Cinecity

6 Charles Street East,
Toronto, ON M4Y 1T2

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Additional Info

Functions: Café, Restaurant

Styles: Italian Renaissance

Nearby Theaters

Cinecity

The Cinecity Cinema was located at the corner of Yonge Street and Charles Street East in Toronto. It opened in a former post office building in 1966 and had 260 seats.

The Cinecity Cinema showed mainly art and foreign films, with art work on show on the walls.

Sadly the Cinecity Cinema closed on August 28, 1975 with Jan-Michael Vincent in “White Line Fever”. Part of the building is now a Starbuck’s another part is a McDonald’s.

Contributed by Chad Irish

Recent comments (view all 20 comments)

scruffywilber
scruffywilber on February 10, 2010 at 3:54 pm

Here is a photo I took on Monday February 8th 2010 of the building Cinecity was located in.

http://i47.tinypic.com/oqzszm.jpg

I have established now that the building was erected in 1905.

telliott
telliott on February 10, 2010 at 5:09 pm

Yup, that’s the one. The cinema entrance was where the yellow awning is on Charles St.

coasternut (Robert Morrow)
coasternut (Robert Morrow) on July 2, 2011 at 5:49 pm

My one and only trip to Cinecity was to see the Beatles Yellow Submarine at a midnight showing. The projectionist ran the sound through all the speakers to make up for the mono sound and I was truly amazed at how large the screen was for such a small theatre. The only artwork I saw on the walls was posters for upcoming movies.

sierra
sierra on July 4, 2011 at 9:43 pm

Yup, telliott is right on the money here about location and direction of screen. I saw Gimme Shelter at Cinecity about 7 times from 1973-1974. It always ran Friday nights at midnight I believe. Steady crowd with a decent lineup outside the Charles St entrance. Great movie if you could see it through the smoke.

Jon Lidolt
Jon Lidolt on November 7, 2013 at 10:20 am

The description of Cinecity as having Italian renaissance elements in the lobby and auditorium is totally inaccurate. And it’s also not now, and never was, a “high class Italian restaurant.” I should know: I worked for Filmcanada presentations (located directly across the street from Cinecity) the company that owned and operated this cinema.

DavidDymond
DavidDymond on November 7, 2013 at 11:41 am

CINECITY was an experimental theatre owned and operated by Barry Allen of Premier Operating Company (a Famous Players associate)!! The newspaper ads for the Cinecity were ALWAYS located in the Premier Operating section of the newspaper. This theatre was equipped with custom made Famous Players Axminister woven carpet type: Red Dot on Red. If that doesn’t show it’s Famous Players Canadian Corporation pedigree I don’t know what else I can tell you!!!

filmfanjan
filmfanjan on September 20, 2014 at 12:48 pm

Can"t recall how many time I saw “Gimme Shelter” there – it was a lot!!

Jon Lidolt
Jon Lidolt on November 30, 2015 at 12:05 pm

While Cinecity did have a connection with Barry Allen’s Premier Theatres group, filmcanada presentations (located directly across the street from the theatre) did most of the booking and definitely took care of the advertising. I should know, since I (Jon Lidolt) designed the newspaper ads for the cinema.

wperkins
wperkins on November 25, 2016 at 7:20 am

Added two vintage photos of Cinecity from 1975 (the year it closed) that I came across. Looks like it was a really cool spot judging on what they were showing!

JCharles
JCharles on April 6, 2022 at 6:08 pm

The theatre closed on Aug. 28th, 1975 with WHITE LINE FEVER, a considerably more mainstream feature than Cinecity’s usual fare.

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