Site of Toronto's First Moving Picture Show

This 1996 Toronto Historical Board plaque can be seen here on the Yonge street side of the 1 Adelaide Street East Building. Here's what it says:

On August 31, 1896, a series of films running less than a minute each was projected from a "Vitascope" invented by Thomas Edison at Robinson's Musee Theatre on this site. On the next day, the Toronto World reported that the "...machine projects apparently living figures and scenes on a canvas screen...it baffles analysis and delights immense audiences." Known as a "dime museum" (admission was ten cents), Robinson's Musee had opened in December 1890 and featured jugglers, magicians, and aerialists; a curio shop and waxworks on the second floor and an animal menagerie on the roof. The building changed hands several times, eventually becoming, in 1899, the first location of Shea's Theatre (later situated on Bay Street). It was destroyed by fire in 1905.

Location Co-ordinates: 43.650322 -79.378281

Photo by Alan L Brown - April 2007

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