December 09, 2003

Uptown theatre collapses. Though you may have already heard about this from Metafilter, it's still shocking news, both as a terrible accident, and for ex-pat Torontonians who didn't even know that the historic theatre was being demolished, because it was not wheelchair accessible.

This leaves me torn. I've always thought access was the most important thing, and have had family in wheelchairs and involved with accessibility advocacy groups. But at the same time, the Uptown was an icon in Toronto - did it deserve to be shut down? Or does being historic* mean we should give it a little lee way? *To preempt any Old World scoffing at a "historic" 1920's theatre, accept that yes, everything is new over here.

posted by jb 20 years ago
  • Pff. Here in Alberta, anything more that 20 years old is considered historic. Anything more than 25 years old gets knocked to the ground. Which leads me to ask (since there isn't a MonkeyTalk forum yet), how many Canadians are there on MonkeyFilter? (sorry to hijack the thread, jb).
  • I'm from Canada, hamfisted. I used to live in Peterborough, Ontario. There, every building and piece of land was considered sacred. A plan to extend a road called the Parkway has been under debate for several decades. Only now are they reaching a "concensus".
  • I'm deeply saddened by the Uptown collapse. My first experience of living away from home was in an apartment which overlooked the theatre (you can see the building I lived in in a lot of the news coverage), so I have a really special feeling about the place. I had heard rumours of it being shut down, but nothing certain until this hit the news. A terrible thing to happen. It's a pity that all my memories of the place have now been tainted by such a tragic end. I hope all those kids are ok. And that poor guy's family. For non-Torontonians: the Uptown wasn't just any movie theatre. It was a gem of a place, with broad staircases and elegant mirrors recalling the days when movies were treated with the same sense of 'event' as live theatre. The auditorium was the nicest movie venue I've ever been in. The seats were comfortable, they got the rake of the stands just right... there was even a stage in front of the screen so nobody had to sit right up against the front wall where they couldn't see. I guess the new owners didn't think this made much 'commercial sense' in the context of the kind of pack-em-in movie theatres they're building these days, but I would travel literally miles out of my way to see a movie at the Uptown rather than my local cattle barn of a place. The Uptown made movies civilised. Such a pity it ended in this terrible way.
  • May the Uptown in Washington, DC ever remain! Though we never got an answer to the ancillary question: how many Canadians are there on MonkeyFilter? And are they involved with K.R.E.A.P.?