Cinema V - Salle Hermes

This will likely be the last major update. As of March 2020, the city announced it will demolish the Empress theater. An architectural audit states the building is structurally unsound and deteriorated past the point of saving. There is a chance the neo-Egyptian facade could be preserved, but it depends on cost and structural feasibility. Regardless, the building as a whole will be facing a wrecking ball in near future, maybe even the facade with it. Condos will be replacing it.

I saw this coming 10 years ago, just scroll to my 2010 posting and see. Yes, I called it way back then, demolition by neglect. It’s an age-old story repeated in Montreal over and over and over again. Incredibly infuriating and sad, but no surprise.

I’ll post a future update as to whether the facade was saved or not. Hardly a victory even if it is, the real treasure was the building itself, not its exterior face.

Well, the latest news (as of August 2018) is MK2 has cut ties and canceled its agreement with the Empress Theater Foundation. This has essentially scuttled the project, it is now dead in the water. Again.

In the meantime the building has reached a critical point in terms of deterioration, the longer it sits abandoned to the elements, the more difficult and expensive it will become to renovate (at some point it just becomes a lost cause). My fear is its in danger of facing demolition.

MK2 is a potentially interesting development, but it’s hard to be optimistic with so many failed attempts by so many others in the past 25 years. As I’ve said in the past, talk is one thing…action is quite another.

I won’t even raise an eyebrow until/unless I see construction start. We’ll have to wait and see.

Update for 2017: Just as I predicted. Several deadline extensions were granted over the years (three in fact!), and each one of them missed. The city’s absolute final deadline was June 30, 2016, and when it was missed, it essentially nullified the whole project.

Cinema NDG did come back in September 2016 with a scaled back revision (knocking $2.5 million off the estimate total), but the city has shown no interest.

It’s now September 2017 and the theater restoration project is dead in the water. The only change is the building’s exterior is now covered in graffiti.

So as it stands, The Empress has now sat abandoned for 25 years. Yep, a quarter century of all talk and no action. I suspect it will be demolished, or at best, only the facade preserved for a condo project.

June 1st, 1974 grand opening ad as Home of Blue Movies as well as the La Press ad as “La Maison des Films Erotiques” can be found in the photo section for this theatre.

I’ll believe it when it actually happens: http://cultmontreal.com/2013/08/cinema-v-ndg-will-probably-reopen-in-2015/

Unfortunately this is yet another example of more talk and ideas, but no action. Perhaps “day dreaming” is a better word for these latest plans, the only mention of it is in Metro (a free tabloid-like French paper) but nothing in the Montreal Gazette or local TV news stations such as CTV News. When the mainstream media outlets ignore the story, that is not a good sign.

Since I last commented, temporary metal fencing has been placed around most of the building. Either to protect it from vandalism or the danger that pieces of it may fall to the ground as it further decays. Something similar was don with theSeville theatre in its final few years.

Grand opening ad is at
View link

2010 article is at View link

Back in the late ‘70s, when Cinema V was a going concern run by Ricky Friedman, it was a regular haunt of Montreal’s english-speaking, movie-loving community. One day I explored some of the building’s hidden corners with the writer Dane Lanken (husband of Anna McGarrigle) for an article we worked on together for the theatre’s program. We felt a bit like Howard Carter when he discovered and opened the tomb of King Tut; upstairs in the wings behind the curtains we turned on a dim light to see painted hieroglyphics on the walls (at least those sections that hadn’t been covered with acoustic panelling) and a large mask of Tut high on a frieze â€" regrettably smashed through years before to allow for an air exhaust pipe to pass through the wall. Fragments of the plaster mask lay shattered on the floor. I think I still have a copy of a vaudeville program from the 30s that we found tossed with others down a stairwell in the adjoining office and dressing room wing. It was fantastic.

Best of luck with the project.

I read a newspaper article posted on Empress’s door that said they’d had to struggle to pay $400,000 (?) in backed taxes. They managed to save themselves at the 11th hour.

The Save the Empress Cultural Centre website is gone. Are they still waiting on funding or is this project dead?

Addendum to above: This afternoon the doors to the main building were opened when I happened to be passing by (no renovations are being done or even planned, but some volunteers were there clearing out some debris). I had a peek into what was once the theatre lobby…

Much to my disappointment it has been entirely gutted, presumably from damage from the fire in ‘92. The walls, floors and stairs are just bare concrete with exposed pipes and wiring on the ceiling. There was a strong dank and musty smell, even several feet away on the street. Chances are they’ll need to treat the building for mold contamination if it ever does reopen. I chatted briely with the head organizer and she confirmed most of the theatre has been stripped and gutted to the bare brick, although there are still some original seats in the upper balacony area and vintage moldings and architecture still intact in places—not all is lost.

One interesting thing I saw in the lobby. Look at the photograph link above, taken in 1989—I saw part of the original markee sign sitting there, specifically the white disc with red print that says “Cinema V: Salle 1”. Might make a nice collectable to someone out there heh. Incidentally the bricked up windows you see in the photograph (just above the markee) have been since restored. The bricks are gone and glass windows have been put back. Unfortunately the girl I spoke with didn’t seem optimistic about an opening anytime soon.

This site should be merged, it seems, with Cinema V-Salle Hermes & Empress. They all have the same address and may be the same theatre building.