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Creflo Dollar Ministries Acquires Paradise Theater in NY

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"Creflo Dollar Ministries acquires paradise theater"
"Creflo Dollar Ministries acquires paradise theater"

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Creflo Dollar Ministries,  and its lead pastor, televangelist Creflo Dollar  of World Changers Church Georgia and New York will soon house its  New York mega church congregation in the legendary Paradise Theater.  A place where film stars lit up the screen, boxers beat each other half silly and rappers (a few at least), ran for lives!

The New York Daily is reporting Creflo Dollar has signed a lease to occupy the building.

Built in 1929 to resemble a heavenly paradise, the theater will offer its new congregants just that. World Changers Church preaches “prosperity theology,” a worldview that equates piety and wealth, but not all the residents of New York are opening their hearts and hands to welcome the mega church pastor in.

Many want the theater to remain an entertainment venue:

“There are plenty of other sites for churches,” said Vic Peters, 65, a building superintendent who remembers watching movies at the Paradise decades ago.

Reportedly, the theater now mega church is full of murals of cherubs, a cloud machine, a marble staircase and a sweeping balcony, the 3,855-seat movie and play house was a sight to behold when it first opened, and a favorite spot for young couples to canoodle. It cost $4 million to build and showed films such as “Gone With The Wind,” said Lloyd Ultan, Bronx historian.

“It was very opulent,” said Peters. “You walked into the Paradise and it took your breath away.”

But the colossal theater struggled to turn a profit as the television era dawned and the Bronx suffered from urban blight. Divided into a multiplex in the 1980s, it shut down in 1994 and sat empty for several years.

Lieblich, part-owner of the Russian Tea Room, bought the rundown Paradise for $4.5 million in 2003 after a restoration attempt by local developer Richard DeCesare stopped short of the finish line.

Two years later, the beloved theater reopened as a live entertainment venue with refurbished Greco-Roman style statues, new seats and new paint.

The reopening of the Paradise was celebrated as a milestone in the resurrection of the Bronx and under Lieblich the theater has played host to popular acts such as Rick Ross and The Killers and countless boxing bouts.

Now the mercurial building is due for yet another change. World Changers acquired the space Oct. 20. Two weeks later, hot metal from construction work ignited a two-alarm blaze, causing smoke damage.

Phone calls to Lieblich and World Changers weren’t returned.

Read more on Creflo Dollar acquisition of Paradise Theater to house World Changers New York

Source: New York Daily

 

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