The Snowdon Theatre was a Streamline Moderne style cinema in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, located on Decarie Boulevard in the neighbourhood of Snowdon. For 45 years it operated as a movie theater for films. After the theater closed, it was re-purposed as mini-shopping center with gymnastics studio, the latter of which had preserved former theater's lavish art deco interior. In 2019, following years of abandonment and neglect, it was demolished, with only its exterior facade left (heavily modified) as a decorative front for newly constructed condominiums.
The theater opened in February 1937 with a lavish art deco interior by designer Emmanuel Briffa, designer of the interior of the Rialto Theatre and 60 other cinemas in Canada. [1]
In 1950 the entrance facade was modified and a new marquee was added. In 1968 it showed X-rated movies. In 1972 it screened Charlie Chaplin films for approximately an entire year. [2] The cinema, after 45 years of showing films, closed in May 1982 and was left vacant. [3]
In 1990 it was re-purposed as a small shopping center. [4] The 25,000 square foot interior was rebuilt by Rafid Louis and Emile Fattal, splitting the theater into two floors and sub-dividing the ground floor space. The theater's original wall and ceiling art deco remained intact on the second floor, where a gymnastics center operated for a number of years. However, the building was not a success with its retail shopping and offices, and by the late 1990s, was mostly vacant again.
In 2013, Flexart Gymnastics, the last tenant, was evicted in late 2013 due to safety concerns with the building's roof, [5] leaving the building boarded up and left abandoned.
In January 2016, the city of Montreal, who owned the neglected and deteriorating building, put it up for sale. On March 26, 2016 a fire start by vandals on the second floor caused heavy damage to the roof. [6] [7] On May 4, 2017, the city found a buyer, who planned to demolish it for either a commercial or residential building project. [8] The sale went through on February 3, 2018 for $1.6 million, with the only condition that the building's exterior front facade and sign be preserved. [9]
In April 2019, the building was completely demolished, with only the front façade wall left standing and attached marquee (that had been modified in the late 80's with a French descriptor). By 2022, condominium construction was completed behind the remaining facade, albeit heavily modified.
Art Deco, short for the French Arts décoratifs, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s, and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s. Through styling and design of the exterior and interior of anything from large structures to small objects, including how people look, Art Deco has influenced bridges, buildings, ships, ocean liners, trains, cars, trucks, buses, furniture, and everyday objects including radios and vacuum cleaners.
The Pellissier Building and adjoining Wiltern Theatre is a 12-story, 155-foot (47 m) Art Deco landmark at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, California. The entire complex is commonly referred to as the Wiltern Center. Clad in a blue-green glazed architectural terra-cotta tile and situated diagonal to the street corner, the complex is considered one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in the United States. The Wiltern building is owned privately, and the Wiltern Theatre is operated by Live Nation's Los Angeles division.
Paramount Theatre is a theatre in Boston on Washington Street, between Avery and West Streets.
The Fox Theater in Spokane, Washington is a 1931 Art Deco movie theater that now serves as a performing arts venue and home of the Spokane Symphony. It was designed by architect Robert C. Reamer, notable for his design of the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. It was part of the Fox Film Corporation Empire founded by studio mogul William Fox. The theater opened September 3, 1931, and showed films continuously until it closed September 21, 2000, after an engagement of the movie Gladiator starring Russell Crowe.
The Laurier Palace Theatre fire, sometimes known as the Saddest fire or the Laurier Palace Theatre crush, occurred in a movie theatre in Montreal, Quebec, on January 9, 1927, killing 78 people. The theatre was located at 3215 Saint Catherine Street East, just east of Dézéry St.
The Century is an apartment building at 25 Central Park West, between 62nd and 63rd Streets, adjacent to Central Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was constructed from 1930 to 1931 at a cost of $6.5 million and designed by the firm of Irwin S. Chanin in the Art Deco style. The Century is 30 stories tall, with twin towers rising from a 19-story base. The building is a contributing property to the Central Park West Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places–listed district, and is a New York City designated landmark.
The Earl Carroll Theatre was a Broadway theatre at 753 Seventh Avenue near 50th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Built by impresario Earl Carroll and designed by architect George Keister, it opened on February 25, 1922, and was highly successful for a number of years until it was demolished and rebuilt on a lavish scale. It reopened in August 1931 with Carroll's billing that it was "the largest legitimate theater in the world." However, the facility's operating costs proved astronomical and it went into foreclosure in early 1932 after which it was acquired by producer Florenz Ziegfeld who renamed it the Casino Theatre. The Casino was the site of a very successful revival of Ziegfeld's production of Show Boat in 1932. However, Ziegfeld too went bankrupt only a short time later. The property was auctioned in foreclosure on August 18, 1933 to the Mutual Life Insurance Company for $1 million.
Located at Six Corners in the Portage Park neighborhood of Chicago's Northwest Side, the Portage Theater is one of the oldest movie houses in Chicago. The Portage Theater opened on December 11, 1920 as the Portage Park Theatre. Built for the Ascher Brothers circuit with 1,938 seats, the Portage was the first theater built specifically for film in the area.
The State Theatre is a 2034 seat heritage listed theatre located at 47–51 Market Street, in the Sydney central business district in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. The theatre was designed by Henry Eli White with assistance from John Eberson and built between 1926 and 1929. It hosts film screenings, live theatre and musical performances, and since 1974 it has been the home of the annual Sydney Film Festival. It is also known as State Building and Wurlitzer Organ. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.
The Teatro Opera is a prominent cinema and theatre house in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The Vista Theater is a theatre located at 218 Iron Street in Negaunee, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
The Empress Theatre, is an abandoned Egyptian Revival style theatre located on Sherbrooke Street west in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. After operating for 65 years, the theater closed in 1992.
The Mississippi Lofts and Adler Theatre is an apartment building and theater complex located in downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. It is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places by its original name, the Hotel Mississippi and RKO Orpheum Theater. The Hotel Mississippi was listed on the Davenport Register of Historic Properties in 2005. In 2020 the complex was included as a contributing property in the Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District.
The F. M. Kirby Center is a historic Art Deco-Moderne style movie theater located at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The Hollywood Theater is a historic theater building in Minneapolis which is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is located in the Audubon Park neighborhood of Minneapolis.
The Norwalk Theatre is a historic theatre building located at 57 East Main Street in Norwalk, Ohio. It is owned by the Norwalk Arts Center, LLC, and is a textbook example of the pre-World War II Art Deco style of architecture. Designed by the noted theatre architect John Eberson, the theatre was completed in 1941. It features a porcelain enamel and brick facade and the largest marquee in the state of Ohio. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.
The Metro Theater is a defunct movie theater at 2626 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by architecture firm Boak and Paris and built between 1932 and 1933. The theater is designed in the Art Deco style and originally contained 550 seats. Although the theater's interior was demolished after it was closed in 2005, the original facade remains intact and is a New York City designated landmark.
Rialto Theater, formerly Quinn's Rialto Theater and Grauman’s Rialto, is a historic former movie theater located at 812 S. Broadway in the Broadway Theater District in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles.