Cine Royal
107 Calle Cristo,
San Juan
00907
107 Calle Cristo,
San Juan
00907
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Showing 1 - 25 of 32 comments
The photo is on the wall of this page on facebook
http://www.facebook.com/artdecopr
http://www.facebook.com/groups/309865805522/?id=10150746841360523
Ms. Bernier is having an event at Archivo General de Puerto Rico about the PR’s old theaters.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=214813871898998
How come most of them have been demolished?
[Reposting] Based on my own memories of Old San Juan as well as my mother’s (she grew up in the city), these were the area theaters:
Royal – San Justo Street, close to the corner with San Francisco Street.
Rialto – corner of San Francisco and Tanca Streets. Ended up as an X-rated theater before closing down and reopening as a Burger King.
Cine Luna – Luna Street (of course).
Roxy – Cruz Street, close to the old Gonzalez Padin department store. It was replaced by a Chinese restaurant that later burned down.
Tres Banderas – Recinto Sur Street, across (I think) from the “Dona Fela” parking garage. Demolished.
Ok, one more try. Is it this one?
View link
I just discovered this website from Puerto Rico. In the section Historia del cine en Puerto Rico they mention the buiding of the first island cinemas including the Tres Banderas.
http://www.Cinemovida.net/
I am guessing, but maybe the same owner of the Tres Banderas built the one in Villa Palmeras after the Old San Juan theatre was demolished. Among the theaters in Villa Palmeras there was the Imperial. One of the two had a beautiful facade, I don’t remember which. In the 60s they played both Spanish and English speaking movies in second run since at the time they were “cines de barrio”, neighborhood houses.
Here is a link of a Website dedicated to Calos Gardel. Beautiful pics of several theaters and I think here is a more accurate account of the theaters and locations:
View link
Hi AGR and rrstar96. If the site of “Fundacion Nacional para la Cultura Popular” is correct, there was a Teatro Tres Banderas in Old San Juan. The article in the site was written in 2004 and talks about an upcoming play regarding the life of Carlos Gardel. During the article, the authors made a historial reference of the only time Gardel visited Puerto Rico (brought by United Theaters and Rafael Ramos Cobian. His tour around the island started on April 3, 1935 at the Parmount Theater in Santurce and also he performed twice on April 12 in Teatro Tres Banderas at the Old San Juan and in Teatro Victoria in Rio Piedras. Here is the link for the article:
View link
That segment of the article is interesting because they talked about several theaters and their locations in terms of municipalities or sectors in the Metropolitan area. Eventhough the article claims that Teatro Liberty was in Rio Piedras (if that theater was the one who became the Lorraine, then his correct location is Santurce), the same goes with Teatro Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras in the article, Santurce to my best knowledge) and Teatro San Jose (Rio Piedras in the article, Calle Loiza in Condado if I’m not mistaken).
If I remember my mother’s stories correctly, the Tres Banderas was eventually demolished.
I could be wrong, rrstar, is just that the actual buildings don’t look like a theater building was there. My understading is that those buildings predate the 30’s but, again, I could be wrong.
Regarding the Tres Banderas, I can only base myself on my mother’s recollections of Old San Juan theaters, and we’re talking the 1930s here.
rrstar, I was in the film business in PR for many years and there was no Tres Banderas on Recinto Sur. I did not live in Old San Juan but my girlfriend did, at Edificio Plaza on Plaza de Armas, so I know the neighborhood well. Recinto Sur in the area of “Doña Fela’s” parking is the way it was for many many years. A bank on the corner of Tanca or whatever the street that goes up to Plaza the Armas is called, and all those buildings where we now have restaurants. No movie house there, believe me.
There might have been a Tres Banderas in Barrio Obrero, but my mother, who grew up in Old San Juan, remembers there was also one located on Recinto Sur Street. She also remembers a fellow with a limp who would walk around her neighborhood announcing the theater’s showings that day (“Today at the Tres Banderas! Today at the Tres Banderas!…..”).
The Tres Banderas was in Barrio Obrero. It was owned by the first wife of Rafael Ramos Cobián, Rita. He gave the theater to her together with the Paramount in Santurce and the Imperial and Borinquen also in Barrio Obrero as part of their divorce settlement. Cobián and Commonwealth Theaters leased the Paramount from her for $2000 a week, and her second husband, Jorge, operated the concession stand. The Paramount was the top money making cinema in PR, grossing an average of $12,000 a week and sometimes as much as $15,000 and $16,000 a week, a lot of money in the 1960’s. More than once, Cobián told me that one of his biggest mistakes was giving the Paramount to his first wife as part of the divorce settlement. After Commonwealth was sold to Wometco, Rita took the theater back and was managed and booked by Junior Cobián, a former VP at Commonwealth. Eventually Junior leased it to United Artists when UA opened the Cinema 150. UA tripled it and as we all know it was eventually closed and is now in the process of renovation.
Gracias Davsot, pero como hemos comentado aquà cremos que es el Royal. No recuerdo haber visto el Luna, solo he oido hablar de el. Creo debemos comentar en inglés para beneficio de todos los miembros de CT. Saludos.
¿Será el de la foto que yo traje? (trage?)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davsot/4229465249/
Lo siento, el Luna seria el cuarto cine de SJ ya que se han mencionado tres. Alguien tiene informacion sobre si habia un Cine Luna?
@Bob Jensen: One of the reason most theaters don’t have an address is because it’s hard to find listed addresses. How would one normally find the address to an abandoned building? when neighboring buildings don’t publicly display their addresses.
No estoy seguro, ¿pero el tercero no era el Cine Luna? No creo que era en la Calle Luna pues en enero pasé varias veces por la luna en auto para regresar a Santurce y no recuerdo un edificio que pareciera que en una época hubo un cine en esa calle, ¿Alguien sabe?
A friend on flickr said THIS:
Habian 3 cines en el Viejo San Juan….el Rialto en la San Franscisco (ahora es un Burger King!). Otro era el Royal a la veulta de la esquina de donde esta La Bombonera y un tercero que no me acuerdo el nombre en una de las calles entre la San Francisco y la calle Fortaleza.
WHY WE NEED AN ADDRESS?
See the confusion above!
Puerto Rico has 60 theaters listed on Cinema Treasures, only about 10 have an address, I’ll bet no one reading this would be able to find all of the theaters or their former sites, and that’s a shame, all because we don’t have the address. We don’t even know if some of the buildings are standing or if we should be fighting to save them.
This sort of willy nilly way of knowing about these theaters is not going to be of much use to anybody when all us old timers kick the bucket!
I also have the names of about 70 more theaters that are not even listed on Cinema Treasures.
Besides, lets get with the modern times, the next time I come to Puerto Rico, let me enter every theater address in my GPS and let me see all the these wonderful theaters!
The photo I posted is NOT the theater on this page.
I wanted to know what it was…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davsot/4229465249/
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/30404258
Chuch1231: Glad to see an address, but I’m confused, is this for the photo of the store or Cine Royal, I’m Guessing Cine Royal.
It is however 3 blocks over from San Justo?
When I type the address you give in the google map the closest it comes up with is
107 Cll Del Cristo
00901
They add the Del and change the ZIP, I don’t know if that’s important?
I don’t know if the theater still stands, but the areial photo shows a large church near 107 Cll Del Cristo, do you know if the theater was near that church?
I just clicked on the map above and don’t think is San Justo. It may be Cruz St., don’t know. The map is confusing. Plaza de Armas is not on the Paseo de la Princesa and Plaza de la Catedral is on Cristo St., not were it appears on the map.
Oops!!!! The intro above says Calle San Justo. Why are we wondering were it is? And why do we need the street number? The theater is there, on San Justo, just before Fortaleza.