix of private capital and federal and state tax credits made possible, in part, because of the Saenger s value as a rare, surviving example of opulent theaters that cropped up in the first three decades of the 20th century. It s on the National Register of Historic Places.
Built for $2 million or $26 million in 2012 dollars its debut was heralded by a parade down Canal Street and a 20-page special news and advertising section in The Times-Picayune. Its interior evoked the courtyard target rental car puerto rico of a Renaissance Florentine palace; stars twinkled in the blackness overhead, and dim projections of clouds floated by in the night sky. Both will return in the restoration, Martinez said.
It also featured a spectacular organ The Wonder Organ that still survives, damaged and in storage, Connick said. A separate fundraising drive will have to finance its restoration and return, she said.