Elgin and Winter Garden Theater Center

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Entrance from Yonge Street
The Elgin Theater Hall

The Elgin and Winter Garden Theater Center in Toronto is one of the few remaining North American double-decker theaters . It is the world's last still operating theater of this type and is also counted among the last theater buildings of the Edwardian era . The theater was built on Yonge Street in 1913 and has a checkered history. The now listed and renovated building is now a tourist attraction and an important venue for the cultural scene in Toronto.

history

The building was built as the Canadian flagship of the vaudeville theater chain of the American Marcus Loew ; The architect was the renowned theater designer Thomas W. Lamb . The entrepreneur Loew operated a chain of vaudeville theaters mainly in the eastern United States; In New York City alone he owned 25 theaters. Since the land on the prestigious Yonge Street was very expensive, Loew only bought a narrow strip for CAD 600,000 and had Lamb build a structure with two theaters one above the other.

On December 15, 1913, the lower theater, called Loew's Yonge Street Theater, opened . It had 2,149 seats. Irving Berlin sang at the opening . Above all, vaudeville performances were offered here at reasonable prices. For an entrance fee of 15 cents, visitors could watch the non-stop performances for as long as they wanted. In the 1920s, the proportion of silent films in the program rose steadily and in December 1929 a sound film was shown for the first time in the hall, which has now been converted into a cinema: "His First Glorious Night" with John Gilbert . In 1960 it was converted into a Cinerama , but the decline of the cinema continued. In 1978 it was renamed "Elgin"; At this point in time, soft porn was already being shown. In 1981 the last film was shown: “What the Swedish Butler saw”, followed by the shot.

The upper theater, called the Winter Garden , opened on February 16, 1914. The auditorium had 1,410 seats. It could be reached via the main staircase and three elevators. It was aimed at a wealthy clientele, the seats were reserved and the entrance fee was 25 or 50 cents. There were also vaudeville performances. As early as 1928, the Winter Garden was shut down. The room remained unused for the next 50 years, only briefly being used as a filming location for a 13-part television series by CBC , "White Oaks of Jalna".

Well-known actors who appeared in the theaters were George Burns , Gracie Allen , Sophie Tucker , Milton Berle , Edgar Bergen or Charlie McCarthy .

Redevelopment

In 1981 the theaters were saved from the threat of demolition by a citizens' initiative and extensively renovated for CAD 29 million. In 1982 the double theater was placed under monument protection ( National Historic Site ). The building has since been operated by the Ontario Heritage Trust . Today there are 1,561 seats in the Elgin and 992 in the Winter Garden .

Trivia

Several ghosts are said to be haunted in the theater. Most of the reports are about the female spirit Lilac , also known as the Lavender Lady .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lesley Peterson, World's last operating doubledecker theater celebrates 100 years , August 2, 2013, examiner.com (English)
  2. ↑ Deborah Baic, In Pictures: The century-old Elgin and Winter Garden Theater , Oct. 3, 2013, The Globe and Mail.
  3. ↑ Canada's Historic Places (English)
  4. ^ Vaudeville Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performances in America , Volume 1, ISBN 978-0-41593-853-2 , Psychology Press, 2004, p. 696 (English)
  5. ^ A b c d Charles Rawlings-Way and Natalie Karneef, Toronto. Ediz. Inglese , Lonely Planet, 2007, p. 33 (English)
  6. ↑ Terry Boyle, The Elgin and Winter Garden Theater, Toronto, Ontario , in: Haunted Ontario 3-Book, Dundurn, 2015, ISBN 978-1-45973-243-8 (English)
  7. ↑ Tom Ogden, Haunted Theaters: Playhouse Phantoms, Opera House Horrors, and Backstage Banshees , Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, pp. 204ff. (English)

literature

Web links

Commons : Elgin and Winter Garden Theaters  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Coordinates: 43 ° 39 ′ 11 "  N , 79 ° 22 ′ 45"  W.