Cine City, Withington

Cine City, originally named the Scala Cinema, was a cinema located at 494 Wilmslow Road in Withington, Manchester, England. It opened around 1912 as The Scala and was the third cinema to open in Britain. At its peak in the 1930s, it was one of 109 cinemas in Manchester. The cinema survived minor damage during the Manchester Blitz in 1940 when a small bomb fell on Wilmslow Road in front of the building. After World War II, television led to a decline in cinema attendance, and by 1965 only 40 cinemas remained in Manchester. In the 1970s, The Scala was renamed Cine City and its single-screen auditorium was divided into three screens. The cinema closed in July 2001, making it the third-longest running cinema in England. After closure, the building fell into disrepair and was threatened with demolition. Despite campaigns to save it, the building was demolished in spring 2008, and a new residential building was constructed on the site. The pair of stone piers in the forecourt, Grade II listed in 1998, remain.

Cine City, originally named the Scala Cinema, was a cinema in Withington, Manchester, England, located at 494 Wilmslow Road. It is thought to have opened around 1912 as The Scala. A company called The Scala Electric Palace (Withington) Ltd was registered in 1912, and in the 1914 Yearbook of Kinematograph Weekly the cinema is listed as having opened in January 1913 as The Scala Picturedrome. It was the third cinema to open in Britain, and by the time of its closure in 2001 it was the third longest-running cinema in the country. Its original single-screen auditorium had been fitted with 675 seats. Before the advent of "talkies", the Scala had a resident female cinema pianist, and the conductor Sir John Barbirolli once played the piano to accompany the silent films. Violet Carson, who went on to play Ena Sharples in Coronation Street, was also a resident pianist. During the 1930s the popularity of the new "picture houses" grew rapidly, with 109 in Manchester at its peak. Many people visited The Scala three or four times a week. The craze for cinema-going was seen by some as a social ill of its time; school teachers complained that pupils were not doing their homework because they were spending too much time at the cinema. One regular movie-goer at the cinema in the 1920s was Robert Donat, a child at the time, who went on to become an Oscar-winning actor. Howard Spring, a novelist who was based in Manchester, once described it as "the most comfortable cinema in the country". During the Manchester Blitz of World War II, a small bomb fell onto Wilmslow Road in front of the cinema on the night of 1 October 1940. The cinema (which at the time was screening The Housekeeper's Daughter and 5th Ave Girl) survived with minor damage, although it had to close for a few weeks while repairs were completed. During the 1950s, the Scala was frequented by the American writer Daniel Ford, then a student at the University of Manchester. In his autobiographical work, Poland's Daughter: How I Met Basia, Hitchhiked to Italy, and Learned About Love, War, and Exile, Ford describes sitting in the smoke-filled auditorium watching films starring Dirk Bogarde, Jack Hawkins and Alec Guinness. After the war, the popularity of cinemas waned as more people acquired televisions, and by 1965 there were only 40 cinemas left in Manchester. During the 1970s, The Scala was renamed Cine City and its single-screen auditorium was divided into three cinema screens. In 1991, Cine City was used as a filming location for Episode 3324 of Coronation Street. Early in his career, film writer Mark Kermode visited Cine City, and in his book, The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex, he reminisces about seeing Jaws 3-D there. In May 1996 a plaque at Manchester's oldest cinema was unveiled by Caroline Aherne, recognising Violet Carson and John Barbirolli, who both played piano accompaniment to silent films in the cinema in the 1920s. Cine City was threatened with closure in 1997 when Geoff Henshaw, the owner at the time, died. It was purchased for around £200,000 by David Babsky, who kept the cinema open until July 2001, when it closed due to competition from a new multiplex cinema in nearby East Didsbury. After the cinema closed, it was purchased by Develop UK, and several attempts were made to turn the building into a Wetherspoons pub. However these were rejected by the council twice, once in the initial planning application, and also in a subsequent appeal. The application was denied due to the moratorium on new food and drink licences in Withington, part of the town's unitary development plan. In 2002 the building was purchased by Arrows International. They applied for planning permission in December 2002 to demolish part of the cinema, reconstructing it as five ground floor shops, with 21 flats on the upper floors. These plans were withdrawn as they were seen as overdeveloping the site. In 2003 the site was purchased by property developer Mohammad Jamil, who runs the Britannia Property Group. When they purchased the site, Cine City was regarded as "too far gone", so it was decided that it should be demolished and a new building constructed in its place. A campaign to save the building was started in 2002 by the actor and comedian John Thomson, but it ended in failure six years later, when it was realised that refurbishing the existing building would cost around £6 million. As of 2005, the building still retained a number of original features, including its gold brocade seats, wall friezes, cornices, and ceiling roses. However, the fabric of the building remained in a poor state of repair, and in January 2008 it was announced once again that the building was to be demolished, and scaffolding was erected at the front in preparation. The building, once considered amongst the most iconic in Manchester, was not regarded as architecturally interesting, and was demolished in the spring of 2008. The pair of stone piers in the forecourt of the building, which were Grade II listed in 1998, remain. Plans for a new building on the site went through several iterations. The first design consisted of a six-…

• 2008

  Demolished in spring; new residential building constructed on site.

• 2003

  Site purchased by property developer Mohammad Jamil (Britannia Property Group).

• 2002

  Purchased by Arrows International; campaign to save building started by John Thomson.

• 2001

  Closed in July due to competition from a new multiplex in East Didsbury.

• 1998

  Stone piers in forecourt Grade II listed.

• 1997

  Threatened with closure when owner Geoff Henshaw died; purchased by David Babsky.

• 1996

  Plaque unveiled by Caroline Aherne recognising Violet Carson and John Barbirolli.

• 1991

  Used as a filming location for Episode 3324 of Coronation Street.

• 1970

  Renamed Cine City and single-screen auditorium divided into three screens.

• 1940

  Survived minor damage during Manchester Blitz when a bomb fell on Wilmslow Road in front of the cinema.

• 1913

  Listed in 1914 Kinematograph Weekly Yearbook as opened January 1913 as The Scala Picturedrome.

• 1912

  Opened as The Scala; The Scala Electric Palace (Withington) Ltd registered.

Historic local cinema and one of Britain's earliest picture houses.

Product categories. Cinema screenings · Silent film accompaniment · Film screenings

1. 1Cine City, Withington - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
2. 2Cine City, Withington - Wikidatawikidata.org