Picture palace

There used to be a very fancy cinema in Tooting, with the interior made mainly of papier-mâché, which is probably a listed building and presently functions as a bingo hall. It earned a passing mention on April 17th 2011 in the other place. I can't find anything better, so perhaps it was a long time ago that we paid the place a visit on some heritage open day or other.

Yesterday, the NYRB told me about an even grander place, the Michigan Theatre in Detroit, built at roughly the same time (1927) to hold 4,500 cinema goers at a time. Despite being fairly outrageously ornate inside, it seems to look much like any other office block from the outside, which is what most of it still is, with the theatre part converted into a car park, as illustrated.

Maybe someone has written a pamphlet about the rise and fall of giant & lavish cinemas of this sort, a rise and fall which took less than fifty years to accomplish. A very short life compared to cathedrals and fairly short compared with railway stations. Or even the science  museum (see 29th June). Perhaps such venues have been superseded, sociologically speaking, by our millennium tent (see http://www.theo2.co.uk/) and such like places.

Google turns up lots more pictures when prompted by 'michigan theatre detroit'. Clearly a place worth a visit if one is ever in Detroit. Furthermore, according to Wikipedia, the Michigan Theater was built on the site of the small garage where Henry Ford built his first automobile (the garage was transported brick by brick to The Henry Ford Museum in nearby Dearborn). A truly historic site.