Glimpses Gone: Pantages 2007

Since I made that January post of pictures I took of San Francisco cinemas, reckoned I should do the same for Vancouver theatres.

Thought I’d start with some long-stuck-on-an-old-camera photos I took of the old Pantages Theatre on Hastings near Main during a public tour event on October 28, 2007 (part of the Downtown Eastside’s Heart of the City Festival.)  At the time, there was still a glimmer of hope that the building originally opened in 1907 as a vaudeville house could be saved as a venue for arts events like concerts and Chinese opera.  But, alas, it has since been demolished (for more info, see Heritage Vancouver Society‘s Pantages Theatre page.)

This week I went and got batteries (gougingly only available in packages of 2 — Shoppers Drug Mart had them $14 cheaper than London Drugs but still came to nearly $30) for the old camera I’d rather forgotten I had, and transferred the photos taken that cold ‘n’ rainy Sunday to my computer.  They’re not very good (portable lights had been brought in and most of the theatre was closed off due to safety concerns, plus so many people milling about trying to get their own snaps getting in the way – especially in the lobby, so not including any of those here) and I think my hand-me-down camera ran out of batteries as only seem to have pictures taken before the short film screening (of Vancouver street scenes shot in 1907 (by a gentleman who apparently later went down with the Titanic) that I fondly remembered seeing at the Vancouver International Film Festival in the early ’90s at the Ridge with Nanook of the North, accompanied by pianist Paul Plimley and introduced by film historian Colin Browne.)  But here they are…

P.S.  From the Pantages Theatre (on Hastings near Main) from 1907 (as seen in 2007) to an ad (on Granville near Robson) from 1922 (as seen in 2012)…

Seemed to’ve been painted to advertise a specific movie playing at a specific theatre (the Capitol, which was across the street until a few years ago.)