Nickel Theatre, Movie theater in St. John's, Canada.
The Nickel Theatre was a cinema occupying the top floor of the Benevolent Irish Society building at 48 Queen's Road in St. John's, Newfoundland. The hall held around 1,000 chairs that were manufactured at a furniture factory in Fortune.
The theater opened on July 1, 1907, and was Newfoundland's first cinema, part of B.F. Keith's chain that spread across Eastern Canada. This made St. John's a hub for early film culture in the region.
The theater was deeply embedded in the local community and respected the Roman Catholic Church's traditions, which prohibited film screenings during Lent. This practice shaped the programming and showed how central the cinema was to the rhythm of city life.
The building sits in a central location in St. John's and is easily reached via Queen's Road, where it remains a recognizable landmark in the downtown area. Visitors can view the exterior architecture and building facade, though the venue no longer operates as a cinema.
J.P. Kiely, a survivor of the SS Florizel maritime disaster, managed the theater from its opening until its closure in 1960. His personal story links the cinema's history with a major event from the city's seafaring past.
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