Original subtitles

[narrator] A French compound where a staggering deception

was launched.

[Sascha] What unfolded was one of the great spy stories

of the Second World War.

An iconic Philadelphia venue that set the stage

for era-defining artists.

[Olivia] All these famous entertainers. It was electric in here.

And a mansion in Malaysia, the scene of a baffling crime.

[Dominic] This house was the site of a brutal killing.

His body was found with a shotgun wound

to the back of the head.

[theme music playing]

Eighty miles from the Bulgarian capital, Sofia,

is a hidden facility, the propaganda mouthpiece

of a repressive regime.

[intense music playing]

[Dominic] There's forest as far as the eye can see.

It feels remote, out of the way,

the perfect place to hide something.

[Jim] Then out of the trees rises this structure.

The whole thing has an ominous feel.

[Lynette] It's massive and concrete.

It is one of these Eastern European communist monoliths.

Among the derelict remains, there are clues

to why it was built in such an isolated location.

[Jim] Inside, it's been virtually stripped to the walls,

but there's a few hints that it was a highly

technological structure.

[Dominic] There are these channels cut into the floor,

maybe for pipes or cables.

You can also see platforms that look like the basis

for some kind of machinery.

[Jim] It has its own power line leading to it.

So clearly whatever happened here required an enormous

amount of electricity.

Could this have been some kind of secret government office

or military research facility?

Created to fight a disinformation campaign

from deep behind the Iron Curtain,

when the West gained the edge,

this Cold War confrontation turned hot.

[Jim] The Bulgarian government's control over information

was so complete and so paranoid, they were even willing

to launch a daring assassination in the streets of London.

[bell tones playing softly]

[Spiridon ] This was where I had my first serious job.

It was truly impressive, because the security

was just like the state border.

[soft music plays]

Spiridon Harizanov began working here as a technician

in September 1988, when Bulgaria was part

of the Communist Soviet bloc.

This place was buzzing with life.

Over 100 people worked here.

Construction on this high-security

government complex began in 1974.

But it was designed to take part in a fight

that began decades earlier.

[Dominic] The Cold War was as much a political and ideological

battle as a military confrontation.

As the eastern and western superpowers were facing off

with their nuclear arsenals, another unseen battle was

unfolding over the airwaves.

These structures were part of communist Bulgaria's attempt

to convert the world to their way of thinking

using international radio broadcasting.

[Spiridon] This was the heart of some of the transmitters.

And here was the booth with the control panel.

[Jim] This complex had enough power, it was said,

to broadcast a shortwave signal six times around the world.

[Spiridon] Everything broadcast from here was propaganda.

Some programs were aimed to Bulgarians living aboard,

but a large part of them were aimed at another audience.

Latin America, um...

North America, West Africa, in various languages.

We broadcast to some of the farthest corners

of the world.

This is the Padarsko Radio Center.

Its transmissions included speeches from the country's

leader, Todor Zhivkov, praising Bulgaria

as a socialist workers' paradise.

The reality was very different.

[Spiridon] Bulgaria was a complete police state.

There were eyes and ears everywhere.

[Lynette] People were not permitted to know anything that

their dictators didn't want them to know.

[Jim] So western nations set up operations to broadcast

to various countries behind the Iron Curtain.

There were several of these operations, Voice of America,

Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and the BBC.

[Lynette] And all of these radio stations are designed to have real

journalists sending real news to parts of the world where all

they were fed was government propaganda.

Those broadcasts were our only way of learning what was truly

happening in Bulgaria and the rest of the world.

They also broadcast a lot of interviews

with political leaders like President Eisenhower,

John F. Kennedy, entertainers like Elizabeth Taylor,

Tom Jones, civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King.

But it wasn't just American voices and celebrities that

were beaming into Bulgaria.

Exiles and dissidents were brought in to broadcast

their criticisms of the regime back into the country.

Help us to keep our young people from falling under

the influence of the communists.

In 1969, one of these political opponents fled to the west.

From there, he took to the airwaves,

attacking the Bulgarian regime.

His name was Georgi Markov.

[Dominic] He had settled in England, where he worked

for Radio Free Europe, the BBC, and other radio stations

broadcasting back into his home country.

[Dominic] I believe there isn't a single

Bulgarian who hasn't listened to Georgi Markov's program

in absentia reports about Bulgaria.

Markov is being very pointed in his criticism

of the Bulgarian government and of Todor Zhivkov,

who was the Bulgarian dictator.

Markov is a very dangerous nuisance.

[intense music playing]

Fearing his shows could incite a rebellion,

Bulgarian authorities turned to facilities like Padarsko

to stop them.

[Spiridon] This particular building housed the so-called lightning jamming

transmitter, which was used to disrupt enemy radio stations.

However, we also had another nickname for it, the buzzer.

[Jim] During shows they thought were particularly damaging,

like Markov's shows, they would tune to that channel,

broadcast on the same frequency, interfering noise,

music, crazy sounds.

[Markov on recording] Here's the Soviet government's

$120 million a year direct answer to Radio Liberty.

[radio interference]

[on recording] Jamming.

But those determined to tune into Markov shows found a way.

[mysterious music playing]

[Jim] A person could arrange their antenna in a certain way,

or maybe drive out in the countryside,

and they could often wind up hearing these broadcasts.

[Spiridon] I listened to Radio Free Europe at home almost every day.

Even though my colleagues, who had just taken over

the shift from me, were trying to jam it.

Infuriated that Markov's attacks continued to be heard,

the regime decided to take direct action.

They were willing to go anywhere and do anything

to stop people telling the truth.

[intense music playing]

In the late 1970s, communist Bulgaria was using

the Padarsko Radio Center to jam enemy transmissions

from the West.

Dissident journalist Georgi Markov,

broadcasting from London, was their public enemy

number one.

But they weren't that successful at blocking

these transmissions.

The Bulgarian authorities were so outraged

that they took a desperate measure.

[Dominic] On September 7, 1978, Markov was walking across

London's Waterloo Bridge, heading for his job at the BBC.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his leg, as if he'd been

stung by an insect.

[Lynette] When that happened, he saw somebody bend over

and pick up an umbrella and walk away.

And he thought no more about it.

[Jim] But by that evening, he was deathly ill and went

to the hospital.

They couldn't really figure out what was wrong with him

except for a tiny puncture in the back of his leg.

But four days later, he was dead.

There's a widespread theory that a Bulgarian secret service

officer had an umbrella capable of injecting a pellet

of ricin poison into Markov's leg, and the poison killed him.

Across the west, the attack was front-page news.

But in Bulgaria, the official line was complete silence.

[Spiridon] The news couldn't have got out here.

He was considered an enemy of the people.

It was on Radio Free Europe or the BBC that I learned about

the murder of Georgi Markov.

Markov's killers were never brought to justice,

and Padarsko continued to operate until a wave

of democratic protests toppled the regime in the late '80s.

[Spiridon] Right after the political changes in 1989,

we stopped using the jamming transmitter.

In 1990, Todor Zhivkov was arrested and put on trial

for corruption and abuse of power.

He died while under house arrest,

eight years later.

This facility was still used to transmit radio Bulgaria

for another couple of decades.

[mysterious music playing]

[Spiridon] February 1st, 2012, was my last day of work here.

And after that, this place gradually turned

into the scrap and ruins you see today.

[mysterious music playing]

[Jim] No one has nostalgic memories of this facility,

no one is organizing fundraising to restore it

or turn it into a park or a museum.

It sits here out in the forest, abandoned,

a bad memory of a very dark time.

[mysterious music playing]

In Malaysia's Penang province, tales of haunting

and violence swirl around an isolated relic.

[mysterious music playing]

[Jim] We're in a lush, tropical area.

And at first, all you see is trees.

It looks like an unbroken forest.

[Chelsea] In the middle of it all is this large, imposing ruin.

Clearly, no one has lived here for a very long time.

But the sparse interior does hold evidence

of who built this place.

[Dominic] You can tell it was once a luxurious residence

for a very wealthy person.

But it doesn't look like a traditional Malay building.

It's been built from heavy stone with palatial

European features.

Could this be a colonial structure?

Built using the profits from an incredible resource boom,

as a family tried to reassert dominance over this land,

it became the scene of a twisted crime.

[Chelsea] It's one of Malaysia's most famous unsolved murders,

but there are no shortage of theories.

[mysterious music playing]

[Clement speaking]

When Clement Liang first visited this grand ruin,

locals told him about a spirit they believe still stalked

these halls.

[Clement speaking]

John's full name was John St. More Ramsden.

He was part of a colonial dynasty who controlled vast

amounts of land in British Malaya in the 1870s.

At first, the estate grew sugarcane, but a technological

advancement would lead to a far more lucrative crop

being grown here.

This radical transformation began with a revolutionary

discovery made more than 9,000 miles away

in Woburn, Massachusetts.

[Jim] In the mid-19th century, a self-taught American chemist

named Charles Goodyear started tinkering with rubber

to try to make it more durable, and tougher and more elastic.

Eventually, he came across a formula that was stretchy,

but could return to its original shape.

There was nothing quite like it.

Rubber very quickly became one of the most in demand products

in the world.

Malaysia turned out to be one of the best places

to grow rubber.

And within a few years, it was making more than

a third of the world's supply.

Instead of traveling from Britain themselves,

they hired managers to run the estates.

And it was called Caledonia House.

Over the subsequent decades, demand for rubber

continued to boom.

And from their luxurious mansion,

the Ramsden family's managers oversaw an increasingly

diverse workforce.

[Jim] As the Malaysian economy grew, it pulled in hundreds

of thousands of immigrants from China and elsewhere

who mixed with the indigenous Malaysian population.

[Chelsea] The family were raking in the cash.

At the time, it was said to be the most valuable European

holding in British Malaya.

But this massive wealth was being watched jealously

from overseas.

[Dominic] And soon, war would bring disaster

to Caledonia Plantation.

[Dominic] On December the 8th, 1941, almost simultaneously

with their attack on Pearl Harbor,

the Japanese army invaded British Malaya.

[Jim] They had enormous resources, including

these rubber plantations.

Those were vital for Japan's military efforts.

[gunshots blast]

They swept through the country at lightning speed,

and after just three months, the unprepared British

surrendered in Singapore.

Caledonia was now under Japanese occupation,

but the British would do whatever it took to regain

control of the valuable colony, leading to the funding

and arming of communist guerrillas to continue

the fight behind enemy lines.

With the communists' help, Japan was defeated in 1945.

But when Britain returned to Malaya,

these guerrilla fighters switched their focus

from one colonial oppressor to another.

[Clement speaking]

To these insurgents, families like the Ramsdens

were the ultimate symbol of colonial exploitation.

Soon, a violent murder would plunge this mansion into chaos.

In 1946, Caledonia House in Malaysia lay at the heart

of a valuable rubber plantation ruined under Japanese

occupation during the Second World War.

Its British colonial owners, the Ramsdens, were determined

to restore it despite a growing local armed resistance.

[Dominic] The patriarch of the family sent his son,

John, to repair the estate.

He is said to have treated the plantation workers well,

offering them lavish dinners at the house,

and even having their children driven to school in his car.

[Chelsea] But no matter how good his relationship

with the workers might have been, at the end of the day,

this was a colonial enterprise that was built

on racism and inequality.

Two years after John Ramsden arrived here,

these tensions would come to a head.

The estate watchman and three plantation workers

heard the shots and rushed inside.

When the police arrived, they began combing the mansion,

and its grounds, for evidence.

Outside, they found two spent shotgun shells

underneath one of the rubber trees.

Very quickly, John Ramsden's murder got connected

with a much bigger story.

Over the following couple of weeks, other overseers

of plantations in Malaysia were also killed.

And these killings were connected with a communist

insurgency that was sweeping the islands.

But the police officer in charge of the case,

William Haynes, was not convinced

that this was a political assassination.

He believed evidence uncovered at the murder scene pointed

towards an inside job.

[Dominic] Near the body, they found a pair of shoes

that didn't seem to belong to anybody working

at the residence.

[Clement speaking]

[Chelsea] It seemed like an open and shut case,

but he claimed he'd been framed.

[Jim] Another suspect was John Ramsden's driver,

and it was said that Ramsden was having an affair

with the driver's sister, so he might have had

a powerful motive for the killing.

Both Mohammad Ramjan and the driver were arrested,

but there was a fatal flaw in the police's case.

With the murder weapon still missing, and only circumstantial

evidence to go on, they were released.

On September 3rd, 1948, 87 days after John's murder,

the investigation was halted.

[Clement speaking]

[Dominic] Back in Britain, the Ramsden family was

so heartbroken that they ordered the liquidation

of all of their holdings in Malaya,

including the Caledonia plantation.

After a long and brutal insurgency against

British rule, in 1963, the independent country

of Malaysia was established.

[marching footsteps]

And Caledonia House was left to ruin.

[melancholic music playing]

After its abandonment, life for the Caledonia House

went from bad to worse.

[Dominic] In 2020, a fire ripped through the property,

and later, a commercial crane working nearby tipped over

and smashed through the roof.

[Clement speaking]

[suspenseful music playing]

In the French capital, a decaying compound

holds secrets, of an extraordinary deception.

[intense music playing]

We're in the quiet outskirts of Paris,

and under this looming broadcast tower is a collection

of buildings that look significantly older.

This feels institutional, or perhaps military.

[Sascha] But as you look closer, you notice something

more sinister.

[Michele] Built into these walls are rows of casemates,

but instead of windows, they have heavy iron bars.

These were clearly repurposed as prison cells,

but who were they keeping here?

During the Second World War, thousands were detained

inside these walls.

But one man would make his escape and do untold damage

to the Nazi regime.

[Lynette] He convinces British counterintelligence

that he really is a German spy who is willing to be

a double agent.

[Sascha] He would be one of the most notorious spies

of his entire generation. He was known as Agent Zigzag.

In Paris, France, lies an oppressive compound

linked to a daring wartime double cross.

Thomas Fontaine has spent decades uncovering its story.

[Thomas] We're in a place of great

importance to the history of France's occupation

between 1940 and 1944, but a site that remained

largely unknown until the early 2000s.

[mysterious music playing]

It was built in the 1830s

as part of a ring of defenses around the capital.

But these days, it's not known for its protection of the city,

but rather something far more menacing.

[Lynette] In May and June of 1940,

the German armed forces, very rapidly,

encircle the French and British armies in northeastern France.

The French state surrenders.

[marching footsteps]

Paris was under occupation.

[Sascha] Here on the edge of the city was a valuable asset,

and the Germans weren't gonna let that go to waste.

The Nazi occupiers quickly transformed it from a place

to keep enemies out

into a facility to contain them.

This is Fort De Romainville.

[mysterious music playing]

[Thomas] The primary function was to be a camp specifically

for nationals of enemy powers.

There were many British nationals who were arrested

specifically because Germany was at war with England.

One of those inmates was an English petty criminal

who fled the country and was captured

in Nazi-occupied territory.

His name was Eddie Chapman.

[Thomas] Eddie Chapman was interned in the men's section,

likely in one of the rooms on the ground floor.

[Michele] There was no contact with the outside world,

rations were strict, and prisoners could be executed

without any explanation or warning.

[Sascha] Chapman realized he wasn't gonna survive this place,

and four months into his imprisonment,

he found a lifeline.

[intriguing music playing]

His salvation came from a shadowy

Nazi organization, the Abwehr, Germany's intelligence service.

[Thomas] The Abwehr are searching for V men,

individuals who will provide intelligence

and engage in espionage.

[Lynette] From the beginning of the Second World War,

the Germans had tremendous difficulty recruiting agents

in England.

So the German intelligence people go to Chapman

and they say, "Can you go and be a German agent?"

Chapman accepts the German intelligence offer,

and he's told that he needs to blow up

the de Havilland Aircraft factory in England.

On December 16th, 1942, Chapman parachuted

into Britain for his first mission.

He was carrying a radio, a pistol, a cyanide pill,

and close to a thousand pounds in cash.

On the morning of February 1st, 1943,

British newspapers reported an unexplained explosion

at the de Havilland factory.

[dramatic chord strike]

[Lynette] As far as the Germans are concerned,

this new agent of theirs, Mr. Chapman, is now

the great star of the German intelligence service.

But he had been conning German intelligence

from the very start.

For Chapman, the idea of being able to get out of jail,

well, he'll do anything, won't he?

And as soon as he gets on the ground,

as soon as he has a chance, he tells

British counterintelligence what he is up to.

So in order to build his credibility,

the British Armed Forces simulate the destruction

of the de Havilland factory.

They arranged the fake sabotage of the airplane plant using

an illusionist and a planted story in the newspaper.

Nazi intelligence bought the lie.

Chapman returned to Germany under the guise of having

pulled off a successful attack.

He was rewarded with a massive payment

and given the Iron Cross, the only British citizen

to ever give one.

Believing he was their best agent, he was soon tasked

with a new mission.

[Michele] Chapman was parachuted again into Britain

in June of 1944 to report on the accuracy

of the V-1 and V-2 rockets being fired across the Channel.

[Lynette] He tells his British controllers what the job is,

and British counterintelligence calculate exactly

how wrong they want the German aim to be.

Chapman was one of the most successful double agents

of the entire war.

He remained in London and was dismissed by British

Intelligence in November 1944.

But the French prison he left behind had been transformed

after a brave struggle against Nazi occupation erupted

across the country.

[gunshot blasts]

Resistance was growing, and it would eventually

lead back camp at Fort de Romainville.

In 1944, Fort de Romainville in France was operating

as a Nazi prison camp,

holding heroic female resistance fighters determined

to stand up against the terrors of the Third Reich.

Fort de Romainville became a departure point

for deportation, specifically for women,

to the Nazi concentration camp system.

[intense music playing]

Before they left, they were held in the fort's

dank casemates.

[Thomas] I'm always deeply moved whenever I enter Casemate 17.

The inmates, before heading into the unknown, wish to leave

their name, a date, a trace of their passage,

like a message in a bottle.

These are the last records, many of these people

would leave behind.

Throughout the war, more than 3,800 women were detained here

before being sent to Nazi concentration camps.

Fort de Romainville was finally liberated by the allies

in August 1944

and was abandoned by the French military

in the early 2000s.

After his dismissal by British intelligence, Eddie Chapman

continued living life on his own terms.

Spending his time in the company of beautiful women

and even becoming embroiled in a gold smuggling operation.

[intriguing music playing]

Since 1945, Parisians have held ceremonies here to remember

those imprisoned and deported from Romainville.

Plans are underway to transform parts of the fort

into a museum.

[melancholic music playing]

[Thomas] It's a place that is doubly moving as a historian

and as a human being.

It's truly important to preserve these sites,

to understand what transpired, and to pass on that knowledge.

[intense music playing]

In the City of Brotherly Love, is a faded landmark,

once the life and soul of an uptown district.

[dramatic music playing]

[Rob] We're on the on the north side of Philadelphia,

on a busy road flanked by offices and shops.

[Alicia] One building along this strip stands out,

and it looks like it's from a different era.

[Chelsea] From its design, with its ornate brickwork

and detailed carvings, you can tell that this was

a building of importance to the surrounding community.

[Alicia] There remains part of a marquee with the word

"uptown" written on it.

This was clearly some type of theater or music venue.

Inside, the true extent of its ruin becomes clear.

[Chelsea] In the main room, there's a dramatic sight.

A gaping hole in the roof lets in enough light to illuminate

a huge open space.

[Rob] This may look forgotten now, but in its heyday,

this was part of a network that spanned the whole

of the east coast and fostered some of the greatest

entertainers of the 20th century.

[Chelsea] Ray Charles, James Brown, Jackson Five,

this place played host to the Who's Who

of American Icons.

[Alicia] But this wasn't just a place for entertainment.

It was also a place for activism.

[dramatic music playing]

Wow, I haven't been here since the '70s.

It's amazing.

My mom worked here as a cashier.

I wasn't allowed in the booth because she was handling money.

Starting when she was 14 years old,

Olivia Riley spent many of her evenings and weekends

in this theater.

[Olivia laughs] I was kind of famous because

everybody knew she was my mother.

They kind of hung around me

because they can get in for free.

There was a lot of excitement because you were looking

forward to seeing all the acts.

They were all up and coming and famous artists.

From its earliest days, this was the cultural heart

of the neighborhood.

It was built in the late 1920s, an era of rapid expansion

in the city.

[jazz music playing]

Philadelphia was one of the most important

manufacturing centers in the world.

[Alicia] Factories and warehouses dotted this area,

and soon neighborhoods of row homes were built

in order to accommodate the workers.

As newcomers poured in, there was an increase in demand

for entertainment venues.

On February 16th, 1929, Warner Brothers opened

the lavish 2,000-seat Uptown Theater.

[Chelsea] They spared no expense.

It had terracotta facades, stained-glass windows,

and velvet seats.

[Rob] This was a luxurious way to watch movies for everyone,

from the city's wealthy industrialists

to working-class families.

On its opening night, crowds flocked to see "On Trial,"

starring Pauline Frederick.

It was the perfect choice to showcase the Uptown's

cutting-edge design.

[jazz music playing]

[Rob] Hollywood was riding high on the success of silent films,

and the Warner Brothers studio decided to take a gamble

on a revolutionary new development,

speaking films, known as talkies.

[Alicia] This theater was specifically wired for sound.

The audio quality here was second to none.

It seemed destined for success, but just eight months

after it opened, the country was struck by disaster.

The Wall Street crash.

[indistinct chatter]

[Alicia] This recession resulted in the collapse of most

of Philadelphia's manufacturing industry.

And over the next few decades, many of its residents fled

to the suburbs.

But a change was coming to this neighborhood

that would give it a second life and a brush with stardom.

In the early 1950s, Philadelphia's

Uptown Theater was down on its luck,

but its fortunes were about to change.

[Rob] By this time, with migration from southern states,

north Philadelphia had become a vibrant hub

of African American culture and arts.

[Alicia] In 1952, Theater Mogul Samuel H. Stiefel

bought the Uptown with plans to completely repurpose it.

[Chelsea] It had incredible acoustics,

left over from its days as a movie theater.

And Stiefel saw an opportunity to put it to new use

as a music venue.

[Alicia] But the Uptown Theater wasn't the only one of its kind.

Rather, it was part of a circuit that stretched across

the entire east coast.

Along with the Apollo in New York

and the Howard Theater in Washington, DC,

and the Regal in Chicago, and many others,

this made up what was called the Chitlin' Circuit.

[Olivia] Because of ray racism, African American acts couldn't

perform in certain areas, so they would do

the Chitlin' Circuit.

[Rob] The Chitlin' Circuit gave so many Black entertainers

a chance during the era of Jim Crow

when they were barred from white mainstream venues.

This stage would play host to some of the era's most

legendary Black performers.

I saw every show at least two times.

I didn't miss a show.

I saw the Jackson 5, James Brown, now Harold Melvin

and the Blue Notes, and Marvin Gaye,

I saw him so many times.

But my favorite was The Isley Brothers because

I was a part of history.

At the end of their act, they just started singing

"Shout," and every time they sang "Shout," they jumped.

Everybody in the audience jumped.

It was electrifying.

Ron Isley created that song that night that I was here.

[Chelsea] These acts would come for a few days, or even a week,

playing shows around the clock for a ticket price as low as

50 cents. That's still only

a little more than five bucks in today's money.

On Saturdays, sometimes they'd even do five or six shows

back to back.

Tens of thousands of people came through this auditorium

in the 1960s, and the theater gained a reputation

as one of the country's most iconic venues.

If there was one man responsible for a lot

of the Uptown success, it was the promoter, Georgie Woods.

[Olivia] He had a nice voice. He had a beautiful personality.

And he captured a lot of people's attention.

He drew a big crowd. So they made him the emcee.

[Alicia] He was known for bringing in incredible performers

at incredibly low prices.

It was reported that he got The Supremes to play

for 10 days for $400.

But Woods was not just a DJ, emcee, and promoter.

He was a passionate advocate for civil rights.

In 1963, he helped charter 21 buses to take Philadelphians

to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic march on Washington.

That same year, he would use the Uptown

to support the cause.

Georgie Woods saw the Uptown Theater not just

as an entertainment venue, but as a vehicle for change.

[Rob] Woods began organizing what he called freedom shows,

fundraisers for civil rights organizations

right across the country.

These star-studded concerts provided much needed funds

for charities and civil rights organizations.

And Woods' contribution to the movement was soon

recognized on the stage where it all began.

He was even honored by the NAACP in a ceremony held

right here at the Uptown.

But the success of the civil rights movement in ending

segregation across the country would have

unintended consequences for the Uptown Theater.

[melancholic music playing]

Some say that after integration, when Black performers

could go to more venues, the importance of places

like this on the Chitlin Circuit declined.

In 1972, Georgie Woods stopped producing shows here.

And as many residents left for the suburbs over

the following years, its fate was sealed.

[Olivia] It closed because of the neighborhood changing.

I think that's what really happened.

The Uptown Theater finally shut its doors in 1978.

In 2001, the Uptown Entertainment

and Development Corporation purchased the building.

They now hope to breathe new life into this aging structure.

[Olivia] The plans is to get the uptown renovated,

restored for the community. A lot of things happened here.

The performers, they couldn't have made it unless they

made it here at the Uptown.

And everybody remembers coming here.

So it should be open.