Save the Neighborhood Theatre

A Charlotte newspaper reported Tuesday that NoDa’s multi-format venue, The Neighborhood Theatre is up for sale.  Reports say the music hall will close by the end of March if they don’t get saved by a new buyer.

I walked past the building just this week and saw a full December calendar including artists such as the Marshall Tucker Band and even a Brazilian carnival night called A Night in Rio.

The sign and empty building were the only warnings that they may be in trouble.  The show for that evening was cancelled and the doorways that are typically overflowing with smoker’s trying to catch a buzz between sets were a ghost town.

But not all can be determined from one article.  A Charlotte television report concluded that the Neighborhood Theatre owner is now “in talks with viable candidates to run the venue” and that they have had big name bands in the past and plan to do the same in the future.

So that’s it.  We’ll have to see where it all shakes out.

Now my friends on Facebook are joining a Save the Neighborhood Theatre group and I can’t blame them.  They took our smoking away from us within the bars, and while we have never been able to smoke in the Theatre—I do remember seeing local artists like Hickry Hawkins fill up the seating and spill over into standing room only.

So I did it.  I joined the group too.

Not that a group of people on a website can keep open an iconic music hall that no doubt has its fair share of competition like the Tremont Music Hall, Visulite Theatre, and now the Fillmore taking the latest names, but because I would like to think that I can one day walk down the street and listen to another band that makes my weekend side by side with locals that love the area and have a pride for a piece 64-year-old piece of Charlotte history right in there backyard.