09/12/09 - Sunday night the curtain fell on the final film of the 17th consecutive summer season for the Empire Theater under the ownership of Gary Pollard. Although there have been years when Pollard kept the Empire open until November (he hopes next year will be one of those), this year he needed to return to New York City Labor Day week.

Pollard, his wife, Jessica, and their two children, Ava, 3, and Zev, about to turn one, split their time between Block Island and the city. It’s been a great lifestyle, he says, having the best of both worlds, New York City and Block Island.

After 17 movie seasons, it’s easy to forget that the Empire Theatre sat empty across the street from the statue of Rebecca for a long time, at least six years according to Pollard, who also recalls the building was condemned at the time he first saw it.

For many years the theater had been operated by King Odell and his Moses Brown students known as the “Spa Boys.” Then Don Huggins took over the theater for a time. But the screen went dark after the summer of 1986.

Before Pollard purchased the building in 1992, he had never run a movie theater. He was a documentary filmmaker, whose lyrical work, mostly images with music, was shown on public television and A&E. His plunge into “film exhibition” began while he was staying in the Great Salt Pond for several weeks aboard his sailboat.

Each year Pollard took an end of the summer cruise up the New England coast to Elizabeth Island, Maine, from his homeport of Mamaroneck, N.Y. Block Island became a favorite stop. In 1992, the same year he competed in the Newport to Bermuda race, he decided to spend a few weeks instead of a few days in the Great Salt Pond, and that is when he first considered purchasing the Empire Theatre.

On a walk through town, he noticed the theater building looked worse than it had in previous years. He recalled attending movies there, that it had been a dark and dingy theater. Friends who had just purchased a house on the island had conjectured on a possible price, one way too high for Pollard’s taste. Yet, he was curious. He stopped into Phelan Real Estate to look over the commercial listings.

Thirty minutes later he was inside the Empire with a realtor and a flashlight. The price quoted was a third of what he’d heard. Recollecting that visit, he says the building was all boarded up and the inside was a mess with “bags and bags of garbage.” The screen was “ripped to shreds.” It looked, he says, as though squatters had been living there, having sneaked in under the boards.

Pollard loves old buildings, and despite the disrepair and disheveled condition of the Empire, “there was something magical about it. I was energized when I walked through it.” That was the beginning of his long, and ongoing run as a film exhibitor.

“I don’t know what compelled me,” he says. “I made an offer and put a deposit down.”

He undertook the renovation and restoration of the 130-year-old building, which included shoring it up. In those first years summering here, he lived on his sailboat, but eventually moved into an apartment over the auditorium.

He had a lot to learn about running a theater in a summer resort. Over the years he has tried to include live shows there, but gave that up after four years. There was not enough audience to support the effort financially. Most small theater, Pollard has since learned, is supported through grants. He’d try again, he says, but only if a group took up the cause and found funding.

Last year Pollard was up on a ladder changing a stage light bulb when he noticed a “severe structural problem.” That led to his second renovation of the theater.

Despite the fact that the Empire has never been the financial success he’d hoped for, and that it brought some theatrical tangles with island regulatory boards over details, Pollard says he has never regretting buying the theater.

Five years ago he met his wife Jessica at a party thrown by a friend. They started seeing each other, and when he brought her here, she loved the island also. They were married within months.

When their children are ready for school, the Pollards might try wintering over and enrolling the children in the Block Island School. Ava, Pollard says, already loves the Early Learning Center. Jessica is a speech pathologist who worked with special education high school students, and could be interested in working on island.

Then, as long as weather holds, year-round residents might once again carry their blankets to the unheated theater and lean back in its red seats to watch movies on the big silver screen.