In the Maritime Center there is a window display of a magnificent building that was the Capital. I moved to Halifax years after it was gone. This smallish display shows the incredible beauty of lost architecture. I won’t go into what replaced it; no need. I would like to suggest that somebody, or a bunch of them; push to have this building brought back. Crowd fund! Big time! —Bring back the Capital Theatre
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2016.
Not going to happen. The beautiful architecture of that era will never be recreated in modern buildings. Nobody wants to pay what it would cost.
A better idea is to support the Oxford Theatre, a lovely building, to ensure that it continues as a working cinema. Keep an eye on their schedule and go see movies there. That will work.
Yes the interior of the Capitol theatre was beautiful. However, the exterior was not all that exciting, other than the sign and marquee, as it was part of a four story office building. But it would certainly take a huge amount of money to recreate the interior now, especially if using similar quality materials that were in the old one. And sadly there would probably not be a good return on the investment, though I am sure many people would love to see it, but would they visit it enough to make it work financially? Some cities were able to save old theatres and refurbish them and have enough people going to various events to make it viable, but that would be very difficult if having to fully rebuild one.
Meanwhile if you have not seen it there is a book called Remembering the Halifax Capitol Theatre 1930 – 1974 compiled by Cynthia A. Henry available in the Local History collection of the Central library on Spring Garden Rd.
It fell into disrepair and ended up showing B-grade movies. Now it’s a parking lot.
A parking lot CB? Actually the Maritime Centre is where the Capitol used to be located.
Oh! What were the two theatres on Gottingen? I thought they were the Vogue and the Capitol; the Vogue now Global TV and the Capitol is the emptype (parking) lot… my how the mind goes… too much “Amsterdam” hehehe….
The Cove and the Casino were the two theatres on Gottingen, back in the 80’s. I think the Cove would occasionally screen softcore porno.
First of all, it’s the ‘Capitol’ theatre, not the ‘Capital’. Secondly, multiplexes killed theatres like the Capitol. As beautiful as the old place was, what’s past is past. Let it go.
Hey CB cheers to Amsterdam and all that, yeppers. Back in the 60s on Gottingen was the Vogue and Casino, then the Vogue had other names later on.