Famous News (Sep-Oct 1981)

Spacious main lobby on the second level of Palace 6 showing the large confection counter. A view from the front of Cinema 6 which has 344 luxurious seats and colourful wall decoration. Street. All theatre auditoria have seating areas allocated to wheelchairs. A special hearing-aid sound system, called AMPLISOUND, will soon be installed in all six cinémas for the hard-of-hearing to enjoy films at the ‘‘Palace 6’’. Anyone wishing to use the AmpliSound system must bring a pocket radio with an earplug jack (for use with their earplug or telephone function hearing aid), to the theatre. Then they tune into the frequency that is posted in front of each cinéma and the audio comes through on their radio. The front entrance on St. Catherine Street has bronze anodiz ed aluminum facing with bronze tinted plate glass and a re-faced marquee with aluminum and running lights. Read-o-graph signs have been installed on St. Catherine Street and Cathcart Street. The underside of the marquee features directory signs; manufactured and installed by National Advertising Signs Ltd. The new six-cinéma complex is on three levels. A new entrance was made on Cathcart Street where the Palace has long offered a plain brick wall. It opens onto four mini cinémas ... No. 3 has 225 seats; No. 4 has 235; No. 5 has 235 and No. 6 has 344 seats. Escalators, stairways and elevators move the public upwards to the main lobby and the upper theatre lounge which has a view of the entrance from St. Catherine Street and at the opposite end, a view of Cathcart Street. Running the length of the building and reached from this upper lobby are two major auditoria, Cinéma | seating 596 and Cinéma 2 seating 450. Total seating capacity being 2085. A sprinkler system has been built into the ‘‘new’’ building and a high degree of comfort has been introduced by the several lounge areas; theatre seats; locations of concessions; washrooms for the handicapped and a closed circuit TV system to allow for crowd control and safety. The interior decor and design started with the colors of the house carpet, red and brown. All the walls of the theatres having different color schemes, are keyed into reds and browns. Brown quarry tile and bronze anodized aluminum and red and white sign lettering begin at the entrances and lead to lobbies and lounges in which red hues predominate with dark brown accents. Directional graphics at entrances and lobbies point the way to the different cinémas. These graphics are on plexiglas panels attached to the walls and this theme is taken up in photograph blowups of International and Canadian/Québecois actors and actresses on plexiglas. Mirror tiles are used on wall and ceiling areas — especially at entrances and concession counters; brass space frames, hold lighting fixtures or planter boxes; white acoustic tile, sectional metal ceilings, and warm-toned sodium lighting complete the interior design picture. Saul Berkowitz, a Montréal architect, was in charge of the multimillion dollar project. His firm, Eliasoph and Berkowitz, have designed several other cinémas in the Montréal area including Dorval Cinémas, Versailles and LaCité, the new addition to the Kent Cinémas and the renovation of the ‘‘new”’ Imperial Cinéma. Kostas Kouzounas has been appointed manager of the new sixplex. He was formerly manager of Cinémas Le Parisien and Cinémas Laval. ® September/October, 1981 11