Metro Theatre

Joe Vogel on May 28, 2017 at 1:58 am

Mike, I think your photo depicted the Metro Theatre in Durban, a handsome Art Deco house from Thomas Lamb’s office.

Joe Vogel on May 27, 2017 at 10:12 pm

OTCF is correct. Compare the theater facade in the general view of St. George’s Street I linked to in my previous comment. It’s a different building than the one in the photo Mike_Blakemore uploaded last June. Also the marquee of the Metro in Mike’s photo advertises a 1937 movie, and at that time this house was still called the Plaza.

Joe Vogel on August 21, 2014 at 8:46 pm

Because these blocks of St. George’s Mall and Waterkant Street were inaccessible to Google’s camera car there is no good street view of the site of the Metro Theatre. If you look southwest along the Mall from Riebeek Street, the African Bank on the right is at 6 St. George’s Mall, so the Metro’s site was under the footprint of the gray concrete building just beyond it, which extends to the corner of Waterkant Street. The Colosseum Theatre was across the mall from the African Bank building, so this block had two of Cape Town’s movie palaces.

The only photo I can find showing the Metro is this general view of St. George’s Street, probably taken around 1950m lookingsouthwest from a block northeast of Riebeek Street. The Metro is on the right in the second block. On the left side of the street the first four letters on the Colosseum’s vertical sign can be seen.