Ken’s Bygone Sandy Hill

Building, saving, and now preserving the ByTowne

Beloved cinema receives important designation

Ken Clavette

Sandy Hill is getting a new heritage designation for one of its buildings. It’s not a home that belonged to one of the upper crust of our community or one that was designed by a famous architect. It is the ByTowne Cinema, once the Nelson Theatre. A building that is connected to the community and to our bygone days.

In February 1947 Mayor Stanley Lewis cut the ribbon on a new theatre on Rideau Street. The Ottawa Journal reported him recalling the days when as a boy he used to “play over backyard fences in this very spot.” He added, “This is not intended as encouragement to children to play over backyard fences; they might get to be mayor too.” A highlight of the opening ceremonies was the mayor’s presentation of a $100 cash prize to the winner of the Theatre Name Selection Contest. Assisting the mayor in cutting a ribbon to raise the curtain was Mrs. H.J. Goyette of 70 Henderson Ave (home still standing). Her suggestion of the “Nelson” was chosen out of more than 4000 suggested names.

The lot at 319 Rideau where the theatre sits was, The Ottawa Journal believed, the oldest home on Rideau Street, built in 1850. It had served as a confectionery and grocery store before the Berlin family operated the “Star Cleaners and Dyers” in it. In 1945 Hyman Berlin obtained a building permit for a new theatre. The theatre was managed by his brother Morris who ten years earlier had opened the Somerset Theatre near Bank St. He told reporters, “We selected this site because we felt a theatre was needed in the Sandy Hill district.” It has served our neighbourhood well for the past 78 years.

In giving the building a heritage designation, the report to council provided the following justifications: “The property has historical value or associative value because it demonstrates or reflects the work or ideas of an architect, artist, builder, designer or theorist who is significant to a community.”

The theatre was designed by Toronto architects Harold Solomon Kaplan (1895-1973) and Abraham Sprachman (1894-1971) who were notable for designing many movie theatres across Canada in the 20th century, as well as significant buildings for the Jewish community. The theatre is in the “Moderne style” characterized by streamlined surfaces and a lighted marquee. Once ubiquitous outside movie theatres, the ByTowne marquee is now the last remaining one in the city. All others are gone, along with the theatres that sported them.

The Berlin family ran the theatre for five years before renting it to the Famous Players theatre chain. It prominently advertised that the theatre was air-conditioned, a great selling point in Ottawa’s humid summers. The cinema found a niche market as movie houses competed with TV and later the development of small-screen cinemas that came on the scene in the late 1970s. With its large 70-mm screen, the Nelson would host block-buster epic films: Ben Hur, Apocalypse Now, Hair, 2001 Space Odyssey, Jaws, Dune, and The Exorcist. I remember lining up around the corner onto King Edward with friends to get into that last movie in 1974. It was restricted to age 18 which I would not be until many months later. Ushers were provided smelling salts, and religious groups leafleted outside.

As the large movie chains retreated to the small-screen multiplexes in the suburbs, they shuttered their larger downtown theatres. Lease agreements prevented them from being used as movie theatres after they left, and we lost them one by one. But since the lease on the Nelson dated to the 1950s, that clause had not been included.

In 1988 when Famous Players departed, in stepped Bruce White and Jean Cloutier who were operating the trendy “Towne” repertory cinema in New Edinburgh. The Berlin family sold them the Nelson, and it became the “ByTowne” —just in time, as redevelopment on Beechwood closed the Towne. Independent, Canadian, and foreign films found a home in Ottawa at the theatre as did film festivals. Local groups used the theatre for fundraising events.

In 2020 the effects of the COVID pandemic caused a temporary closure. The ByTowne was purchased by Daniel Demois and Andy Willick and reopened in 2021 under the same name. I reached out to the theatre to get their response to the designation. They are welcoming the news that the theatre is being recognized for its cultural and architectural importance in Ottawa.
“This designation under the Ontario Heritage Act will help preserve the cinema for future generations, reflecting our community’s dedication to the arts.” The owners say they are “encouraged by, and grateful for, this recognition. As we celebrate this announcement, we look forward to the ByTowne Cinema continuing to inspire and entertain audiences for many years to come.”

You can learn more about Ottawa’s movie theatre history in the book A Theatre Near You: 150 Years of Going to the Show in Ottawa-Gatineau by Alain Miguelez, or online at https://urbsite.blogspot.com/2016/02/coming-soon.html