By Adam Brinklow
The Oaks Theatre (click here) at 1875 Solano Avenue in Berkeley opened in 1925, built in “Moorish style” by the Reid brothers, the pair behind Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater and San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel.
Since then it’s been remodeled, renovated, and redesigned over the decades, gaining an Art Deco overhaul in the 1930s, an additional screen in the 1970s, antique chandeliers and doors salvaged from other old theaters in the 1990s, and then, sadly, multiple closures this century.
New investors swooped down in 2010 with a plan to revive the Oaks’s business with a combination of American and Indian cinema. That plan, however, fizzled out by year’s end....The Oaks needs to be revitalized. It is incredible and needs a sponsor. The charm of an era cannot be replaced, it has to be preserved.
