Plaza 1 & 2
176 Yonge Street,
Toronto,
ON
M4W 1A0
176 Yonge Street,
Toronto,
ON
M4W 1A0
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The cinema closed on April 12, 2001. Its final two movies were “Enemy at the Gates” and “Just Visiting.”
Linkrot repair: Large scans of the article about the Plaza Theatre in the August 2, 1976, issue of Boxoffice can now be seen at this link.
Great to see some pics of the place from the old Box Office Magazine. I’m guessing as the theater wore on it probably was renovated to look more like a standard, traditional Famous Players cinema. Would love to see more photos of this place over the decades.
Apparently I walked right by the entrance to this cinema last fall while in town for TIFF and didn’t even realize it!
This theatre opened in the spring of 1976 with All the President’s Men as one of its opening attractions. I attended this theatre week after its opening. Grant Millar was the first manager.
The August 2, 1976, Boxoffice article about the Plaza Twin starts on this page. It was, as other comments have noted, a very spare theater, not at all Art Deco in style. It would be best described as Midcentury Modern, but Streamline Modern would be far more apt than Art Deco.
April 8th, 1976 grand opening ad in photo section.
Famous Players would have to had to spend a fortune to make this theatre wheelchair accessible — and about the same time they were ordered to upgrade the Uptown, the Eglinton and the Plaza 1 & 2 — Famous Players chose wisely to close these theatres rather than spend any more money on them!!
Famous did not choose to close but were evicted as the space was required for the new heating system that was being installed and the auditorium is now a boiler room
I often wonder what they use all the space for cinemas such as these after they close. I mean, when you walk by the entrance at the Hudson’s Bay Centre, you would never know a theatre ever existed there. Are the 2 cinemas still sitting there empty after all these years? Makes you wonder what they could use them for now. Even a twin cinema still open at this location would be better than nothing. You didn’t even have to go outside when you got off the subway. It was practically across the hall of the mall.
Indeed, this cinema’s interior was pedestrian but it excellenty located. I recall being blown away by Raging Bull here on its first release.
Art Deco does not describe the interior of this twin cinema – bland would be more accurate. There was nothing memorable about it at all. It’s only redeeming feature was it’s excellent location in the middle of downtown Toronto next to the subway entrance.
The Plaza Twin was designed by architect Mandel Sprachman, known for his restoration work on the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres and for designing the first large multiplex, Nat Taylor’s Eaton Centre Cinemas, also in Toronto.
The Plaza Twin was featured in a special Modern Theatre issue of Boxoffice Magazine published on August 2, 1976. The recently opened Famous Players house had 1049 seats, with 664 in the larger and 385 in the smaller auditorium.
Too bad that Famous Players chose to close this. With the Uptown gone it would be nice if Famous had something in the Yonge/Bloor area where they used to dominate the scene. Who knows how long it will take to build their proposed 10 screen complex at the opposite corner to this one. Why didn’t they build something before they closed the Uptown. Now there is a big gap between the Paramount downtown and the Canada Square/Silvercity 9 way up at Yonge and Eglinton. Now at the “crossroads” of Toronto there is just the Cineplex Odeon Varsity 12 and the Alliance Atlantis Cumberland 4. What a difference from several years ago when there were more theatres in this area than any other part of Toronto.