Ambassadors Theatre
625 Hay Street,
Perth,
WA
6000
625 Hay Street,
Perth,
WA
6000
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This site(on the ground floor) also includes Mecca Cosmetica(cosmetics store?) and West Elm(furniture and home decorstore).
The address for Pottery Barn is 625 Hay Street. and Pottery Barn For kids is 635 Hay Street.
Two of the stores there now are Pottery barn, and Pottery barn For kids. I don’t remember the names of the other three stores?
There is picture of the Ambassadors Theatre in the book “Lost Perth volume 2”(page 103) showing the outside of the theatre and most of the neon sign lit up at night. Judging by the title underneath the neon sign(State fair 1962 version), it must be no earlier than 1962!
There is s picture and articules about the auction in the Daily News newspaper(5/2/1972-page 5)and the West Australian(5/2/1972-pages 1 and 10). There is also an articule about the Ambassadors Theatre in the West Australian(Today section-2/6/2010-pages 6 and 7).
David, you are right, of course. Cinema Paradiso in James Street, Northbridge (one of the Luna Palace Cinemas) is an oasis! In my earlier post, I was trying to stress the fact that within the old CBD there are no longer any cinemas screening first releases.
There was an auction in the Ambassadors Theatre a few days after it closed! The Rooftop Movies is not the only operating cinema in the city,there is also Cinema paradiso,Moonlight outdoor picture gardens(in Kings Park,part of the year),Club X(formally barbarellas)after moving from the Savoy theatre to Barrack Street,and a picture gardens in East Perth(near Plain Street,across from Langley Park(I think?).),i don’t remember the name of the place,it only opened last year(I think?).
Since my last post, Perth’s CBD has become ‘cinema-less’. The Piccadilly Theatre closed its doors late in 2013, and was briefly used as a live performance venue for the hugely successful FRINGE WORLD Festival early in 2014. It has been ‘dark’ since. Ironically, the only ‘cinema’ now operating in the city is the pop-up Rooftop Movies on the top floor of a City of Perth carpark. It’s operated by Artrage, the parent body of FRINGE WORLD, and screens classic and recent releases from November through to March.
It’s hard to believe it’s now over 40 years since Perth’s mighty AMBASSADORS was demolished. Had it been preserved, it could well have become Perth’s long-awaited lyric theatre, hosting the big touring musicals. Instead, these go to a barn at the Crown Casino. But we chose to destroy it. As a society we had myopia – and, regrettably, greed for the fast buck. Not much has changed.
Greg Lynch said… For those who believe that theatres have souls I mourn the destruction and passing of the Ambassadors. As a youngster while working for 20th Century Fox, every Thursday I delivered the latest Movietone News-reel to Hoyts Ambassadors Theatre, then crossing opposite with a news-reel change to the wonderful Art Deco flagship known as the Hoyts Plaza Theatre. It was in the front stalls of the Ambassadors Theatre during 1954 that I first experienced Cinemascope & Sterophonic sound with the screening of “The Robe”. and now after a lifetime of working in the Motion Picture Industry I look back with warm appreciation to the Golden Era and know we have lost something very special with the passing of our wonderful Picture Palaces..Greg Lynch
The demise of Perth’s Ambassadors was regrettably a ‘landmark’ moment in the ‘progressive’ destruction of Perth’s architectural heritage that commenced in the late 1960s and continued well into the 1980s.
Very few of Perth’s citizens are aware today of the lost vibrancy of the central block of Hay Street due to the loss of its cinemas. This was before before it became a pedestrian mall, and this compact 180-metre stretch was, in the late 1960s/early 1970s, home to six cinemas – three on the north side (Piccadilly, Plaza, Savoy) and three on the south (Capri, Royal, Ambassadors). At around 10.30pm each evening, thousands of cinema goers would exit these cinemas, crowd the pavements and create a real sense that this was the true hub of entertainment in Western Australia’s capital.
In addition, nearby on William, Barrack and Murray Streets, cinema goers were exiting the Metro, Liberty and Grand theatres respectively. These nine cinemas collectively defined Perth after dark. Today, just one of these cinemas survives as an operating concern – The Piccadilly on Hay Street.
The loss of our Central Business District cinemas has robbed Perth of much of its vibrancy. And today, all of the CBD multi-screen complexes established from the mid-70s have also gone. It’s a sad reflection of today’s era where suburban multiplexes dominate, robbing the central city of what was once a vital component of its economic and social fabric.
Perth’s Ambassadors was one of three Eberson-inspired atmospheric picture palaces built by Australia’s Union Theatres Ltd in the late 1920s, the other two being Sydney’s Capitol (opened 7 April 1928) and Melbourne’s State (opened 23 February 1929). The architectural theme of The Ambassadors was that of a ‘Florentine renaissance garden’, complete with stuffed pigeons and peacocks imported from Durban in South Africa. A faithful replica of the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ was one of many artistic flourishes that made The Ambassadors a flamboyant experience for patrons.
I didn’t experience The Ambassadors until the late 1960s, by which time it had been long-stripped of most of its lavish decoration and statuary (by the Hoyts theatre chain which took it over c.1938). However, it was still a wonderfully atmospheric environment. One of the most poignant photographs depicting the demise of a picture palace was taken in 1972 during the early stages of The Ambassadors' demolition. Taken from the rear of the dress circle, a dramatic shaft of sunlight dissects the auditorium. This and other photographs of The Ambassadors can be found at:
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Barry in Perth
This theatre was called the Ambassadors Theatre,with the s,which I,m sure I put on the contribution.The sign on the exterior also said Ambassadors'.
atmos.