FIRST - Site of Toronto's First Moving Picture Show - Toronto, ON
Posted by: ras258
N 43° 39.013 W 079° 22.692
17T E 630788 N 4834302
Toronto's first moving picture show was shown at this location in 1896.
Waymark Code: WMCY8F
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 10/25/2011
Views: 26
It must have been like magic to see the first moving pictures here in 1896. Even though the movies were less than a minute long they were something new. This brown oval plaque tells of the first time moving pictures were shown here in Toronto and the reaction they received.
The plaque reads:
"Site of Toronto's First Moving Picture Show
On August 31, 1896, a series of films running less than a minute each was projected from a "Vitascope" invented by Thomas Edison at Robinson's Musee Theatre on this site. On the next day, the Toronto World reported that the "...machine projects apparently living figures and scenes on a canvas screen...it baffles analysis and delights immense audiences." Known as a "dime museum" (admission was ten cents), Robinson's Musee had opened in December 1890 and featured jugglers, magicians, and aerialists; a curio shop and waxworks on the second floor and an animal menagerie on the roof. The building changed hands several times, eventually becoming, in 1899, the first location of Shea's Theatre (later situated on Bay Street). It was destroyed by fire in 1905.
Toronto Historical Board, 1996"
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visit link)
You will find this plaque, facing Yonge street, on a pillar at 1 Adelaide Street East which is the southeast corner of Adelaide Street East and Yonge Street. in downtown Toronto.
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