Chapters Runnymede 1998-2014

On February 16, 2014, the Chapters location at 2223 Bloor Street West in Toronto's Bloor West Village will shut its doors for the last time. Opened in 1998 in the space previously occupied by Famous Players' stacked Runnymede Theatre, Chapters managed a rare feat in that it was able to turn anti-big-box NIMBY-ism around and at the same time create a cultural hub for the upscale, still-Ukrainian-flavoured neighbourhood.

There have been numerous articles written about the building's history, contentious present, and future as a big-box pill pusher, but after an hour strolling through the racks, shooting its historical remnants and buying a souvenir of it's all-too-brief tenure as a literary (and plush toy) mecca, I'm left sad for the neighbourhood, yet hopeful that smaller retailers can take up the cause and fill spaces left by Chapters and Book City, which itself left Bloor West Village in 2012.

Photos taken on February 11, 2014 near the corner of Bloor Street West and Runnymede Road in Toronto, Ontario.

Other posts on defunct theatres in Toronto:
Westwood Theatre
The Roxy/Allenby (prior to its resurrection as a Tim Hortons/Esso

and one which got resurrected as an actual movie theatre...
The Kingsway

The Wiltern

In the heart of Los Angeles' Koreatown sits the Wiltern Theater and above it rises the Pellissier Building. Named for the famous corner it sits on, Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue, this 1931 Art Deco masterpiece was built originally to stage vaudeville acts as the Western Theater, but was renamed Wiltern after a brief dark period in the mid 1930s. Currently, it serves as a major mid-level live theatre venue and glorious reminder of LA's architectural past.

Photos taken at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue, Los Angeles, California on January 11, 2012.

Not Playing (2010)

Not to be confused with my famous 2006 post on the defunct Famous Players Westwood (which really hasn't changed much in the interim four years), this one deals with an unfortunately failed attempt by AMC Theaters to develop a twin-screen cinema in the downtown of Seahaven, I mean Celebration, Florida, the master-planned and developed-by-Disney town just south of Walt Disney World. My wife and I saw "King Kong" there back in 2005 and it was a rather special experience, albeit in a prefab kind of way. Wandering the streets afterwards at 1am was also a rather surreal experience.

Photos taken about 2 weeks too late on December 5, 2010 (with a bonus from December 19, 2005) in Celebration, FL

The Beach

Photos taken Saturday, March 15, 2008 in east end Toronto, Ontario.

Ham's Sam's

Whilst en route to see Sloan in Port Colborne back in August 2003, we drove through downtown Hamilton to take a look around and see just how things were looking in an everybody-now-shops-at-Lime Ridge world. The results were rather depressing.

For me, one of the major reasons for my depression was the hollow shell of what used to be the Tivoli Theatre and the Sam's outlet which had relocated a few years prior from their more logical King Street location. The relocation was an attempt to bring new life to a stretch of James Street which had been slowly declining for years. As with most attempts like this, and the opening of the kitty-cornered Hamilton Eaton Centre, people stayed away in droves, leaving behind a bad idea with a pretty cool sign.


The Hamilton Sam's was an ambitious kid-brother to the Toronto flagship store. It had a second floor devoted to Jazz and Classical music (although they really needed air conditioning up there), as well as an entire room dedicated to Country/Folk/Traditional music, nodding to the 820 CHAM crowd. The design of the store resembled a faux-50s-diner, which suited the brand and the store just fine, since Sam's itself is rather anachronistic icon of Canadian music retail. Why NOT embrace a 'heritage' style?

Slowly, the store began to shrink. On my last visit, the second floor was closed and most of the non-pop music was crammed in the main part of the store, while the pop stacks were in the former Country section. The selection was much thinner than it was at its opening, and the sale racks seemed to be full of deleted titles, rather than deals on recent releases.



Photos taken Saturday, August 2, 2003 in Hamilton, Ontario.

In late 2004, the collapse of the theatre's lobby expedited the demolition of both the theatre and the former store, leaving yet another hole in downtown Hamilton. A sidebar story which doesn't mention Sam's in particular, but which chronicles the 'devolution' of downtown Hamilton is here:

http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Render&c=Page&cid=1021025161885


Photo taken Monday, June 19, 2006 in Hamilton, Ontario.

At The Drive In

On the border between Port Hope and Cobourg, Ontario is an anchronism. The Port Hope Drive-In, located ironically on the Cobourg side of Theatre Road, still pumps out the latest and greatest (?) two-at-a-time, every weekend. During the day, though.... you'd swear that the last customers they had were decades ago...

Field of Film

Playing Now

Screening Room

Snacks

Speakers Corner

Sadly, the equally-old-school 2-screen Park Theatre, located in downtown Cobourg hasn't survived the changing times. Closed as a cinema since the early 90s, it was briefly resurrected as the Alcatraz Night (Nite?) Club before finally going dark for good.

Photos taken Saturday, April 21, 2007 in Cobourg, Ontario.