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- This column by John Cosway
is a mix of 50 years of media memories and 20 years of buying
and selling experiences via live and online auctions, flea markets,
antique stores and markets etc
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- Cosway's Corner -
Saving the nabes
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- Preserving Ontario's landmark theatres
- and the memories
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- By John Cosway
When the landmark 1918 Regent Theatre reopens April 1 following
a three-month winter facelift, it will be applauded by thousands
of men and women who root for the preservation of all vintage
theatres.
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- The Regent's rejuvenation, made possible by a 10-year community
fundraising campaign and a generous $240,700 federal Canadian
Heritage ministry grant, isn't the first in the theatre's 92-year
history, but is the most expensive - and the most encouraging.
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- Community efforts to save Ontario's vintage movie theatres
from the wrecker's ball require a timeless, selfless passion
and those who appreciate the cause should applaud loud and clear.
Too many theatres have vanished from the Ontario landscape.
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- People old enough to remember long-gone vaudeville and movie
theatre palaces and neighborhood theatres in towns and cities
across the province know once they are gone, they are gone.
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- John Sebert's hard-to-find 2001 paperback book The Nabes:
Toronto's Wonderful Neighborhood Movie Houses is a delightfully
nostalgic journey filled with photographs of now-demolished theatres
generations of movie fans frequented.
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- But core community and provincial heritage groups with a
love of historic buildings are keeping many vintage theatres
alive with non-stop campaigning.
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- While dozens of Toronto's early live theatre and movie theatres
have been demolished in favour of multi-plexes and urban development,
there are exceptions, including the 1913 Elgin Theatre and its
upstairs 1914 Winter Garden Theatre on Yonge Street.
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- The 1912 Revue Theatre on Roncesvalles Ave. was in business
non-stop from 1912 to June 2006, when it was closed by the children
of the previous owner, who died in 2004.
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- The Revue Film Society, a gathering of residents and movie
fans, stepped up, raised
almost $130,000 and in October 2007 it reopened following a facelift.
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- The 1939 Kingsway Theatre in Toronto was closed for more
than two years and was thought by locals to be gone forever before
it reopened in January 2009.
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- And there are similar theatre survival stories in smaller
communities across the province: The Capitol in Port Hope, the
Grand in London, the Empire in Belleville etc.
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- When you consider all of the forces motivating people to
stay home in the 21st century - big screen TVs, home theatre
sound, DVDs, home computers, the Internet, downloadable movies
etc. - the survival of these 20th century neighborhood theatres
is remarkable.
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- In my silent applause for all of the efforts to save a way
of life, I blogged about my experiences with movie theatres big
- Radio City Music Hall in New York, which
was saved from the wreckers in the 1980s - and small, the nabes
in Toronto.
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- (If you want to share your movie theatre memories with me,
please do in an e-mail)
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- My first movie theatre experience as a kid growing up in
midtown Toronto in the 1940s and '50s was probably a Martin and
Lewis comedy. Or perhaps Abbott and Costello.
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- It would have been 1947 or '48 (at age five or six) at one
of four nearby neighborhood cinemas - the Alhambra, the Midtown,
the Metro or the Bloor.
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 We lived on Euclid
Ave. and all four theatres were within walking distance. No Sunday
movies in those church-and-state days, just Mondays through Saturdays,
with popular Saturday afternoon action serial matinees, a mix
of westerns and space adventures.
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- On more adventurous days, it would be a trek to the now defunct
University Theatre on Bloor Street near Bay, where the large
comfortable seats felt more like thrones to kids.
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- Pre-television years were paradise for movie fans, with a
cartoon, a newsreel and a double movie bill in quiet, comfortable
theatres, Uniformed ushers kept the peace and ejected rowdy patrons.
Admission was 25 cents, popcorn a dime.
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- For a time, my older sister, Gloria, worked at the Alhambra
and she would get me in free. After the movies, it would be a
free sundae at Leggett's on the northwest corner of Bloor and
Bathurst, where another older sister, Carol, worked.
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- Lucky kid.
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- In those pre-TV years there were two forms of family entertainment,
aside from sports:
- Sitting in the living room by the radio listening to popular
shows like Fibber McGee and Molly, Fred Allen, Burns and Allen,
Red Skelton, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.
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- And the movies.
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- Then suddenly there was this odd looking box in local appliance
stores that had test patterns and fuzzy black and white programming.
It was mesmerizing.
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- McGrath's, an appliance store on the south side of Bloor
just steps from the humble beginnings of Honest Ed's, would leave
a black and white TV in the window on after hours with the sound
cranked up.
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- The biggest crowd outside McGrath's was for Gillette's Friday
Night at the Fights and there we stood in the middle of winter
risking frostbite to watch the greats in the ring.
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- The first on our block to get a TV was the family of my buddy,
Morton Posner, two doors up. The Posners were Orthodox Jews so
Friday nights and Saturday until dusk were off limits for viewing
their TV, but they welcomed us the rest of the week.
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- Mr. And Mrs. North, with Richard Denning and Barbara Britton
as amateur crime solvers, was one of the TV shows we watched
at Morty's in 1952.
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- We didn't get our first TV until the spring of 1953, when
my sister Gloria's first $1,000 bond was used to buy a fridge,
furniture and a 17-inch floor model TV set.
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- Scheduling was skimpy in the early days of television and
the few stations available usually signed off by midnight. I'd
sneak downstairs after bedtime to watch the test patterns and
then turn off the TV and watch the white dot disappear.
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 The fascination
with television, especially Howdy Doody for the kids, and the
growing number of radio stars making the transition to television
for family viewing, took its toll on neighborhood movie theatres.
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- With more people staying home to watch TV, movie theatres
got creative. In addition to a double bill, cartoon and newsreel,
some theatres had live entertainment between movies. They also
put silver dollars in some 10-cent popcorn boxes as prizes.
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- Movie theatres fought the good fight and while their numbers
declined, enough men, women and children wanting to share the
movie experience with others kept theatres alive during the upswing
of television.
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- (Talk about nostalgia, look up the movie ads in any of the
Toronto newspapers from the 1940s and '50s, with full pages of
movie theatre ads. Only the Midtown - now called the Bloor
Cinema - remains in our old neighborhood. The Metro,
an adult movie theatre for years, still stands and there are
proposals to save it from demolition.)
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- Sunday movies were not allowed in Toronto until the 1960s,
so it was a thrill of sorts sitting and watching La Strada on
a Sunday in the 1950s. The theatre on College St. in Little Italy
was flouting the law and bravo to them.
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- One Saturday, while watching a matinee in the Lansdowne just
off Bloor Street, it was decision time - spend my last dime on
popcorn, or save it for the streetcar ride home.
It was a very long walk home, but a hot roast beef dinner was
on the table.
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- Somewhere along the way, ushers made their exit from movie
theatres; the television generation thought nothing of talking
throughout movies; theatres got smaller; people began putting
their feet up on the backs of seats; admission and food prices
went up.
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- Enter VCRs. In 1980, my first monster Zenith Beta VCR cost
$1,200. Movie rentals were not allowed at first, so my film library
was launched with Alien and Animal House at $100 apiece.
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- DVDs? Big screen TVs? Surround sound? Movies on the Internet?
More reasons to stay home, but there is still the social need
to frequent movie theatres, now as a discounted senior, to share
the experience with others.
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- Still have fond memories of my movie theatre days in the
Annex and try to get to the Bloor once or twice a year to thank
them for keeping the memories alive.
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- To relive my youth at a drive-in movie theatre, there is
always one of the 26 drive-ins
still active in the province.
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- Which brings me to one of my brother Bill's favourite jokes:
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- Did you hear about the two guys found frozen to death at
a drive-in theatre?
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- They were waiting to see Closed For The Season.
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- Ta dum.
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- Photos: Courtesy of Archives of Ontario
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- 1 - The Regent Theatre in Picton, reopens April 1
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- 2 - The Midtown Theatre in Toronto, now the Bloor Theatre
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- 3 - The comfy, but defunct University Theatre in Toronto
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