My childhood memories of seeing movies like "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for the first time are inextricable from the experience of watching them in the grand movie theaters that once called Salt Lake City home.
The Centre Theater on State Street was torn down in 1989 for an office tower and the multiplex currently occupied by the Salt Lake Film Society. The Villa Theater was repurposed into a rug gallery in 2003. The Regency Theater, the last 70mm projection house in the city, was leveled in the early 90s. I saw a rereleased "Lawrence of Arabia” on that screen before it closed, and having a rapt community in the audience around me was nothing short of transformative.