About 5 years ago, I approached the board of the Grand Cinema with a proposal. "The tenant in 608 Fawcett is leaving," I said (I'm summarizing here, but this is the gist of it). "I don't know whether we'll stay at the Merlino Art Center or whether we'll look for a new home, but if we want to stay and expand here, we need to have control of the storefront at 608 Fawcett. It's the only space we could easily convert into another movie theater without major structural changes to the building."

I convinced them that we should lease the space and then sublease it out while we figured out what we wanted to do.

Today, that decision by the board has really paid off. The image above is of the first movie playing in the Grand's newest theater (it was snapped by the projectionist who took the picture and posted it to Facebook).

Many congrats to the Grand on their newest screen. I'll echo the sentiments of Jimmy Stewart while running through the snowy streets of Bedford Falls …

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dagaASPaptM?wmode=transparent]