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Weekend in Berkeley or why I hate schools
2012-Jan-24, Tuesday 20:31This weekend, we did another concert for ATOS (non public) at the Berkeley Community Theatre on the Wurlitzer there.
We have 2 consoles that can be used with the organ.
The original Toledo Paramount has far too much gilt & ormalu but has room for fewer stop tabs
than the Senter Theatre console that has been separated from its original organ.
The Senter console is from Rockafeller Centre and really matches the room well.
Its distinguished and has a gorgeous wood shell.
It also has room for more stop tabs.
It can play the whole organ but the Toledo can access all the stops on the organ.
The Toledo has an off white enamel and with all the finals & ormalu and gilt, it makes me nauseous to look at it.
The Senter console has finally been dubbed "Roxie".
I have dubbed the Toledo "The French Strumpet" which pisses a lot of people off.
Some people insist that the Toledo console "sounds better" despite the fat that all the
console has in it is the keyboards & the stop tabs.
Both consoles play the same pipes and THATS where the sound comes from.
People can be SOOOO STUPID sometimes.
Some of the recent ADA "improvements" I think are worse than being non compliant.
With the number of ATOS people who have mobility issues, I was kind of busy.
A couple times it was easier to just grab someones hand and say "follow me, Ill get you there" than it was to break them in on the new procedures.
Keep in mind that Berkeley wants the world to believe that they know best.
Yah right...
At 1 point in time this was a very good performing arts house.
Its on the campus of Berkeley HS next door to the little theatre.
What was cool about BCT was that being a working house, the union classified it as a training facility.
This meant that there was minimum union staff required when a public even happened there and they gave training to students who wanted to pursue stagecraft.
Students could graduate HS after going through the program and the next day walk right into the stagehands union as an aprentice and able to go directly into a career.
I always thought that was what a school should do, silly me....
Sadly, the school district has turned away from vocational programs presuming that ALL kids are college bound.
"We are a school, why are we running a theatre?" (see line above)
They have cut maintenance to the building and whats not used for overflow classrooms space is being used for storage.
When they do spend money, they do it foolishly.
They spent nearly $400,000 grand installing a computerized emergency lighting system rather than replace a $40 relay because "relays are old technology and nobody understands them anyway".
The installation of the system got concrete dust in EVERYTHING because they had to run all new conduit, drill new holes in the wall.
When you do business with a govt entity, its usually a license to steal because most of the time nobody ever checks the work and nobody questions the plan.
You are a contractor, you must know everything in the world.
The original system was basically an electromagnet that if the power to the coil stopped, a mechanical switch would close sending power to all the emergency lights.
Its pretty goof proof, but after 50 years, they needed to run down to an electrical supply in Alameda and spend an hour popping a new one in.
The new system took a year to install and another half year to get the bugs out and figure out how to have it not turn the emergency lights on in the middle of a concert.
This place started as a WPA project that was intended as a community performing arts centre.
It was designed with several dance studios, space for a radio station, the theatre etc.
The studio & the dance studios were long ago cut up into smaller classrooms & offices.
A recent bond issue was to include ADA accessible restrooms to be added but somehow the money went somewhere else. Nobody noticed until a public even there incurred an an ADA lawsuit.
There are actually ADA compliant restrooms if you go down the hall from the lobby and know where they are.
Only in the rear of the theatre under the balcony was anywhere to put a wheel chair, but it did work. It was just an issue trying to get wheel chairs all the way to the front row.
The lawyers were ready to challenge back in court but visited the theatre to verify the new ADA restooms that were to be built in the space that was currently the coat check (junk storage). They HAD to be there, they were on the blueprints! Finding none, the building was closed to public events, although still used by the school.
They removed the back 2 rows of seats and leveled the space and placed concrete curbs for people to trip over.
Ive seen a few accidents already.
They removed the front 4 rows of seats to make room for wheel chairs in the front.
This also removed the best seats in the house too.
Because the slope of the floor is so steep (3500 seat house) they needed to install a wheel chair lift.
So, they built a room on 1 end of the apron of the stage.
Originally there was a set of steps at each end of the apron with the orchestra pit in between.
After the room was built, which now obscured the house right proscaenium, they built a new set of steps between the room & the pit.
This meant the pit had to be shrunk even more.
They should have just left off the replacement steps ans had steps at 1 end and a lift on the other.
To get to the "loo", heres the procedure for ADA folks:
Walk over to front house right
At this point you are in a kind of maze thing with a roof over it.
To go "up" hit the "down" button for about 30 seconds and release.
This will bring the lift down and open the door when you release the button IF the lift is in the full down position when you release the button.
If this does not work, do it again.
The door will open for a short time. If you miss it, hit the "down" button again & release.
Board the lift
Press the "UP" button and hold it until the lift reaches stage level.
Releasing the button IF at stage level will open the door and if NOT at stage level, the lift will stop.
Now you are at the stage level on what was the house right end of the apron.
Exit lift to the right and after making a 180 turn, make a left and then another right.
You are now in the hall outside the stage scene shop.
Continue down the hall until you see the elevator door to the elevator vestibule on the left & enter it.
Press "elevator call" & board elevator. You are at "Level-1R"
ADA compliant "girls" room is down to "level B"
ADA complant "boys room" is up to "level 1"
On the return trip, go to "level 1-R"
Level 1-R is the back door to the car and is on the level between these 2 restrooms.
For the return trip, exit the elevator car, go through the door on the left to the hall (right goes into scene shoppe)
Make a right in the hall and as just before the door ahead into the stage left wing, make a left into the vestibule, followed by a right and another left to return to the stage lift.
Press "up" & hold to call the lift or if its already there to get the door to open.
Folks! IM NOT MAKING THIS UP !!! ARE YOU STILL WITH ME ?
"down" to take the lift down 4ft to the house floor and the door should open if you are at full down when you release the button.
Then around the maze thats supposed to shield the house from the light & sound of the lift but doesnt & into the house again.
Back row wheel chairs retreat to lobby, follow hallway that follows perimeter of the building until it stops.
Boys ADA on the right, elevator down to the basement for ADA girls.
This time return to "level-1" because you are a level above the "level-1R"
Meanwhile, the community advisory board felt that the rails around the orchestra pit should match the rest of the building (brass) and the architect felt they should be stainless.
Since brass was more expensive, no rails were fitted and the pit can not be lowered to bottom position because someone might fall in.
Cthulu only knows if it will ever be open for public events again.
The training program of young stage hands has been pretty well dismantled.
The last graduate of the program went on to a college stagecraft program.
His 1st semester of lab assignments, they would be doing a skill and in about 5 minutes, each lab, hed demonstrated that he knew how to do it already, and was dismissed for the rest of the lab, leaving his classmates struggling to master the skill.
His 2nd semester, he was teaching the lab sessions.
When he started the program at BHS, he couldnt even coil a cable right and now hes teaching
in his own college classes.
He is the poster child of what that program was supposed to do.
Its tragic what the school district has done to it.
Im very critical of the "school profession" for a number of reasons and this is but one.
We have 2 consoles that can be used with the organ.
The original Toledo Paramount has far too much gilt & ormalu but has room for fewer stop tabs
than the Senter Theatre console that has been separated from its original organ.
The Senter console is from Rockafeller Centre and really matches the room well.
Its distinguished and has a gorgeous wood shell.
It also has room for more stop tabs.
It can play the whole organ but the Toledo can access all the stops on the organ.
The Toledo has an off white enamel and with all the finals & ormalu and gilt, it makes me nauseous to look at it.
The Senter console has finally been dubbed "Roxie".
I have dubbed the Toledo "The French Strumpet" which pisses a lot of people off.
Some people insist that the Toledo console "sounds better" despite the fat that all the
console has in it is the keyboards & the stop tabs.
Both consoles play the same pipes and THATS where the sound comes from.
People can be SOOOO STUPID sometimes.
Some of the recent ADA "improvements" I think are worse than being non compliant.
With the number of ATOS people who have mobility issues, I was kind of busy.
A couple times it was easier to just grab someones hand and say "follow me, Ill get you there" than it was to break them in on the new procedures.
Keep in mind that Berkeley wants the world to believe that they know best.
Yah right...
At 1 point in time this was a very good performing arts house.
Its on the campus of Berkeley HS next door to the little theatre.
What was cool about BCT was that being a working house, the union classified it as a training facility.
This meant that there was minimum union staff required when a public even happened there and they gave training to students who wanted to pursue stagecraft.
Students could graduate HS after going through the program and the next day walk right into the stagehands union as an aprentice and able to go directly into a career.
I always thought that was what a school should do, silly me....
Sadly, the school district has turned away from vocational programs presuming that ALL kids are college bound.
"We are a school, why are we running a theatre?" (see line above)
They have cut maintenance to the building and whats not used for overflow classrooms space is being used for storage.
When they do spend money, they do it foolishly.
They spent nearly $400,000 grand installing a computerized emergency lighting system rather than replace a $40 relay because "relays are old technology and nobody understands them anyway".
The installation of the system got concrete dust in EVERYTHING because they had to run all new conduit, drill new holes in the wall.
When you do business with a govt entity, its usually a license to steal because most of the time nobody ever checks the work and nobody questions the plan.
You are a contractor, you must know everything in the world.
The original system was basically an electromagnet that if the power to the coil stopped, a mechanical switch would close sending power to all the emergency lights.
Its pretty goof proof, but after 50 years, they needed to run down to an electrical supply in Alameda and spend an hour popping a new one in.
The new system took a year to install and another half year to get the bugs out and figure out how to have it not turn the emergency lights on in the middle of a concert.
This place started as a WPA project that was intended as a community performing arts centre.
It was designed with several dance studios, space for a radio station, the theatre etc.
The studio & the dance studios were long ago cut up into smaller classrooms & offices.
A recent bond issue was to include ADA accessible restrooms to be added but somehow the money went somewhere else. Nobody noticed until a public even there incurred an an ADA lawsuit.
There are actually ADA compliant restrooms if you go down the hall from the lobby and know where they are.
Only in the rear of the theatre under the balcony was anywhere to put a wheel chair, but it did work. It was just an issue trying to get wheel chairs all the way to the front row.
The lawyers were ready to challenge back in court but visited the theatre to verify the new ADA restooms that were to be built in the space that was currently the coat check (junk storage). They HAD to be there, they were on the blueprints! Finding none, the building was closed to public events, although still used by the school.
They removed the back 2 rows of seats and leveled the space and placed concrete curbs for people to trip over.
Ive seen a few accidents already.
They removed the front 4 rows of seats to make room for wheel chairs in the front.
This also removed the best seats in the house too.
Because the slope of the floor is so steep (3500 seat house) they needed to install a wheel chair lift.
So, they built a room on 1 end of the apron of the stage.
Originally there was a set of steps at each end of the apron with the orchestra pit in between.
After the room was built, which now obscured the house right proscaenium, they built a new set of steps between the room & the pit.
This meant the pit had to be shrunk even more.
They should have just left off the replacement steps ans had steps at 1 end and a lift on the other.
To get to the "loo", heres the procedure for ADA folks:
Walk over to front house right
At this point you are in a kind of maze thing with a roof over it.
To go "up" hit the "down" button for about 30 seconds and release.
This will bring the lift down and open the door when you release the button IF the lift is in the full down position when you release the button.
If this does not work, do it again.
The door will open for a short time. If you miss it, hit the "down" button again & release.
Board the lift
Press the "UP" button and hold it until the lift reaches stage level.
Releasing the button IF at stage level will open the door and if NOT at stage level, the lift will stop.
Now you are at the stage level on what was the house right end of the apron.
Exit lift to the right and after making a 180 turn, make a left and then another right.
You are now in the hall outside the stage scene shop.
Continue down the hall until you see the elevator door to the elevator vestibule on the left & enter it.
Press "elevator call" & board elevator. You are at "Level-1R"
ADA compliant "girls" room is down to "level B"
ADA complant "boys room" is up to "level 1"
On the return trip, go to "level 1-R"
Level 1-R is the back door to the car and is on the level between these 2 restrooms.
For the return trip, exit the elevator car, go through the door on the left to the hall (right goes into scene shoppe)
Make a right in the hall and as just before the door ahead into the stage left wing, make a left into the vestibule, followed by a right and another left to return to the stage lift.
Press "up" & hold to call the lift or if its already there to get the door to open.
Folks! IM NOT MAKING THIS UP !!! ARE YOU STILL WITH ME ?
"down" to take the lift down 4ft to the house floor and the door should open if you are at full down when you release the button.
Then around the maze thats supposed to shield the house from the light & sound of the lift but doesnt & into the house again.
Back row wheel chairs retreat to lobby, follow hallway that follows perimeter of the building until it stops.
Boys ADA on the right, elevator down to the basement for ADA girls.
This time return to "level-1" because you are a level above the "level-1R"
Meanwhile, the community advisory board felt that the rails around the orchestra pit should match the rest of the building (brass) and the architect felt they should be stainless.
Since brass was more expensive, no rails were fitted and the pit can not be lowered to bottom position because someone might fall in.
Cthulu only knows if it will ever be open for public events again.
The training program of young stage hands has been pretty well dismantled.
The last graduate of the program went on to a college stagecraft program.
His 1st semester of lab assignments, they would be doing a skill and in about 5 minutes, each lab, hed demonstrated that he knew how to do it already, and was dismissed for the rest of the lab, leaving his classmates struggling to master the skill.
His 2nd semester, he was teaching the lab sessions.
When he started the program at BHS, he couldnt even coil a cable right and now hes teaching
in his own college classes.
He is the poster child of what that program was supposed to do.
Its tragic what the school district has done to it.
Im very critical of the "school profession" for a number of reasons and this is but one.
