The Uptown Theatre opened on February 16, 1929, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The 2,040-seat theater was used for vaudeville and motion pictures before switching to live performances. It closed in the later 1970s, and reopened as a church in the 1980s. The roof was damaged by a storm in 1991, and the church left the building.
In 2002, the building was purchased by the Uptown Entertainment and Development Corporation (UEDC), a nonprofit whose mission is to develop revitalization projects in downtrodden neighborhoods. They plan on creating a restaurant space in the building, as well as dance and radio studios. The funds raised from those would go to restore the theater into a performing arts center. Linda Richardson, the founding president of UEDC, passed away on November 2, 2020, at 73. The UEDC has not wavered from their mission to restore and reopen the Uptown.
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