1910
“One-storey brick theatorium” Bloor Palace is built, part of the neighbourhood’s wave of development around when this section of Bloor St. was paved.
1937
Paradise born
Paradise Theatre is born, built in the Art Deco and Art Moderne styles under the direction of one of Toronto’s earliest practising Jewish architects, Benjamin Brown. The new venue had 643 seats, including a balcony where you could “smoke if you wish.”
1957
A decade of frequently-changing ownership begins. There is evidence of German (Paradise Kino) and Italian (Nuovo Cinema Paradise) ownership.
1966
Italian community hub
Local family, the Giacominis, purchase Paradise and operate it as an Italian filmhouse. Every three months, Francesco Giacomini brought unsubtitled 35mm film prints back from Italy to share with a local audience.
1980s
The Giacominis leave the movie-showing business, selling the building but holding the mortgage. The interim owner leases Paradise out to the “Eves and Edens” chain of adult theatres. Paradise is re-named “Eve’s Paradise.”
1990
Indie flicks
Paradise joins the Festival Cinemas chain, which showed repertory and arthouse fare in Toronto’s stalwart single-screen venues including the Bloor (now Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema), Revue, Kingsway and Fox.
2006
With the closing of the Festival Cinemas chain, so too did Paradise shut its doors.
2019
Grand reopening!
