Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre

Elgin/Winter Garden prior to restoration: View link

Once the Uptown shut its doors back in 2003 this ended up becoming my most frequented theatre for the toronto film festival just to sheer volume of the great programming and the historic and prestine nature of the theatre itself. It is just absolutely gorgeous. Rivals the El Captitan in my opinion in terms of viewing experience and wish there were more opportunities to watch films here *fingers crossed.

The Winter Garden is one substantial theatre. It boggles the mind to think that it’s atop another. According to my guide, there is actually a glorified crawl space between the two theatres. The only indication that there is a massive structure above it in the Elgin auditorium are a couple of substantial columns toward the rear of the orchestra. The current main lobby is actually more ornate than it was originally. According to the guide the way it is now is the way it was designed, but not executed.

When Loews was sold to 20th Century Theatres in 1969, it was re-named the Yonge…then several years later when Famous Players renovated it, it was then re-named Elgin. The only reason i think those names were chosen is because the tall vertical sign had room for 5 letters, hence Yonge and Elgin. Since there was an Elgin in Ottawa, they probably thought this was a good name for the theatre in Toronto. Probably had nothing to do with what letters were left over from Loews.

I recently wrote an article<>/a> about a curious event that took place at the Loew’s Yonge St. theatre in 1928. Over the course of an entire week, hundreds of children lined up along the stage of the theatre to be selected as part of an “Our Gang” competition. The winners got to appear as a character in an “Our Gang” film. Read more over at [url=http://www.32elvismovies.com]32 Elvis Movies!

The marquee of Loew’s Yonge Street can be seen on he right in this 1929 photo:

View link

This is a twinned theatre with a totally different concept..double decker rather than splitting the auditorium down the middle or using the balcony for a second cinema.

The Elgin and Winter Garden are still two separate stacked theaters. Contrary to the opening comments above, they shared a common entrance under the marquee. Behind the entrance, two
lobby/corridors divided by a wall down the center led you to either the Elgin at ground level, while the 2nd corridor led to a bank of elevators (there were three shafts, but only two were originally installed and working) up to the Winter Garden seven storeys above the Elgin. Apparently this arrangement has been augmented or replaced by new stairwells and elevators on the opposite side of the theaters (see Ontario Heritage site photos where that structure is visible). Although closed in 1928, the Winter Garden was used during WWII as a canteen for servicemen. Later it was used from time to time as a location for filming. (e.g. Jack Palance in a CBC made for tv movie of Jekyll & Hyde). Some years prior to Ontario Heritage Foundation acquiring the property, several proposals had been made for use of the Winter Garden, but nothing came of it. Until the restoration of the theaters, the Elgin was known as Loew’s Yonge.

Yes, Conan is being taped there this week. Supposedly there were 100,000 ticket requests for the week long taping. This is a beautiful theatre and I’m sure the camera will show some of it’s beauty. You still have tonight and tomorrow to catch the splendor