Cinecity
6 Charles Street East,
Toronto,
ON
M4Y 1T2
6 Charles Street East,
Toronto,
ON
M4Y 1T2
1 person
favorited this theater
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The theatre closed on Aug. 28th, 1975 with WHITE LINE FEVER, a considerably more mainstream feature than Cinecity’s usual fare.
Added two vintage photos of Cinecity from 1975 (the year it closed) that I came across. Looks like it was a really cool spot judging on what they were showing!
While Cinecity did have a connection with Barry Allen’s Premier Theatres group, filmcanada presentations (located directly across the street from the theatre) did most of the booking and definitely took care of the advertising. I should know, since I (Jon Lidolt) designed the newspaper ads for the cinema.
Can"t recall how many time I saw “Gimme Shelter” there – it was a lot!!
CINECITY was an experimental theatre owned and operated by Barry Allen of Premier Operating Company (a Famous Players associate)!! The newspaper ads for the Cinecity were ALWAYS located in the Premier Operating section of the newspaper. This theatre was equipped with custom made Famous Players Axminister woven carpet type: Red Dot on Red. If that doesn’t show it’s Famous Players Canadian Corporation pedigree I don’t know what else I can tell you!!!
The description of Cinecity as having Italian renaissance elements in the lobby and auditorium is totally inaccurate. And it’s also not now, and never was, a “high class Italian restaurant.” I should know: I worked for Filmcanada presentations (located directly across the street from Cinecity) the company that owned and operated this cinema.
Yup, telliott is right on the money here about location and direction of screen. I saw Gimme Shelter at Cinecity about 7 times from 1973-1974. It always ran Friday nights at midnight I believe. Steady crowd with a decent lineup outside the Charles St entrance. Great movie if you could see it through the smoke.
My one and only trip to Cinecity was to see the Beatles Yellow Submarine at a midnight showing. The projectionist ran the sound through all the speakers to make up for the mono sound and I was truly amazed at how large the screen was for such a small theatre. The only artwork I saw on the walls was posters for upcoming movies.
Yup, that’s the one. The cinema entrance was where the yellow awning is on Charles St.
Here is a photo I took on Monday February 8th 2010 of the building Cinecity was located in.
http://i47.tinypic.com/oqzszm.jpg
I have established now that the building was erected in 1905.
Yes, that’s the one. The entrance for the cinema was at the east end of the building on Charles St. and the screen would have been on the west side facing Yonge St.
The old Post Office Building is still there.
I guess the cinema was in the Post Office building.
It just didn’t look suitable to me.
The front of the building contains a 24hr McDonalds.
Well from the Google satellite shot at the NE corner, it looks like the old building is still there. I’ll have to drive by one of these days and see.
Yes you are right the even numbers are on the north side of the street.
I wonder if they renumbered the street at some time because the old “Postal Station F” dates from the late 1800s.
So the cinema couldn’t have been there.
Nope. Not Cinecity. It was a former Post Office, right on the NE corner of Yonge & Charles.
This is probably considered cheating but I snagged this from “Google Street View” this shows 4 and 6 Charles Street East.
I assume “Cinecity” was the building where the people are sitting at the table. I don’t know if it also incorporated the building to the left or not?
http://i49.tinypic.com/289hdms.jpg
The map view shows a Starbucks on one end and a day spa on the other.
My 1969 Telephone Book shows the address as 6 Charles Street East.
I worked as the art director for the filmcanada corp. that ran this cinema for many years. We screened mainly foreign films and offbeat American productions. One thing’s for sure, the design of the auditorium was not Italian renaisssance. If anything, it had a plain, yet functional interior that was considered to be quite smart looking by 60’s standards. It had a very large screen for the size of its auditorium and was one of the few cinemas in the city at the time to be equipped with 4-channel magnetic stereophonic sound.