Our Patch FEBRUARY 2016
LOOKING
BACK
Simply pop a Golden Ticket
in with your recycling
Blacks Road and
rear of Broadway
Cinema c1977
BROADWAY CINEMA
Look out for your Golden Tickets or download them.
www.wrwa.gov.uk/GoldenTicket
A
show brought the house
down, literally, when the
ceiling of the Broadway
ABC Cinema collapsed
during a Monday matinee
on 12 September 1977.
It was a sad end to a cinema that was
described as ‘the most elegant picture
theatre in suburban London’ with
salons decorated in cream and gold and
plush rose-coloured upholstery.
Designed by architect Frank
Matcham (The Granville Theatre,
Fulham; the Lyric, Hammersmith;
and the Shepherds Bush Empire), the
H A M M ERS M IT H
Broadway Cinema boasted an exclusive
local monopoly on the new and costly
‘Kinemacolor’, showing colour films
that changed twice weekly, alongside
the usual black and white films. The
first colour offering, appropriate for the
season, was a film of Santa Claus.
The cinema attracted audiences to
the 1,300 seats which were tempted by
the initial low price of 3d for the same
quality of seats as those costing one
shilling, with continuous performances
from 1.30pm to 11pm.
There was a full orchestra, and the
venue proved popular.
In its later years the Broadway
Cinema gained a racy reputation for its
promotion of adult films. However, the
ageing cinema could not compete with
the new multi-screen venues.
It never re-opened after that ceiling
collapse in 1977, and was demolished
in 1978 along with other properties
on the west side of Queen Caroline
Street for the widening of Blacks and
Hammersmith Bridge roads.
An office block and the Irish Centre
now occupy the site of what was once
‘the oldest and naughtiest cinema in
Hammersmith’.