GLOVERSVILLE - Up a dusty wooden staircase that leads to the attic floor of the Schine Building, a hand-painted plaster ceiling crumbles from a time 130 years ago when Vaudeville was king.
The carved wooden braces still align the walls, and the wagon-wheel vents on the ceiling mark the expert craftsmanship of the era. Green and blue backdrops with vibrant gold and red designs are deep as ever, with no sunlight to fade the painted ceiling of the former Kasson Opera House, which opened Feb. 1, 1881.
The second and third floors of the Schine Building, also called Memorial Hall, now occupy the space where the 1,400-seat opera house once hosted acts that included England-born Harry Kennedy, a famous ventriloquist who died in 1894.
Three months after Schine-Memorial Hall LLC took ownership of the three-story building, the group has begun work right away with installation of a new roof, flooring and other repairs.
As it gets warmer, new awnings for each of the storefronts - produced in Gloversville by Taylor Made - will be installed.
The next step is to transform the barren second floor into a space attractive for office space for tenants. Plans for the third floor are not yet final, but they could include a combination of commercial and residential space.
"I'm excited about it, and I also think this cooperative approach and large number of investors is going to be a great model for giving this building [what] it needs to find its place again," said Jim Strickland, an investor in Schine-Memorial Hall LLC, which is working on plans to renovate the second-floor office space.
In the 1930s, Myer and Louis Schine remodeled the 29,000-square-foot building with an art-deco theme, building the second and third floors within the opera-house space. At the end of the third floor, they built a small theater for screening films and had a sprawling banquet hall with a vaulted ceiling that has since been partitioned and made into office space.
Glove Performing Arts Center Executive Director Richard Samrov recalled when he was a teen working for the Schines, carrying film canisters up to the third-floor theater.
"I remember that so vividly," Samrov said. The theater has since been damaged by water from burst pipes, but the original curtins and art-deco chandelier still hang.
As far as what it will be in the future, Strickland said the group hasn't decided anything yet.
The only access to the third floor - other than the modern elevator - is a staircase that goes through the Glove Performing Arts Center, where the Schines had their offices above the Glove Theatre space.
Before the third floor opens, another staircase will need to be built.
Remaining off the attic is the original fly space for the opera house. Those who climb a ladder one level higher to where the circular windows look out over the city, above the opera-house ceiling, will find a wall plastered with posters advertising acts that came to the opera house in the 1800s.
"Memorial Hall, One night only!" screams a faded yellow poster advertising the San Francisco Minstrels on Oct. 15, 1884, which, according to the poster, was "the greatest minstrel troupe on earth" at the time.
The challenge now for the investors who bought the building from the Gloversville Economic Development Corp. is repairing the space without losing sight of its history.
With about 55 shares sold at $5,000, the Schine-Memorial Hall LLC remains about halfway to its goal of raising $500,000 to repair and operate the building.
The seven storefronts are mostly rented, and the next step is getting the commercial space on the second floor ready, Strickland said.
There isn't much that can be done with the attic space, and plans for the third floor aren't finalized, Strickland said.
"The only thing we need to do is make it attractive to tenants," Strickland said about the second floor. Work includes installing more restrooms, removing the drop ceilings and repairing water damage from burst pipes. Some rooms left in the middle of previous renovations still need basic repairs such as wallboard.
Strickland said he's hoping the 10,000-square-foot second-flood space will be partitioned and ready for tenants by June.
"We're thinking about cooperative office space where people could, for little money, rent a lot of space," he said.
Through the remodeling, the group plans to keep certain elements of the 1930s remodel, like an art-deco restroom with a basketweave tile and film-noir era doors with frosted glass windows and brass hardware.
The group has commissioned about $100,000 worth of work, between the roof, facade and flooring, Strickland said.
A state Main Street Grant secured for the work will match up to $70,000.
"It's a great way to approach the problem of these massive buildings," Strickland said. "You've got to have a lot of capital, and nobody is taking a big risk."
Amanda Whistle covers Gloversville news. She can be reached at gloversville@leaderherald.com.
