Cinema Park-Adiso: Little Italy weighs saving an old theater  against adding much-needed parking ...................By Michael Gill April 5-11 issue of FREE TIMES Sheldon Wigod began his turn with the Mayfield Theater in 1976. Back then the  professor and entrepreneur could sell out 500 seats by showing classics like  American in Paris, Singing in the Rain and Charlie Chaplin movies. For 10 years, the movie house was the heartbeat of Little Italy. People parked in a lot up the hill,  where new housing now stands. But in the '80s, Wigod says, VCRs and cable TV  "basically killed revival houses all over the country. " The Mayfield went on the ropes.  Wigod played more avant-garde films to draw crowds, but one night in 1986 — after  a screening of "some sort of Israeli gay movie, or something" — he closed the doors for good.

"No one contacted me about that plan," says Terry Tarantino, who owns the theater building. "No one sat down 
with me to tell me what it's about." Tarantino opened his restaurant La Dolce Vita 17 years ago. With neighborhood 
charm and opera singers to serenade weekend dinner customers, he built it into a landmark of his own. He has ideas 
about the future of the historic theater, too, and how it fits with the rest of the neighborhood. And it doesn't include 
parking. "Let's pretend someone offered me a ridiculous amount of money to make it into parking," he says. "I still 
wouldn't want to do it. It's not about the money." No one denies that the neighborhood could use more parking, but
the difference of opinion over how to get it points to profoundly different perspectives on the economic development 
of neighborhoods.

MARQUEE’D for parking.
FRANK MILLS, Whose company Urban Paradoxes consults with neighborhood groups about development 
plans, met with a group of Little Italy business and property owners a year ago. He says the parking deck proposal 
has become a catch-all for general dissatisfaction with the level of community input that informed the master plan."In 
a larger sense," he says, "the people just don't feel like their voices were heard."

Two surveys — one from the CDC, the other by a neighborhood business owner — seem to bear that out. Survey 
results provided by Little Italy Redevelopment Corp. with a copy of the master plan indicate that of 62 respondents, 
19 agreed with the planning principles presented at a meeting, 19 more did not, and 14 left the question blank. Asked
if there was any part of the plan they strongly agreed or disagreed with, just four respondents said they agreed with what
is vaguely called the "Mayfield Theater development." Four others strongly disagreed.

Selena Corbo says her family — owners of Corbo's Bakery, the now for-sale Club Corbo and other properties on the 
strip — also was not contacted about the master plan, even though it incorporates part of their property in the parking 
deck proposal. 

Early in the planning process, business owner Carmen Magri was frustrated by what she saw as a lack of neighbor-
hood involvement. She began to conduct her own survey. Using the county recorder's office, she identified 342 property 
owners and sent them surveys about the future of Little Italy. Nearly 120 responded, and only 23 percent "felt that the 
Redevelopment Corp. was doing a good job." More than one-third thought the CDC should be "restructured." Several 
attempts to contact representatives of the CDC during the last week went unanswered.

Winefred Weizer, a doctoral student in urban planning at Cleveland State University, prepared a report from Magri's 
results. She was cautious to note that the survey didn't include renters, and that the results were from a self-selecting group 
of voluntary responders, but concludes that strong response from property owners indicates that the plan shouldn't be finalized 
without further study. Referring specifically to the parking proposal, she says the trick is to address the problem "without 
destroying the very attributes that brought people" to the neighborhood in the first place. Magri's frustration with the level of 
community involvement in the plan has motivated her to organize. Starting last year with a Web site that promotes neighborhood 
businesses, she's gathered contacts, has about 80 members, and has hired consultants to conduct an independent community 
dialog about the future. Now she's in the process of incorporating as a non-profit organization. Her group, Heart of Little Italy, 
is about to grow into a kind of grassroots neighborhood business association — an entity that could act on behalf of member 
businesses by hiring consultants, developing plans and channeling money. It would inevitably compete with the CDC for neigh-
borhood hearts, minds and even money. 

Mills, of Urban Paradoxes, wonders if the money that would be invested in parking couldn't be better used for a more progressive
solution, like moving and improving the nearby East 120th rapid transit station. Instead of courting automobile traffic, the neighbor-
hood could capitalize on pedestrians, encourage transit use and bicycling, 
and keep the charm intact.

REGARDLESS OF WHETHER or how the neighborhood's parking issues are addressed, the challenge remains to find a 
viable use for the long-vacant theater. Tarantino says he's been cleaning up the inside and is considering other uses, including 
a wine bar. Magri suggests that it could be adapted for use as a bank branch. She says it would also serve the neighborhood 
well if the marquee and fasade were spruced up, "so it's not an embarrassment to the neighborhood. If they can find a use for 
it, so much the better. Of  course we could use more parking. But don't demolish a neighborhood icon to get it." 

Brian Jones, a painter with a background in marketing and the owner of Festivo Gallery, has just been elected director of the
Murray Hill Arts Association, which plans the art walks. His studio on Murray Hill Road, just a few doors from Mayfield, is 
cheerful with color and unapologetic recasts of Picasso, Matisse and Klimt. For the entire time he's been doing business here, 
the theater has been a dark spot on the strip. He wonders why it couldn't be converted into a murder-mystery dinner theater 
or some other creative re-use. Then he looks away pensively. "But then I wonder if anyone would really miss it if it were gone."