The Auburn Avenue Theater building started out its long life in 1926 as a bus depot before its turns as a movie theater, a dinner theater, and as its last act, a city-owned entertainment venue.

But last week, the city of Auburn announced it will raze the 98-year-old building, mortally damaged during the 2022 demolition of the burned-out Max House apartment block to the south, starting in early September.

I was not around when the building opened, of course, but I will be there when it takes its final bow. The property where it has stood for so many years at 1 Auburn Avenue is slated to become part of a new downtown theater.

Rivers Edge Environmental Services begins demolition Sept. 3. During the demolition, the sidewalk and street parking along the north side of East Main Street, the sidewalk along the east side of Auburn Avenue, and the alleyway north of the theater will be closed, according to Mayor Nancy Backus. Pedestrian detours will be in place, and parking closure notices will be provided at least 72 hours in advance. Access to apartments will remain open during the project.

Demolition should continue for about 40 days, as this newspaper reported last week. The theater that will take its place is part of Auburn’s larger plan for its Downtown Infrastructure Improvements Project. Such is progress.

I have been struggling to express my feelings about all of this. When I was a kid, the theater was a warm place for me. That doesn’t mean all of the films it screened were first rate. “Wasp Woman” in 1967, was, um, ooh, stinkeroo.

Erich von Däniken’s 1970 pseudo-scientific documentary “Chariots of the Gods,” about extraterrestrial life visiting Earth, was also a turkey.. It lives in my and my sister Diane’s memory because of one thing only: the day our dad vocalized his displeasure with it in front of the whole theater.

“I paid 6 bucks to see this piece of crap,” dad yelled as he stood up, while Diane and I slumped in our seats, donned our Groucho glasses, and prayed for the Earth to open up and swallow us whole.

In 1972, the theater presented “Baron Blood.” The Mullendores, who owned the theater in those days, declared in their ad that the flick was so gruesome, so ghastly, so bone-chilling, they had to arrange for emergency personnel to be on site when the lights dimmed, lest members of the audience with delicate sensibilities faint. The gimmick worked. I fell for it. The place was packed.

But if the theater presented a few monumental clinkers, it was also the theater where, if memory serves me correctly, I first saw “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Doctor Zhivago” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” among many, many other great films.

There were also oddities that had nothing to do with movies. The discrepancy between the men’s and women’s restrooms, the latter, if I remember correctly, tricked out with lights like chandeliers and cushy chairs, while the men’s room was, well, the kindest thing one could say about the men’s room was it was painted that sickening green that one used to see in hospital corridors, and smelled strongly of the chemical cakes that cleanup staff would drop into urinals to take the edge off the pee-uw.

And last, but not least. I got my first kiss at the Auburn Avenue Theater in the summer of 1975, in the darkened northwest corner, just outside the glassed-in room where mothers took their potentially squalling babes.

But all of that was a long time ago.

In 2007, the city of Auburn entered into a lease with the Douglas family, which after the Mullendores pulled out, operated a dinner theater.

In 2016, the city bought it outright. Receipts over the last 14 years show the theater was successful in attracting people to the downtown core for entertainment, and it made money. The venue hosted performances adding to about 80 each year, with an average annual attendance of 14,000.

Perhaps the best way to express my feelings about the final days of The Ave. is to dust off the old connotation-denotation distinction between “house” and “home.” Both words describe a place where people live, but home connotes warmth and love, while house says more about the structure of the building than any feeling it engenders.

And as I said above, the old Auburn Avenue Theater, despite its threadbare, dowdy appearance, was for me a warm place, like a second home. This fall, they’ll take away the house, but the home will always live in me as in my others.

Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@auburn-reporter.com.