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Yost Theater opens with fanfare and a little controversy
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Yost Theater
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The Yost Theater in Santa Ana used to be the place for Spanish-language movies. After a few years of renovations and negotiations, it reopened Wednesday, and its new owners hope it can become a cutting-edge music venue for all of Orange County.
The namesake of the Yost Theater in downtown Santa Ana put up with ghosts, vaudevillians, and a basement that doubled as a holding cell for vagrants and drunks.
"It was Ed Yost. Bought the theater in 1919. It was built in 1912 and the theater will be celebrating its 100 year anniversary Jan. 1 when it turns 100 years old," said Dave Leon, who, with his partner Dennis Lluy is banking on the new cafes and hip clothing stores near the theater to draw people back into the Yost.
"A lot of new businesses and new money is coming down to experience kind of that urban L.A. experience in Orange County. This used to be the center of Orange County — Santa Ana — and now we’re bringing it back to that," Leon said.
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Not everyone is so enthusiastic about the changes. Samuel Romero, who runs a Catholic bookstore steps away from the theater, said a lot of the support for new businesses like the Yost dismisses the people who have lived in the area for generations. He adds that it’s becoming harder for the Spanish-speaking families who’d anchored the neighborhood to pay rising property taxes.
"And it seems to me like it’s really a, how to say, a move to some way or another to discourage one way or another to discourage the immigrant population from shopping down here," he said.
The new Yost Theater opens next week. The opening ceremonies will include Mexican banda music outside, DJs inside, and the start of a new soundscape for Santa Ana.
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