Pulling Down the Ritz

After a short break I thought I'd write a teensy retrospective about the Ritz Cinema before its imminent destruction in the next few weeks. I took a walk around the complex this morning, taking in all the details, such as the smashed windows, pigeon nests, rubbish and even a bivouac would you believe. Okay so it was never the most attractive building in the world but it is a part of our towns history, and its replacement isn't exactly sounding rosy at this point in time either.
The Ritz opened its doors in December 1934 with one of Gracie Fields' greatest onscreen appearances, the musical "Sing As We Go". It was, at the time of its opening, one of four places in the town for locals to get their moving pictures fix, along with the Opera House, the Kosmos and the Great Hall, the Ritz being the last to survive until its demise in 2000.
The shell of a building you see today is a far cry from the palatial one that graced the Church Road junction all those years ago, gone is the illuminated glass tower, the uniformed commissionaires welcoming patrons through the doors, the usherettes and page boys guiding you to one of the 1,600 velvet seats, and the mighty Compton organ that rose from the floor in a "glory of sound and light".
The cinema has had many incarnations over the years before finally ending up as an ABC, including becoming the Essoldo in 1954, and in merging with the Florida in 1970 the cinema became a multiplex, by which time cinema organs had gone out of fashion and the Compton was abandoned. For those of you who would like to actually see the original Compton organ, you can visit it at the Burtey Fen Collection in Lincolnshire and can even hear it played in full restored glory.
Did You Know?: David Bowie's parents first met at the Ritz, where his mother worked as a waitress!
As a slightly-related point, I tried to get a few shots of the cinema from the top of the Trinity Church Tower, but unbeknowns to me the tower is too unsafe for the weight of a person, surely this could be a wonderful tourist view of the town and they could even charge £1 a go to have a look. Failing that, does anyone own a crane?
Here's hoping that the replacement structure on the Ritz's footprint blends into our historic skyline.