Metropolitan Entertainment Centre
281 Donald Street,
Winnipeg,
MB
R3C 5S4
281 Donald Street,
Winnipeg,
MB
R3C 5S4
10 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 179 comments
The Starland is still standing on Main.
ok, thanks sam. i really thought it was much further up, than the bay. isn’t the area known as st. james? it’s many many years since i lived in wpg. i do remember the rialto, used to go there all the time. when i went back to wpg last summer, 1st visit since early 70’s, i noticed it was gone. i never went to the ones on main st, but i beleive there’s 3 left, closed but still standing, right? do u know the names of the theatres? i know one was the starland. i remember they always showed horror movies on saturdays, used to go by on the bus.
The Gaiety/Colony/Eve was right on the corner of Portage and Colony, right across the street from the Bay. As the Gaiety the marquee ran the full width of the building and wrapped around the corner onto Colony St. For years Strain’s camera shop was located on the corner under the marquee next to the theatre entrance. As far as any other theatre in the area is concerned, you may have been thinking of the Rialto which was located on Portage near the corner of Carlton, roughly where the Portage Place atrium is now.
thanks sam. when he mentioned the colony, i thought that was the other name for the gaiety, where i went as a kid. but wondered if i was on right track. ken said it was across from the bay, but i was sure it was much further up. how much further would it have been?
Re: the Colony. Originally it opened as the Gaiety sometime in the 1920’s and operated under that name until the 60’s. Renamed the Colony, but ended it’s days as an adult theatre named the Eve. That entire block of Portage Av was demolished to make way for Investors Syndicate headquarters.
thanks for the pix, ken, nice to see, but sad to see the damage. anxious to see the others that you have. how long was FOTM active? did they come close to anything concrete? the colony, that wasn’t the gaiety that was further up portage?
thanks for the pix, ken, nice to see, but sad to see the damage. anxious to see the others that you have. how long was FOTM active? did they come close to anything concrete? the colony, that wasn’t the gaiety that was further up portage?
Hello and welcome Ken!
I remember meeting you at FOTM, I’m glad you have discovered the forum. Can’t thank you enough for posting the link to the greatest collection of pics I have seen so far, well done.
Have you heard about the new developments for the Met?
Hello and welcome Ken!
I remember meeting you at FOTM, I’m glad you have discovered the forum. Can’t thank you enough for posting the link to the greatest collection of pics I have seen so far, well done.
Have you heard about the new developments for the Met?
disregard last post you can’t link to that from there,, the prev post will link to the photos
Also you can check out the photos from this page as well
http://360.yahoo.com/my_profile.html
Well here they are some photos taken during the “Friends of the Met” attempt of breathing in some life into the old girl, perhaps it was enought to keep it going a bit, here is the site of which i posted the photos on (below), if anyone should want some i request that you email me directly, as i have locked out the site to downloads, if anyone wants to list them anywhere else, i would appreciate the credit of
“Ken Spicer, Friends of the Met”, hope you enjoy i will post some more later and from both the capital and the long forgotten Colony which was located on Portage across from the Bay, taken from the last party there. Enjoy http://photos.yahoo.com/poolnut1ool
requests for photos to, with subject line THE MET PHOTOS
well after reading this and having it take so long to get the email to activate my name it finely came and i can now post,, so here is is, Hello there, I have just read this bog on the Met, and followed it with great interest, I was once on the board of the directors for the duration of the Friends of the Met till its demise, and find the interest in this fine old girl still out there, A bit about myself, I was the chief photographer for the FOM and still have all the photos from the work and the people that were involved as well as information that was collected, I will in the next few weeks find a way to put some of these on a web site for all to see and share, she may not live out there now but at least we can all share and see what she still looks like,, pictures include places no one would ever see when we had the tours during the Pan Am games, so stay tuned, a little teaser, the back hidden has hundreds of names of people that have hung around in the stairway to write down there names and some of there dates as well,, as well there is a list of the last employees of the Met,, stay tuned, will post the location of the pictures here soon. Ken
you’re not kidding, it’s hard to find. so it’s to be turned in to a resto, then. will it be the whole space? i hope they put a movie theme decor, never forgetting its orgin.
Sorry, it’s a little hard to find.
Easier to search for “metro” within the page in explorer.. The entry is near the bottom of the page..
Check out the Story on the Met’s Status on this blog..
Sounds like the resto is going to happen after all.
http://blackrod.blogspot.com/
interesting.
thanks for that sam. that’s so sad about the capitol, this must never happen to the met. if only they could get moving&turn it back into a functioning entity.
If the Virtual Heritage site is working again and you click on the 360 tour of the Met, you can see pics of the auditorium with the seats stripped down to the frames. I can’t recall offhand if some or all of them were unbolted from the floor and stacked out of the way or not. Since the theatre has been infrequently used in recent years for rehearsal space, as well as a site for filming, space on the auditorium floor may have been needed for that reason.
Never say never! The Capitol was also listed as a heritage site, but that didn’t stop them from delisting it and then demolishing it.
so, all of the seats are just basically frames? are there any that are intact? what was the reason they stripped them-fire risk? so, at least because it’s a nat'l historic site, they can’t do any serious modifications. wonder why the same wasn’t applied to the capitol? if only it could have been saved.
The Pantages Playhouse already has it’s own listing on Cinema Treasures. Although hard to believe today, since it has been used strictly for live entertainment for approximately 80 years, it did once upon a time show movies as part of the program.
I know this is the case as far as heritage protection goes.
My idea submission looks at the sources of funding to ensure a proper restoration. The modifications would not be to the building itself but more or less add-ons and support structures physically surrounding the building (Much Like Pantageous).
At the Pantageous playhouse they did a pretty good job of adding the necessary upgrades IE: mechanical, dressing rooms, greenrooms, even a dance studio and an office complex without modifying the original auditorium and lobby.
They even went so far as to maintain a “space” around the original theater. the glass roof/front wall let in the natural light which really makes the old exterior of the theater very noticeable. Great protection too! Unfortunately the “restoration” is very patchy at best.
I’m curious though as to why the Pantageous is often forgotten / not mentioned. It is another valuable heritage theater, and it has undergone all the upgrades to make it fully functional too!
I know this is the case as far as heritage protection goes.
My idea submission looks at the sources of funding to ensure a proper restoration. The modifications would not be to the building itself but more or less add-ons and support structures physically surrounding the building (Much Like Pantageous).
At the Pantageous playhouse they did a pretty good job of adding the necessary upgrades IE: mechanical, dressing rooms, greenrooms, even a dance studio and an office complex without modifying the original auditorium and lobby.
They even went so far as to maintain a “space” around the original theater. the glass roof/front wall let in the natural light which really makes the old exterior of the theater very noticeable. Great protection too! Unfortunately the “restoration” is very patchy at best.
I’m curious though as to why the Pantageous is often forgotten / not mentioned. It is another valuable heritage theater, and it has undergone all the upgrades to make it fully functional too!
The seats aren’t original. They’re 70s crap. Only about 30% (the frame) of each seat exists still. They’ve removed all fabric, etc.
The Met is a NATIONALLY designated historical site. Its listed as a Grade 1 (the strictest). Its can’t be heavily modified. They’d be welcome to remove the sloped floor, and return the place to its original state, but it can’t be heavily modified.
well, it was just an idea. i don’t like the idea of slicing up the place, but also hurts that it continues sitting with no present use. but if the museum idea manifests itself into reality-how much of the interior will remain intact? there would have to be significant changes involved wouldn’t you think? and would they leave some/any of the seats? we have to consider these issues as well.
Oh- and one more thing: The competition buffer zones. You’d have one hell of a fight getting prints, if any.