I took a drive past the Pantages Theatre at East Hastings and Main yesterday. It was pouring with rain and the Downtown Eastside looked even bleaker than normal, like something out of a Dostoevsky novel.
It’s hard to imagine that this skuzzy part of town was once the central business district, but go back a century and the Pantages was part of a thriving theatre district and downtown core.
The Pantages Theatre opened on Hastings Street in 1908 and was demolished in 2011.
Vaudeville
The Street Directories of 1908—the first time the Pantages Theatre appears by name—show the theatre surrounded by clothing companies, real estate offices and coffee houses.
Over the years, several groups have fought to save the former vaudeville theatre, one of a North American chain owned by Alexander Pantages. Our Pantages Theatre was the second that he built–his first opened in Seattle and no longer exists.
According to John Mackie the theatre was converted into a movie house in the late 1920s, and has gone by several names including the Royal, State, Queen, Avon, City Nights and the Sung Sing.
Demolition Order
This poor old pile of bricks has sat vacant since 1994—left to rot from the inside out. Attempts to hash out a deal with the city to restore the theatre failed, and to no one’s surprised, the city issued a demolition order last Thursday.
Heritage Vancouver calls it “demolition by neglect.”
You can’t see it from the street, but when I wandered down the back alley you can see the bulldozers have already pulled down everything behind the neighbouring buildings. What’s tragic is that there’s no development plan in place, we’ll be left with another gaping hole. Now it’s only a matter of days until it all comes down, and it will be just like it never was.
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15 comments on “The Pantages Theatre”
Not only ‘demolition by neglect,’ but ‘demolition by indecision’…
[…] started work as an usher at his cousin Alexander’s Pantages Theatre on Hastings Street. By 1929 he was running the Peter Pan Café on Granville with his three […]
[…] The Pantages for demolition of historic theatre and “Vancouver’s Highway to hell” for “historic cannery demolition, threat to archaeological and burial grounds.’ The South Fraser Perimeter Road […]
[…] But this one has a twist which is really impressive. Staff have recycled the bricks from the Pantages Theatre on Hastings Street—the one that died from neglect last year—and built an archway smack in the […]
Back in the mid ‘70s I worked part-time at the City Nights to defray UBC tuition. Double features were the stock in trade. After selling tickets for the first flick, I could hit the books knowing only a straggler or three might approach the wicket. Meanwhile, Debbie Vegsund got the popcorn and confections ready for intermission.
It really was a grand old place, but starting to come apart at the seams. Infiltrating moisture never sleeps. A feisty lady called Arlo Watson and her husband and brother-in-law owned the theatre and installed an operations manager named David.
Shortly before I quit to take a better gig at UBC’s main library, the theatre (i.e. yours truly in the box office) was held up. The perp got rattled and his gun went off. Luckily it was a pellet gun. Luckier still, the pellet went wild, whizzing by my ear.
What a great story! Thanks so much for dropping by and sharing it.
How could I forget! The projectionist at the City Nights was Dick Pantages. He was a descendant of the famous family that built the theatre, the ill-fated Vaudeville house down the street and similar showplaces around North America. In between reel changes, it was great to shoot the breeze with Dick. Even in winter, he always wore a white tee-shirt. The projection booth felt like a sauna from heat thrown off by the machinery. Verging on dangerous, too, as electrical arcs leapt off the apparatus! Down below, cinephiles and spliff-sneaking counterculturalists watched as edgy flicks like Zabriskie Point hit the screen.
[…] Pantages Theatre on East Hastings Street, 1973 (demolished 2011)Photo: Svend-Erik Eriksen […]
[…] Pantages Theatre […]
[…] up at Hastings and Granville, as was Fire Hall No. 2 on East Cordova, and the recently defunct Pantages Theatre would soon open as a 1,200 seat vaudeville theatre. Slogans on banners shouted out the benefits of […]
[…] week I wrote about the imminent destruction of the Pantages Theatre at Main and Hastings. The Pantages sat just two blocks east of the much larger Empress Theatre, […]
I leased the old Pantages Theatre from Quon Wong who had a real estate company on Pender St. I operated the theatre from the early to mid 70’s as City Nights Theatre (a takeoff from City Nights Bookstore in San Francisco). I was a draft dodger from Nebraska and came to Vancouver in 1969. I decided to show double feature movies that had some artistic merit for 99 cents. Occasionally, I would have live music with Danny Mack and the Cement City Cowboys. I also did John Gray’s musical “Salty Tears on a Hangnail Face” with Suzy Payne.
City Nights was profitable and I sold it about 1976 and moved with my wife Arlo to Austin to open the “Rome Inn”, an alt country nightclub featuring acts like Willie Nelson when he was in town, Doug Sahm and the Texas Tornadoes and weekly shows from a young Stevie Ray Vaughan along with a host of other talent from the Hill Country of Texas.
My ex-wife and friend Arlo currently lives in Detroit and I live in Las Vegas. Arlo and I talk once a week.
[…] books and even some of the original plaster that he managed to salvage on his daily trips to the Pantages Theatre during its destruction two years […]
[…] past blogs I’ve written about the Strand, the Pantages and the Empress–all theatres that once existed in downtown Vancouver, but have long since […]
[…] East Hastings Street, was designed by Emil Guenther and built for Arthur Clemes, who also owned the Pantages Theatre next […]