The roof of the Tivoli’s auditorium is ok as far as I know. It was in very good shape back in 1991 – 1992 anyway when I worked in the building, and I have no reason to believe that it has deteriorated much since then.
Most of the urban spelunkers take only pictures, so even on that score I think the TIV is ok, although I agree it would be better if the building had more regular security.
The question is can the Ballet raise the $10 million. Scuttlebutt says they are in the middle of a feasibility study in order to secure provincial and federal grant money for a restoration. I hope that they get it!
The Century sadly has no such allies.. and has been empty and unheated since Sept 1989. WE made a proposal to the owners in 1991, but they went with a group that wanted to open a night club.. Sadly this never opened.
One last comment for today.. The balcony of the Lyric was removed in 1940, and the fire exits were bricked up. You can still see this today on both sides of the building – the line of the original balcony, which clearly goes below what is the 1940’s cinema roof line. Again this is clearer on the blueprints.
In 1990 before the collapse, (which I am guessing happened within the last 5 years), only the very back of the balcony, what would have been called the mezzanine, was still there, there was part of what looked like a railing, with some steps, and there were the side walls of the Lyric with gold paint and stenciled decor. There was also a rickety wooden ladder that went up about 25 feet into a giant round air conditioning duct/intake. This led to a hatch that came out on the roof.
The damage to the Century BTW is only to the first 20 feet of the building, and was the only part of the roof not replaced in renovations in 1955 – I have a copy of the blueprint for this renovation. I have also been in this space myself so I know exactly what I am talking about. Clearly there has been water damage to the lobby area and the former rooming/boarding house on the third floor is obviously uninhabitable, but these areas of the building had been abandoned even when Famous Players was still using it as a movie house. What is dooming the Century is not the damage to the building, rather a lack of any will to save it. The current owners just see it as a location for potential development, and are waiting for someone to come along and offer them money for the property. If holding onto it becomes to expensive, they will likely demolish it.
Mark: I am much more hopeful about the Tivoli. It is a newer building, (built in 1924). Also the present owners the Canadian Youth Ballet intend to restore it as a theatre, see their website here. http://www.cbye.ca/ccampaign.htm Other then some water damage to the plaster on the SR side of the auditorium the Tivoli theatre is in good shape. It just needs the front of the building replaced in order to re-open again.
The Century, though much of its historic fabric was gutted in 1940, is historically a much more interesting building. As the centre of Kieth-Albee Vaudeville in Hamilton, many noted performers graced its stage, eg The Marx Brothers in Sept. 1919. Its stage was constructed for legitamante tehatre, and it was home to sveral “stock” companies who produced plays.
Thanks very much for this image… Did you take others from the opposite angle? The most intact and historic parts of the Lyric are the backstage areas ironically, everything else was gutted in the 1940’s.
Looks like someone has left the hatch open in the grid… That’s the natural light you are seeing. To prevent more damage hopefully that can be closed by someone.
The fly gallery is the opposite side of the stage – two flights of stairs, first one runs up to what is called the “pin rail”, the next flight of stairs leads up to the “grid”…. The catwalk that runs across the back of the stage is called a “paint-frame”, because it was used to paint soft backdrops, which was the majority of the scenery required in those early days…
I would be grateful for photos of all of these features, next time someone gets in there.
BTW You were standing in the very spot were in September 1919, the Marx Brothers were performing in a play called N'EVERYTHING.
I have B&W images of my own from 1990, but they are grainy and out of focus.
Particleman if you would be kind enough to email me privately about using some of your photos in the research I am doing on the building.. Thanks!
This was not a restoration but rather the creation of a black box type studio theatre space within the physical space that once was occupied by the Grand’s ornate interior. Elements of plaster work found in the original lobby area have been preserved, all that is original from the original auditorium are the brick walls/exterior.
I guess it saved them the cost of building a new structure.. but it certainly was not a “restoration” by any means. The Grand Theatre (1902) in Kingston Ontario is in the middle of doing the same thing.
I checked the city directory for this theatre. It stood on the north side of King Street half way on the block between MacNab and Park, which today only goes as far as York, but originally went all the way up to King Street. This would have placed it approximately where the entrance to the parking garage is for the Sheraton Hotel.
All of these properties were expropriated by the city in the mid 1960’s and then demolished.
There are four pictures of this theatre from the 1940’s in the Ontario Archives
Thank you very much for this Ken. It is funny a friend of mine is in Winnipeg this weekend and specifically asked him to go over to the sight and take a look for me!. By the sounds of it these two theatres, which have both been removed from the Historic Buildings Inventory, will be torn down within the month…
The interiors should be documented before demolition certainly…
The Beaver Theatre was one of the earliest purpose built cinemas in Toronto opening in 1913. By 1919 it was owned and operated by the nationwide Allen Theatre chain (run by Jules and Jay Allen of Brantford Ontario) until being bought out by Famous Players in 1923. In the 1940’s until its closing in 1961 it was operated by 20th Century Theatres inc. It had had a very imposing Adamesque facade and marquee, a picture of which is on page 66 of THE NABES by John Sebert. The name refers to the National Animal of Canada, the noble and clever beaver – as far as can be determined it never showed adult fare. More photos are in the Archives of Ontario.
By looking at the photos some of the interior ceiling/plasterwork seems to have survived intact.
Perhaps someone in Winnipeg will document the demolition in photos so that we can see what else of it survived.. No one ever takes pictures of the stage area/fly gallery…
This is from the Winnipeg Free Press.. The Starland looks like it is toast. There is perhaps some chance for the Epic/Regent down the street which turns out to be one of the oldest surviving purpose built Cinemas in all of Canada.
Clear-cut streetscape
Robert Galston
Updated: March 26, 2008 at 02:15 AM CDT
A drawing was released this month of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s future offices at Logan Avenue and Main Street, which is part of Centre Venture Development Corporation’s “cluster developments” for downtown. A 200-car parkade will adjoin the building, and up the street close to Higgins Avenue, a new surface lot will join the cluster of parking spots.
Reviews of the design for the WRHA building from local architecture critics have so far ranged from bad (“pretty poor — standard office park architecture”), to very bad (“an affront to Inkster Industrial Park, never mind the most historic street in Western Canada”).
But the tragedy is not only what the fabled Main Street strip — which even in 1892 was called “Winnipeg’s Bowery”— will be stuck with, but what it will lose.
The Starland Theatre, a former vaudeville house built in 1909, and the Epic Theatre, a Grade 2 heritage structure which was one of Canada’s first movie theatres — once two of five theatres at Logan and Main. Then there is the Jack’s Place building at 652 Main (1912), and the Weir Hardware building up the street at 666 Main (1899). To allow for demolition, the Starland and Jack’s were removed from the Historical Buildings Inventory by the city’s heritage buildings committee on March 20. The fate of the Epic and Weir’s, meanwhile, will be decided at a later date.
For such a feat of perfidy and hypocrisy, the heritage buildings committee should congratulate themselves: Three historical buildings being approved for demolition in a single day probably hasn’t happened since the 1970s.
It doesn’t have much, but North Main does have historic vestiges of a distinctive streetscape of modest, narrow buildings. Only one block south, between Logan and Alexander Avenue, small-scale, private-led redevelopments are occurring in several of these buildings. At the Occidental Hotel, for example, the beer vendor and VLTs are out, and a multi-use venue and a newly opened restaurant is in.
The two theatres are indeed in a state of great disrepair, but the old Jack’s Place and Weir buildings appear to be in good shape, and could be home to the next art gallery, cafe or design firm to move to the strip. Offices or apartments could go upstairs. Instead, it looks like a giant parkade will replace Jack’s, and a surface parking lot will replace the Weir building.
Such an indiscriminate clear-cutting approach to development is nothing new in Winnipeg’s troubled downtown, where most large developments are publicly led, and the choice of scale and location are highly politicized matters. Usually, projects have been dropped down in locations where they can snuff out as much perceived blight as possible.
In the late 1950s, a new city hall was set to be built opposite the Legislative Building on Broadway. Premier Duff Roblin wanted it built instead on the industrial waterfront of South Point Douglas, but it was Mayor Stephen Juba who got his way. Juba’s plan was to rebuild on the site of the city’s famous “Gingerbread City Hall” as part of a giant civic centre. By the end of the decade, the civic centre would wipe away six of the most interesting and urban square blocks downtown.
As if there was nothing to learn from this and other failed attempts at wrecking ball renewal, the same sort of destruction looms over Main Street today. Perhaps to prove it is still able to deliver big projects like Red River College on Princess Avenue, or the condos on Waterfront Drive, CentreVenture seems to be stretching this development as far as possible. So far, however, there is none of the redeeming qualities those early CentreVenture projects had, and by its destructive nature will be unable to act as a catalyst for economic growth on North Main.
While an architectural design better suited to North Main — even saving the Starland’s facade — has been discussed positively by Centre Venture, it seems unlikely that they will risk slowing down or adding cost to the North Main development by putting pressure on the WRHA or the builders to come up with something better.
In publicly led real estate development (dubious enough to begin with), agencies like CentreVenture must serve the public good with the projects they facilitate. The thought that “any development is good development,” especially when it is out of scale, destroys several heritage buildings, and could ultimately thwart the northward thrust of private-led development downtown, is blind, self-serving, and not worth the loss of so much of North Main’s remaining historic streetscape.
Robert Galston is a Winnipeg writer who blogs at riseandsprawl.blogspot.com
There is a photo of this theatre on page 156 of A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles By Shannon Ricketts, Leslie Maitland, Jacqueline Hucker. According to this the architects were W. Dodd and Company and that it was in Spanish Colonial style suggesting that this cinema was an atmospheric.
It closed in 1981 and was converted into a mall/retail.
There are more photos at the National Libray of Canada, refernence ACCESSION: 1973-402
REPRODUCTION: PA-095059 (copy negative number);
This theatre was the Hume, then the Roxy and finally the Odeon until its closing in 1981. The remember seeing DAMNATION ALLEY here about 1978/79. The building is not demolished just gutted for retail use.
Correct address is 2013 Lakeshore Ave. This has a double listing as /theaters/1873/ which should now be deleted
There is a photo of the outside as the Hume at the Ontario Archives Visual database.
The Hume was built by Rex Hume. It faced Lakeshore was considered fireproof and was 45 feet wide and 145 deep.The opening of the new theatre, named the Hume theatre took place on Thursday November 27th 1930. The feature picture was the fast stepping, singing, talking spectacle “Putting on the Ritz” Portions of it were in colours! On the same program was a Hal Roach comedy “Doctor"s Orders,” also a talkie. This theatre with a seating capacity of over 450 played two and sometimes three shows each week. Burlington’s population was still under 4000.
It closed in November 1981 under the ownership of Canadian Odeon Theatres
Well Winnipeg does have the Walker and the Pantages alive and well, so we can’t hate them too much ;–)
I see that the city owns both the Regent and the Starland from tax arrears.
It is unfortunate that there is no listing or gazetter of these buildings, I am sure that arts groups in Winnipeg , might have been interested in saving them if they could be shown as viable performance venues
Demolition has begun today. :–(
Mark:
The roof of the Tivoli’s auditorium is ok as far as I know. It was in very good shape back in 1991 – 1992 anyway when I worked in the building, and I have no reason to believe that it has deteriorated much since then.
Most of the urban spelunkers take only pictures, so even on that score I think the TIV is ok, although I agree it would be better if the building had more regular security.
The question is can the Ballet raise the $10 million. Scuttlebutt says they are in the middle of a feasibility study in order to secure provincial and federal grant money for a restoration. I hope that they get it!
The Century sadly has no such allies.. and has been empty and unheated since Sept 1989. WE made a proposal to the owners in 1991, but they went with a group that wanted to open a night club.. Sadly this never opened.
One last comment for today.. The balcony of the Lyric was removed in 1940, and the fire exits were bricked up. You can still see this today on both sides of the building – the line of the original balcony, which clearly goes below what is the 1940’s cinema roof line. Again this is clearer on the blueprints.
In 1990 before the collapse, (which I am guessing happened within the last 5 years), only the very back of the balcony, what would have been called the mezzanine, was still there, there was part of what looked like a railing, with some steps, and there were the side walls of the Lyric with gold paint and stenciled decor. There was also a rickety wooden ladder that went up about 25 feet into a giant round air conditioning duct/intake. This led to a hatch that came out on the roof.
The damage to the Century BTW is only to the first 20 feet of the building, and was the only part of the roof not replaced in renovations in 1955 – I have a copy of the blueprint for this renovation. I have also been in this space myself so I know exactly what I am talking about. Clearly there has been water damage to the lobby area and the former rooming/boarding house on the third floor is obviously uninhabitable, but these areas of the building had been abandoned even when Famous Players was still using it as a movie house. What is dooming the Century is not the damage to the building, rather a lack of any will to save it. The current owners just see it as a location for potential development, and are waiting for someone to come along and offer them money for the property. If holding onto it becomes to expensive, they will likely demolish it.
Mark: I am much more hopeful about the Tivoli. It is a newer building, (built in 1924). Also the present owners the Canadian Youth Ballet intend to restore it as a theatre, see their website here. http://www.cbye.ca/ccampaign.htm Other then some water damage to the plaster on the SR side of the auditorium the Tivoli theatre is in good shape. It just needs the front of the building replaced in order to re-open again.
The Century, though much of its historic fabric was gutted in 1940, is historically a much more interesting building. As the centre of Kieth-Albee Vaudeville in Hamilton, many noted performers graced its stage, eg The Marx Brothers in Sept. 1919. Its stage was constructed for legitamante tehatre, and it was home to sveral “stock” companies who produced plays.
Thanks very much for this image… Did you take others from the opposite angle? The most intact and historic parts of the Lyric are the backstage areas ironically, everything else was gutted in the 1940’s.
Looks like someone has left the hatch open in the grid… That’s the natural light you are seeing. To prevent more damage hopefully that can be closed by someone.
The fly gallery is the opposite side of the stage – two flights of stairs, first one runs up to what is called the “pin rail”, the next flight of stairs leads up to the “grid”…. The catwalk that runs across the back of the stage is called a “paint-frame”, because it was used to paint soft backdrops, which was the majority of the scenery required in those early days…
I would be grateful for photos of all of these features, next time someone gets in there.
BTW You were standing in the very spot were in September 1919, the Marx Brothers were performing in a play called N'EVERYTHING.
I have B&W images of my own from 1990, but they are grainy and out of focus.
Particleman if you would be kind enough to email me privately about using some of your photos in the research I am doing on the building.. Thanks!
Still more photos of the inside here…
http://flickr.com/photos/christiansphotos/
It is heartbreaking to see that so much has survived only to end up in a landfill next week… Looks like the paint is original from 1913…
More interior pictures and some comment here.
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Looks like these buildings are coming down next week… Hopefully someone can photograph them before they come down…
There is a good blog article here…
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Looks like these buildings are coming down next week… Hopefully someone can photograph them before they come down…
There is a good blog article here…
View link
Just a quick note
This was not a restoration but rather the creation of a black box type studio theatre space within the physical space that once was occupied by the Grand’s ornate interior. Elements of plaster work found in the original lobby area have been preserved, all that is original from the original auditorium are the brick walls/exterior.
I guess it saved them the cost of building a new structure.. but it certainly was not a “restoration” by any means. The Grand Theatre (1902) in Kingston Ontario is in the middle of doing the same thing.
Correct Towne and the State were the same theatre.
The building is now for sale as of March 2008.
I checked the city directory for this theatre. It stood on the north side of King Street half way on the block between MacNab and Park, which today only goes as far as York, but originally went all the way up to King Street. This would have placed it approximately where the entrance to the parking garage is for the Sheraton Hotel.
All of these properties were expropriated by the city in the mid 1960’s and then demolished.
There are four pictures of this theatre from the 1940’s in the Ontario Archives
Thank you very much for this Ken. It is funny a friend of mine is in Winnipeg this weekend and specifically asked him to go over to the sight and take a look for me!. By the sounds of it these two theatres, which have both been removed from the Historic Buildings Inventory, will be torn down within the month…
The interiors should be documented before demolition certainly…
The Beaver Theatre was one of the earliest purpose built cinemas in Toronto opening in 1913. By 1919 it was owned and operated by the nationwide Allen Theatre chain (run by Jules and Jay Allen of Brantford Ontario) until being bought out by Famous Players in 1923. In the 1940’s until its closing in 1961 it was operated by 20th Century Theatres inc. It had had a very imposing Adamesque facade and marquee, a picture of which is on page 66 of THE NABES by John Sebert. The name refers to the National Animal of Canada, the noble and clever beaver – as far as can be determined it never showed adult fare. More photos are in the Archives of Ontario.
This is absolutely appalling. I can not believe that laws designed to protect a listed building should be so blatantly ignored.
Also there are current interior photos of the the soon to be demolished Starland here, about three pages in..
View link
By looking at the photos some of the interior ceiling/plasterwork seems to have survived intact.
Perhaps someone in Winnipeg will document the demolition in photos so that we can see what else of it survived.. No one ever takes pictures of the stage area/fly gallery…
This is from the Winnipeg Free Press.. The Starland looks like it is toast. There is perhaps some chance for the Epic/Regent down the street which turns out to be one of the oldest surviving purpose built Cinemas in all of Canada.
Clear-cut streetscape
Robert Galston
Updated: March 26, 2008 at 02:15 AM CDT
A drawing was released this month of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s future offices at Logan Avenue and Main Street, which is part of Centre Venture Development Corporation’s “cluster developments” for downtown. A 200-car parkade will adjoin the building, and up the street close to Higgins Avenue, a new surface lot will join the cluster of parking spots.
Reviews of the design for the WRHA building from local architecture critics have so far ranged from bad (“pretty poor — standard office park architecture”), to very bad (“an affront to Inkster Industrial Park, never mind the most historic street in Western Canada”).
But the tragedy is not only what the fabled Main Street strip — which even in 1892 was called “Winnipeg’s Bowery”— will be stuck with, but what it will lose.
The Starland Theatre, a former vaudeville house built in 1909, and the Epic Theatre, a Grade 2 heritage structure which was one of Canada’s first movie theatres — once two of five theatres at Logan and Main. Then there is the Jack’s Place building at 652 Main (1912), and the Weir Hardware building up the street at 666 Main (1899). To allow for demolition, the Starland and Jack’s were removed from the Historical Buildings Inventory by the city’s heritage buildings committee on March 20. The fate of the Epic and Weir’s, meanwhile, will be decided at a later date.
For such a feat of perfidy and hypocrisy, the heritage buildings committee should congratulate themselves: Three historical buildings being approved for demolition in a single day probably hasn’t happened since the 1970s.
It doesn’t have much, but North Main does have historic vestiges of a distinctive streetscape of modest, narrow buildings. Only one block south, between Logan and Alexander Avenue, small-scale, private-led redevelopments are occurring in several of these buildings. At the Occidental Hotel, for example, the beer vendor and VLTs are out, and a multi-use venue and a newly opened restaurant is in.
The two theatres are indeed in a state of great disrepair, but the old Jack’s Place and Weir buildings appear to be in good shape, and could be home to the next art gallery, cafe or design firm to move to the strip. Offices or apartments could go upstairs. Instead, it looks like a giant parkade will replace Jack’s, and a surface parking lot will replace the Weir building.
Such an indiscriminate clear-cutting approach to development is nothing new in Winnipeg’s troubled downtown, where most large developments are publicly led, and the choice of scale and location are highly politicized matters. Usually, projects have been dropped down in locations where they can snuff out as much perceived blight as possible.
In the late 1950s, a new city hall was set to be built opposite the Legislative Building on Broadway. Premier Duff Roblin wanted it built instead on the industrial waterfront of South Point Douglas, but it was Mayor Stephen Juba who got his way. Juba’s plan was to rebuild on the site of the city’s famous “Gingerbread City Hall” as part of a giant civic centre. By the end of the decade, the civic centre would wipe away six of the most interesting and urban square blocks downtown.
As if there was nothing to learn from this and other failed attempts at wrecking ball renewal, the same sort of destruction looms over Main Street today. Perhaps to prove it is still able to deliver big projects like Red River College on Princess Avenue, or the condos on Waterfront Drive, CentreVenture seems to be stretching this development as far as possible. So far, however, there is none of the redeeming qualities those early CentreVenture projects had, and by its destructive nature will be unable to act as a catalyst for economic growth on North Main.
While an architectural design better suited to North Main — even saving the Starland’s facade — has been discussed positively by Centre Venture, it seems unlikely that they will risk slowing down or adding cost to the North Main development by putting pressure on the WRHA or the builders to come up with something better.
In publicly led real estate development (dubious enough to begin with), agencies like CentreVenture must serve the public good with the projects they facilitate. The thought that “any development is good development,” especially when it is out of scale, destroys several heritage buildings, and could ultimately thwart the northward thrust of private-led development downtown, is blind, self-serving, and not worth the loss of so much of North Main’s remaining historic streetscape.
Robert Galston is a Winnipeg writer who blogs at riseandsprawl.blogspot.com
There is a photo of this theatre on page 156 of A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles By Shannon Ricketts, Leslie Maitland, Jacqueline Hucker. According to this the architects were W. Dodd and Company and that it was in Spanish Colonial style suggesting that this cinema was an atmospheric.
It closed in 1981 and was converted into a mall/retail.
There are more photos at the National Libray of Canada, refernence ACCESSION: 1973-402
REPRODUCTION: PA-095059 (copy negative number);
There was news feature today on CTV about this fine old theatre, it has been bought and looks like it is within a week of Demolition.
A sad end to a fine old Theatre. More info here…
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This theatre was the Hume, then the Roxy and finally the Odeon until its closing in 1981. The remember seeing DAMNATION ALLEY here about 1978/79. The building is not demolished just gutted for retail use.
Correct address is 2013 Lakeshore Ave. This has a double listing as /theaters/1873/ which should now be deleted
There is a photo of the outside as the Hume at the Ontario Archives Visual database.
This info came from here
View link
Hume Theatre
The Hume was built by Rex Hume. It faced Lakeshore was considered fireproof and was 45 feet wide and 145 deep.The opening of the new theatre, named the Hume theatre took place on Thursday November 27th 1930. The feature picture was the fast stepping, singing, talking spectacle “Putting on the Ritz” Portions of it were in colours! On the same program was a Hal Roach comedy “Doctor"s Orders,” also a talkie. This theatre with a seating capacity of over 450 played two and sometimes three shows each week. Burlington’s population was still under 4000.
It closed in November 1981 under the ownership of Canadian Odeon Theatres
Well Winnipeg does have the Walker and the Pantages alive and well, so we can’t hate them too much ;–)
I see that the city owns both the Regent and the Starland from tax arrears.
It is unfortunate that there is no listing or gazetter of these buildings, I am sure that arts groups in Winnipeg , might have been interested in saving them if they could be shown as viable performance venues
Some info on the Regent is here.
www.winnipeg.ca/ppd/historic/pdf-consv/Main646-long.pdf
More pictures here
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Also does anyone know more about the history of the Regent Theatre on Main Street in Winnipeg about to also be demolished..
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It appears to be next door to the Starland
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Any idea of what the interior might be like today?
Did it have a very large balcony? Normally there would be a fire escape on the outside of the building.
Is there any interest in saving this theatre or is the medical centre a done deal?