A Revival

My family used to own and operate the movie theater above, The North Fork Arts Center at the Sapan Greenport Theatre, which is located in a quiet town on the northeast end of Long Island, NY.

It was one of a few community theaters on Long Island that we owned and operated or that my father conceptualized, designed, and built in an effort to help revive certain Main Streets on Long Island.

My father was once an architect for United Artists, now Regal, movie theaters. For the company, he designed large multiplexes — theaters with a half dozen to a dozen and a half screens.

One of the more well-known theaters he designed is the Regal theater located on the south side of Union Square in New York City.

He came to a point in his career, though, at which he no longer wanted to design such big, impersonal structures.

Instead, he wanted to build and operate theaters at which parents felt safe dropping off their children.

He also envisioned these theaters becoming the centerpieces for suburban downtowns as well as entities that could help to catalyze the revival of these areas.

He had varied success in his efforts.

The theaters did often become focal points of downtown areas, and they did, in some regards, serve as a catalyst, something that encouraged other smalls businesses to open their doors on Main Street, as well.

But yesterday, I learned that the Greenport Theater had an effect on the town that I’m not sure my father, God rest his soul, could have anticipated.

I visited the theater and spoke with the two young men working at it that evening, both of whom were locals.

I let them know that I was there to visit because of my family’s history with the theater.

Beaming, they quickly began to share how they’d personally taken care of the facility over the last few years.

One was a creative and a handyman, and he pointed out all of the little flourishes he’d added to the interior of the theater.

The other told me about how the theater had become a non-profit. People from the area donate to keep it open, because, as he described, many were sad when it was closed for a few years. He seemed proud to play a role in running it now.

As I perused the revitalized theater, one that still maintains some of its physical character from when it was built almost 100 years ago, I felt a certain sense of peace, as I was more assured than ever that there is something within the human spirit that makes us want to preserve beautiful things from our culture.

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The signs above the restrooms at the North Fork Arts Center are originals from when the building was built in 1939. | Photo credit: Frank Corva

And what came to mind as I reflected on this experience was perspective from Paco de la India, a man of culture if you will, someone who traveled the world for two years (predominantly on bitcoin) just a few years back.

I interviewed him for a piece I wrote for Forbes on Bitcoin adoption in Perú about his visit to the country, where he spent time with communities living in remote regions that used Bitcoin as day-to-day money and for saving.

When I asked Paco what using Bitcoin had done for the people of these communities, he shared that it was helping them to “preserve their culture.”

“They [now] have some liberty to dream, which was just getting wiped away by the [traditional] financial system,” Paco also shared.

He added that they were also starting small businesses, buying modest lots of land, and generally lowering their time preference (something that can propel the process of civilization).

I love the idea of these Peruvians dreaming and taking action accordingly, as it reminds me of my father, who was also very much a dreamer and who would work diligently to bring his ideas to life — even while raising four children.

What he and many of us these days are up against in actualizing our dreams is the fiat system disadvantaging small business owners and eroding our culture in turn.

The fiat system encourages the Starbucksification and Walmartization of everything. These sorts of companies have financial and political leverage because of the fiat system, and they wipe out the mom and pops out there who don’t have access to the same leverage, sucking the life out of downtowns in the process.

I advocate for a world on a bitcoin standard because, like my father, I believe in the revival of Main Streets. A world in which money retains value and the cost of capital for major companies is much higher is a world in which small business owners are more empowered.

This is the type of world in which I want to live.

So, like my father who stepped away from building multiplexes, which inherently lack some of the character and charm of smaller theaters, to build and operate community theaters, I continue to make effort to give less of my energy to the fiat system (which is more than just our monetary and financial systems — it affects politics, health, psychology, etc.) and to build, document, and advocate for a new system — Bitcoin — in which culture can be revived.

I believe that deep within all of us exists a desire to create, build, prosper, and serve our community.

The fiat system makes it more difficult to do these things.

Bitcoin makes it easier.

Best,

Frank