The ULTIMATE Film Collectable!

[Steve Klare]

Have you ever wanted a little place of your own to show films?

-just a quiet little room away from the TV and the blender you can darken whenever you feel like it, have some people over and make big soundtracks until all hours without waking somebody up?

-well, here it is!



I present to you 1235 W 5th St., Davenport, Iowa: to most, just an empty warehouse out in the Midwest, to those of us that read our film boxes, this is the former home of Blackhawk Films and it's for sale!

https://www.ruhlhomes.com/for-sale/h...040315-855851/


It's running a little under $100,000, and to me that's a bargain. Where I live you can't even buy a house for a Hundred Grand! (It may need a little work!)

This is a storied building: for a generation this place pumped out 8mm, Super-8 and 16mm prints and all those truckloads of sales newsletters. I have a few of them and even knowing the emptiness of this picture, reading them today is downright intoxicating!

I like to think when Kent Eastin sat with his projector in their sales reel "Movies that Talk and Sing", it was in this very building.

It has even had a life apart from celluloid: it started life as a brewery, which means it has large, thick walled rooms that stay perpetually cool. During Blackhawk days they took advantage of these for film storage.

I read that after Blackhawk left, there was a derailment on the mainline that runs past, and this place was literally hit by a train. Repairs were made, and even though still empty, the Blackhawk Building still stands proud!
h

If these walls could only talk!

[Brian Fretwell]

You could set up your own cinema and true to the history of the building, your own brewery to brew beer to drink whilst watching your films. Ideal.

[Steve Klare]

I'm looking at that big, robust beam and imagining the screen I could hang from that!

-and of course, if you pry open some door and it's full of unsold merchandise, contents go along with the sale! (Here's hoping it's films and NOT hundred year old beer!)

[Janice Glesser]

$100,000 does sound like a steal Steve. Especially since I live in the Silicon Valley where 1500 sq. ft. houses go for about $2 mil. The old Blackhawk building does look like it needs some extensive renovating...but with property being so scarce these days I'm surprised someone hasn't bought it. Thanks for the thread and the pic...but a little sad

[Brian Fretwell]

Yes clicking on that link the page also shows nearby commercial properties and much smaller ones come in at $90,000.

[Steve Klare]

Hi Janice,

I used to go out to Silicon Valley to work on customer's systems back in my manufacturing days. We were out to lunch with a customer and drove past a block of new condos. He said "Eh! $400,000!...bunch of rabbit hutches!" (-and this was thirty years ago!)


Can you imagine the Real Estate rep walking a potential buyer around this place?

"A long time ago, they used to make films in this building."
"-you mean a really long time ago...like VHS?"

There's more to this place than I thought: it's two stories above grade and three below! (That's where the Beer lived!)

[Adrian Winchester]

Fascinating! I would never have guessed that the Blackhawk premises were so big. I haven't seen 'Movies that Talk and Sing' but presumably they would have had at least a basic viewing theatre. It would be good if a Forum member could take a look round and try to find one or two clues or relics from the Blackhawk days!

[Steve Klare]

I did a little research into old Breweries in the Davenport area, and it seems a long time ago there was a "Blackhawk Beer"! I have to check this one out!

Ten years ago, I had an E-bay seller from Davenport. She was stuck with the sad task of with liquidating her Dad's film collection and since his tastes in films were a lot the same as mine, we did a lot of business and we became friends. I provided information for her E-bay auctions and when I lost my job that year, she let me pick out a bunch of titles to set aside until I got back up on my feet.

I told her even if most of 'em weren't Blackhawks, buying films from Davenport Iowa made it that much better!

[Jim Schrader]

To bad it cannot be a museum to show how the operations worked?

[Graham Ritchie]

Such a shame to see it empty like that, it would have been great if past staff members could get together and someone put together a video, of there time working there. It would be a excellent subject matter, with interviews taken in the actual empty building, along with a bit of a tour of what was what in each of the areas.

[Steve Klare]

It's sad to say, most people would rather see the brewery restored. For even the ones that know about it, "Old Film and Projectors" is often something people had to use before Netflix showed up!

(Kind of like applying leaches before they discovered penicillin...)

I showed a wonderful Blackhawk reel to a group once, and then this perfectly lucid human being asked me when I was getting it transferred! (Something like that...)

I wouldn't half mind taking a stroll around inside there myself: somewhere there will be traces of the old days. I get the impression this place has been nowhere as busy ever since Blackhawk closed up: there may be entire parts of the building that haven't been occupied since Blackhawk said their farewells.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_342j9zniQ

[Joe Caruso]

I say we all do it! - Shorty

[Steve Klare]

I judge that floor space to be several scale miles in any normal model railroad size:

-the trains I would have!

(Kent Eastin wouldn't mind: he loved trains!)

What's striking about the picture is the architecture and the craftsmanship. This is normal industrial space: these days it would be cinder block walls and rectangular, steel framed windows, but look at the masonry work and those windows. There's a lot of pride in that work.

[Michael O’Regan]

John Black was working on a history of Blackhawk before he passed away. I wonder, did anybody take this project on.