Yorkdale Silver City
3401 Dufferin Street,
North York,
ON
M6A 2T9
3401 Dufferin Street,
North York,
ON
M6A 2T9
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This theatre was built by Nat Taylor’s Twentieth Century Theatres in 1964. Twentieth Century Theatres was a partner affiliate of Famous Players Canadian Corporation, but Nat Taylor had the management rights and the right to book these theatres!! Probably one of the first theatres to have an escalator to take you down to the main level of the theatres!!
If the information on the Rivest site is correct, The original Yorkdale Theatres opened along with the rest of the original Yorkdale Mall in 1964. It was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, purpose-built twin theatres in Canada. As Tim Elliot noted, one theatre was referred to as the Yorkdale Theatre and was the larger of the two; the other was the Yorkdale Cinema (you can see this fact in the signage in the black and white photo). This may have been a reflection of the fact that originally, the theater was a joint venture between Famous Players and 20th Century Theatres, with perhaps each company responsible for one of the two theatres.
In 1980, the Yorkdale Theatre was split in half. In 1986, three screens were added in an addition to the building; at some point around that time, Famous Players absorbed 20th Century.
The Yorkdale 6 closed in 1999 when the SilverCity 10 opened; was the SilverCity a new build or did it incorporate at least part of the space occupied by the Yorkdale 6? If it was a completely new build, the Yorkdale 6 should probably have its own listing.
I love all your uploads Mike, where do you find them without having to go to a library and look on microfilm?
I uploaded the February 25th, 1964 grand opening ad for both the Theatre and Cinema. The Theatre is an Famous Players and the Cinema is an 20th Century Theatres. I also uploaded the 1986 ad as a six-plex. the border text reads 3+3=Yorkdale 6
Depends on what you think is old Chad, I’m 52 now so I was 12 when the mall and theatres opened. We went there alot when it opened.
Original ad for Yorkdale opening lists the theatre as a twin:
http://rivest266.tripod.com/toronto/u.html
Well if you where living in the Yorkdale area back then in 1964, then you must be a pretty old man now Tim Elliot.
Sorry Chad but if you check the movie pages of February 1964, you will see that the Yorkdale opened as a twin cinema, The Yorkdale and Yorkdale Cinema. The shopping centre opened in Feb 1964 and the twin cinemas opened then. I was there.
Sorry Tim, But your got your story wrong. The Yorkdale was just a single screen movie theater when it opened in December of 1963. It was never twinned until 1979 or 1980. I dont remember them adding anymore screens until 1986.
The Yorkdale actually opened as a Twin in 1964, the larger one called the Yorkdale and the smaller was Yorkdale Cinema. It was later expanded to 3 and then six and closed when the new Silvercity opened.