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Recreating the Metro (Adult) Theatre 677 Bloor St W

jaycola

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What can should be done with this sad blight on a vibrant area?

Presently listed for sale at $3.3 million for the 31st time in the last decade, what could be done to create something that would be a benifit to the neighbourhood?

The theatre has just 300 seats with 4 wheenchair spaces. Too small to make a viable first run movie theatre, what would you like to see done with this place?

I think this would be a great spot for running classic childrens films or an all horror theatre. Maybe a B movie house?

They have a web site for the theatre but it's really terrible. They could have use an english speaking editor for the text.
Metro Theatre

Blogto Article and photo

20090708-Metro-Theatre.jpg
 
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This theatre was actually (or so i gather from books) a really nice Art Deco venue dating from 1938.

It is now divided into 3, as I understand it.....2 on the mainfloor? one on the balcony?

Not sure, never having been inside...

But I would imagine it was in the 600-800 seat range originally.


***

While I would love to see it restored (fully).... I can't imagine anyone doing that.

This website....www.metrotheatretoronto.com/save_our_theatre.cfm .....
suggests that $650,000 might restore it, but I assume they mean without putting it all back together..

Never mind the $3,300,000 asking price..........

I can't see anyone paying that, and then operating it, as a cinema, certainly not at a profit.

So if no hobbyists or heritage lovers with lots $$$ to spare, I'm afraid this site is probably doomed to condo-fication.

But, hey, maybe we get lucky.....maybe someone like Theatre D - Digital comes along (The owners of the Royal)

If so....they're looking at a pricey restoration....but here's hoping!
 
The Metro was originally around 800 seats, about 500 downstairs and 300 in the balcony. When I was a teenager I worked weekends at the Eve Cinema (a.k.a. The Alhambra/The Baronet) at Bloor & Bathurst across from Honest Ed's when it was an adult cinema. It was a terrific cinema, clean and in excellent condition with around 1100 seats. One night the Assistant Manager and I took a walk over to the Metro to check out the competition and it was in pretty bad shape even back then (around 1980 or 1981). I can only imagine what shape it's in now but it would be cool to see it saved and at least turned into two screens instead of three and renovated. It's an up and coming area, it could do well if booked properly. There's another closed old cinema out at Ossington Street which is pretty nice too. The last name I knew it as was The Paradise Cinema. I worked part time for a short period as a projectionist in there around the mid-80's (it was a porn house then too but a friend of mine was the manager there and I was hungry for money to supplement my f/t job). The manager tried running midnight shows there on Friday and Saturday nights (horror/rock films) and at the end of a 2:00am shift I slipped and fell down about 40 stairs from the balcony and broke my nose real bad.
Crazy memories.
 
This post suggests that the theatre is presently 'being gutted to make way for a rock climbing gym'.

Anyone know more about this?

(I assume it would be a bouldering gym given the building's short height)
 
Heritage Building/museum for the kiddies to see what men used to do to get porn before the advent of the internet.
 

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