"To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss."

No, devoted reader, those aren't the words of Sam Katz and his city council of leashed lobster cronies. That's the motto of the Khmer Rouge - remember those guys? Like most Winnipeg civic planners in power, they were a group of third-rate hacks with embarassingly provincial grand plans to rebuild society, starting with a complete break from history.

This is why I'm none too surprised that our city's elected stewards will likely be gleefully rubber-stamping recently unveiled plans to level both the former Starland (originally The Royal) and Epic (originally The Rex) theatres at the corner of Main Street and Logan Avenue. The decrepit ciné-boîtes are historical buildings on the city's conservation list, so how is it that they will they be so easily scraped away for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority to fly in a hideously displaced suburban office complex?

As a tip for Gordon Sinclair Jr., I'll have you know that the north corner of Main and Logan is no less than the birthplace of Manitoba movie-watching.

In 1899, an enterprising man named John Schuberg erected a black tent in which he showed movies on an original Edison projector to Winnipeg audiences. Within a decade, the Starland was built and was making Main Street the mythic bustle of yore from which these very civic revitalization dreams originate.

Up the street a few doors and built in 1912, the Rex Theatre was one of the most opulent theatres in North America devoted solely to cinema-watching (unlike vaudeville multi-taskers such as the Walker). Combined with the now-gone, parking-lotted Bijou and Star theatres, the history in this strip of our city should bear as much historical importance as Dave Barber's Cinematheque in terms of the development of movies in Manitoba.

Given the city council's capitulation for a revitalization bargain you may have begun to wonder: what's the logic of the suburban office-complex look?

According to deep throats involved in the negotiations, government agencies prefer their edifices to look autonomous and have an institutional feel to them - just look at the National Research Council's 'campus' on Ellice Avenue. But I hope you'll agree with me, devoted reader, that historical buildings like to have an. er, 'existential' feel to them.

Although it's depressing to experience as an area resident, the revitalization-by-obliteration method of the city is quintessential Winnipeg. It proves once again the insecurities of our leaders through their attempts at destroying the actual Winnipeg in hopes of achieving a better elsewhere - look at the rest of Main Street buildings, post-1960. So, even though façade-ism (see: Red River College) may be looked down upon by many architects, the least the $40-million revitalization budget could afford us is the outdoor neon sign museum that nearby Neon Factory owner Mike Wolchock is willing to undertake.

Walter Forsberg is a filmmaker with l'Atelier national du Manitoba.