Empire Theater
422 Barton Street E,
Hamilton,
ON
L8L 2Y6
422 Barton Street E,
Hamilton,
ON
L8L 2Y6
1 person
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Held an reopening in December 1930.
Empire theatre reopening 20 Dec 1930, Sat The Hamilton Spectator (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) Newspapers.com
The papers of architect Bernard Herman Prack list a project for Fred Guest at the Empire Theatre in 1922. The specifics of the project are not mentioned. !922 was the same year Prack drew the plans for Guest’s Delta Theatre.
Fred Guest’s Empire Theatre on Barton Street East was mentioned, along with his Strand Theatre, in the October 14, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World.
See an exterior photo of the Empire, as part of John Sebert’s “Glamorous Ghosts” at: www.hamiltonmagazine.com/sitepages/?aid. This was the first time I had seen a shot of this place. Comparing the photo and the street view, you can see the upper windows are gone and the railing (or decoration?) has been added to the roof edge.
I went to a yard sale in this neighborhood, and I got talking to a guy selling there, and I mentioned the Empire and he told me that the projection equipment was still in the building. It’s possible that it was too cumbersome to remove or was kept as a ‘novelty’. I don’t know if this is true, I’ve never checked…
A little more info. This was also known as the Italia Cinema from 1938 to 1969 when it closed.
There are photos at the Ont Archives of the exterior/interior.