Grand 1-2-3-4-5-6

Three theaters, named the Grand Theatre, Roxy Theatre, and Underground News Theatre opened their doors on November 2, 1955, with the grand total of 2,600 seats combined in all three auditoriums. The Grand Theatre housed 1,300 seats, while the Roxy Theatre (which opened with Audie Murphy in “To Hell And Back”) housed 1,100 seats, and the Underground News Theatre housing 200 seats.

On November 24, 1958, two more theaters were added at the complex, which were the Aster Theater and the Mainichi Underground Theater. The Aster Theater is a Nikkatsu roadshow house while the Mainichi Underground Theater is a foreign premiere house that also screened American movies (the Mainichi Underground Theater opened with a Danny Kaye film, but I cannot confirm which film of his that opened the Mainichi Underground). A sixth theater called the Mainichi Hall Theater opened during the first week of January 1960. The Underground News Theater went through several different policies and name changes throughout the years, including the Toyoda Shochiku Theater, the Toyoda Cinema Theater, and the Station Front Cinema.

On June 11, 1988, Central Nippon Kogyo consolidated the names of the six theaters in front of Nagoya Station into two series. In that case, all four auditoriums were renamed, with the Grand becoming Grand 1 (742 seats; the largest in Nagoya at the time), the Roxy became Grand 2 (563 seats), the Aster Theater became Grand 3 (unknown amount), and Station Front Cinema became Grand 4 (104 seats). The Grand 4 was later renamed Grand 5 and the Grand 3 was later renamed the Grand 6. This was due to the Grand 2 converting from a 563-seat single-screener into a 491-seat (191-150-150) Toei-Toho combination triplex under the name Grand 2-3-4 in June 1997.

The Mainichi Underground Theater closed in 2002, while the remaining six theaters continued operating until January 2003, when all one-by-one closed in separate days. The Grand 6 closed on January 19, 2003, while the Grand 2-3-4 all closed the following day on January 20, 2003. Grand 1 closed on January 27, 2003, while the Grand 5 closed on January 29, 2003. It was immediately demolished afterward to make way for the Midland Square Office Building.

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