People from around the world have visited Shea's Performing Arts Center, which dates back to 1926.

"It's so wonderful when people come into the theatre, see the glory, see the spectacle, see how magnificent it is, but then realize, 'Oh this could have been torn down.' This almost didn't exist in the ‘70s and ‘80s. There were great threats to the theatre, but some very smart Buffalonians made sure this stayed," said Michael G. Murphy, Shea's Performing Arts Center president.

Through restoration work, Shea's has been working to bring the theatre back to the way it was when it first opened.

"So it's restoring it to that grandeur to that beauty, to that glorious movie palace, in a way mystique that it had in 1926," said Murphy.

Shea's has been a national historic site since 1975. Most areas that you now see throughout the building, including the side walls and the staircases, have been restored back to the original colors. In order to keep the theatre open, most of the restoration work has been done with students and volunteers.

"So we work around the show schedules. In other words, if there's a show on a Tuesday, we might have some ladders and scaffolding up on a Monday. We take it down, the show goes on. And everything gets re-erected the following week, which a standard restoration company is not able to do," said Doris Collins, Shea's Performing Arts Center restoration consultant. 

Collins has been working on restoration work for Shea's for 23 years now, with some projects involving creative solutions. For example, the search for drapery fabrics lasted years, but the prices were just too high. Then Collins gave a tour to some visitors from Austria, who export custom woven fabrics. They were able to replicate the fabric in polyester, rather than silk and cotton.

Volunteers have ranged in age, with the youngest being only 12 years old and the oldest 82. A lot of restoration work has been done; however, restoration in a building this size and this age is never completely done.