In the past I have looked at several lost cinemas, but there are still a lot I had not touched upon yet. Time to continue with my journey to the past, this time with Cineac NRC cinema which was located at the Coolsingel, next to department store Bijenkorf. Pathé started the Cineac cinemas to show the latest news. It was shown constantly and visitors would be able to stay there as long as they wanted. With the slogan “A journey around the world in 50 minutes!” it tried to lure them in.
In 1935 there was already a Cineac in Rotterdam (Coolsingel 17), but during the bombardment in the second wrold war in was closed. A new Cineac NRC was built, which opened in 1957. It moved and ended up next to the Bijenkorf. From that department store it was possible to enter the cinema. It had 550 seats. It changed its name into Cineac Bijenkorf in 1977 and closed its doors in 1989. A restaurant is now located there.
A look into the past:
The same place, then and now:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWahi21SkAM]
Sources:
“Fantasie, illusie en betovering, herinneringen aan Rotterdamse bioscopen” by Herman Romer
“Over stalles, Rotterdam en het witte doek en parket” by Henk Berg
City Archive Rotterdam
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[cgview tags=rotterdam num=3 orderby=rand lightbox=0 size=120×120]
Interesting stuff buddy! Always far better places to spend a few hours in than a soulless multiplex.
There are maybe one or two left now, which is a shame.
Great post.
Love mixing the old photos with the current.
Did you do that yourself, have someone help you, or find them?
Thank you Victor. I did it all myself actually. First went through the Rotterdam archive finding as much pictures of all the cinemas as possible and then spent one day walking through the city to the places. Put the pictures on my phone and held that next to my camera to try and match them up as much as possible, the rest was done in Photoshop. I still have some I need to process into a post, so starting the series again motivates me to finally do it 🙂