Astor Cinema being demolished
The Astor Cinema is to be demolished soon (Samuel Maughn photo)
The Astor Cinema is to be demolished soon (Samuel Maughn photo)

…Discount Store new owner of property

THE Church Street landscape, which featured the Astor Cinema for many decades, is soon to be changed considerably with ongoing demolition works which started last week.

Manager of the Discount Store located at Lot 102 Regent Street, Georgetown, Ms. Sariah Khan confirmed to the Guyana Chronicle on Thursday that they are the new owners of the ‘cinema land.’
Located at Lot 189 Church and Waterloo Streets, Astor was the last cinema in the city to close its doors, which it did in early 2013, after more than 70 years of being in the movie business.
Khan said the new owners do not know for sure if they will be erecting another ‘Discount’ store at this location. “It is undecided at the moment what we will do with the land,” she offered.
After demolition work started, Khan said they had invited the public, including persons from churches and masjids, etc. to visit the location and take, for free, whatever they wanted. “Sometimes it’s good to give back to charity,” she observed.
The sad news of the cinema’s closing was announced via a ‘For Sale or Rent’ sign on the building in April 2013.
Managing Director of the cinema, Mr. Desmond Woon, who served in this capacity for decades, often appeared quite emotional when having to talk about the cinema’s closing. In the past, he always referred the press to contact the other owners in Trinidad for comments.
Despite many cinemas in Guyana choosing to shut their doors, the Astor Cinema stood out for its perseverance against the odds. It stood its ground and managed to survive longer than the rest.
Many agree that it was a unique experience being in the Astor Cinema with its full stereo surround sound and its convenient little canteen that always featured a hot puri and egg ball with sour. A diligent effort was also made to keep the surroundings clean and tidy.
Veteran entertainer Cyril Shaw, in an article published in this newspaper back in 2000, made a few observations about the Astor.
Among the things he mentioned were that this cinema carried ‘full houses’ on opening nights, and managed to attract diverse audiences.
Astor opened its doors with the premiere boxing movie ‘Golden Boy’, starring William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck, which ran with a full house for four days!
Astor not only provided the best in movie entertainment, it also carried news from the outside as well as local news on film clips, and gave us vaudeville shows wherein some of the world’s top performers made their early performances. These included the Mighty Sparrow, Madame O’Lindy, Lord Kitchener, and Small Island Pride.
The first known Broadway star to come to Guyana, Lawrence Winters, performed at the Astor in the late 1940s.
“Whenever you go to a video store and rent a pirated movie, stop and think…about the booming cinema industry in other countries, and the good old days when you lined up for hours to purchase a ticket to see ‘Jaws’ or ‘Saturday Night Fever’ at the same time as the rest of the world,” Shaw advised in the article.
Other popular cinemas, all closed now, included the Star Cinema which was located at La Penitence Street, Albouystown; The Globe Cinema on Church Street, opposite the Astor Cinema; Metropole Cinema at Wellington and Robb Streets; The Plaza in Camp Street; The Strand in Charlotte Street; The Empire in Middle Street, and the once most popular Liberty, located on Vlissengen Road and Garnett Street in Newtown.

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