Alger Theater Celebrates Progress in 2022
Friends of the Alger Theater is proud of all that we were able to accomplish in 2022.
We brought the water line into the Alger Theater during the streetscape construction. There has not been water in the theater for 30+ years. Thank you Major Construction for giving us a wonderful quote and installing the water line. They were financially kind to us and will be a friend of the Alger Theater forever! Thank you Bryan Marshall for navigating this with us.
ADA compliance is very necessary for occupancy. We were able to have what is called an ADA lift (not an elevator) installed to be able to take our friends and neighbors from the ground level up to our amazing rooftop deck.
We have a contract and the funds to install an ADA-compliant restroom and a poured concrete floor on the ground level that will service our storefronts. We had hoped that would have been done by the end of 2022 but, the lift project brought us literally to the end of 2022.
Raising the funds to cover the roof replacement at the Alger Theater will be a major priority for 2023. Image courtesy of Alger Theater
We also invited Next Chapter Books into one of our retail spaces for the months of December and January as a popup. I hope everyone has welcomed them to our neighborhood, and we are hoping they will find a permanent home on our East Warren corridor. Please support Sarah and Jay so that we can keep them here with us.
For the second year, we assisted our friends and neighbors in completing the HOPE application to assist them with their Detroit property taxes. We are a partner with Rocket Community Fund and were funded for this work. We also were funded by Rocket to participate in the Neighbor to Neighbor Program, which was phone canvassing from October to December. We made over 20,000 calls to residents in our east side neighborhoods to find out their needs, such as repairs on their homes, connectivity needs, creating generational wealth, and more. The response will direct Rocket Community Fund to create and fund programs to help stabilize families in their homes.
Looking forward to 2023, getting a new roof will be our main priority. It will be a heavy lift, with a price tag of $200,000, so we will be rolling out a fundraising effort soon.
Like all nonprofits, we’re always looking for volunteers, especially people who can help post messages on our marquee. Community messages are currently the only stream of income for the Alger Theater. We encourage you to join us in this effort to bring back a community space for movies and performances. You can reach me at president@algertheater.org or give me a call or text at (313) 720-3904.
