Monday, December 26, 2005

Old Cinemas

For Christmas I was given Old Cinemas by Allen Eyles, 2005, Shire Books 357. The author also wrote Odeon Cinemas: Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation, 2001, BFI, which I also have. In York, we still have an Odeon Cinema on Blossom Street, and I'm particularly enamoured of it as it's brick. Fortunately, it's listed, and is still functioning as a cinema, but is becoming rather rundown. I don't know what will happen to this lovely brick building, so typical of its time, but since it's Grade II listed, I presume and hope it won't be knocked down. Lucky me, it's on the side of town where I live, and everytime I want to walk into the centre via Micklegate or catch a bus, I have to pass it.

Not long back, there was a campaign to ensure that the cinema would be kept open. I think I would be content that the building remain, but the building would obviously need to be used in some capacity. Much of the interior does not survive, though some of the doors are definitely 1930s.

Quite a few of the brick buildings I like best in York are actually from the 1930s, including a couple of brick built churches. One of them is English Martyr's Church on Dalton Terrace. Again, quite close to me, and beautifully Romanesque.

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