We head a bit west this week, continuing our Timmins history feature of what used to be in various buildings.
On Mountjoy St., off the end of Third Ave., the building that now houses Osaka Sushi was originally the Cartier Theatre. As the name suggests, museum director-curator Karen Bachmann says there was a movie theatre on the ground floor.
“All kinds of really different movies,” she outlines. “A lot of things that were sort of not necessarily, I would say, the first run blockbuster movies, but lot of B movies and gangster thins and that kind of stuff. Really, really popular place.”
Bachmann adds that francophone films out of Quebec were part of the fare.
Upstairs was a performance hall that hosted a lot of burlesque, and midnight shows to accommodate shift workers.
“That then moved on and it became the union hall in town, and was the union hall for many, many, many years until they moved out. At one point, it was a Canadian Tire store.”
Now on the second floor is Club 147 Billiards.
