A group of late night bar patrons approaches the back of The St James Theatre. Once one of the most sumptuously decorated cinemas in Auckland, along with nearby Civic Theatre, The St James is now nearly derelict. A monument to a bygone era, its seating and projection booths are gathering dust.
Feb 012010
The edge of a giant poster for the current Coca-Cola campaign sits next to the sign for the Regent Cinema. The Theatre Centre on Queen Street used to house The Regent and The St. James Cinemas, with Cinema One, Cinema Two further down the street and Mid City Cinemas on the opposite side, one block down from The Civic Theatre.
These cinemas, some of them filled with the details of a bygone era, have now been replaced with the stern functionality of the modern day Sky City Cinema Multiplex building, the windows through which this photograph was taken.
When the older cinemas were in their heyday, queues for tickets to matinee screenings would snake all the way down Queen Street and sometimes up Wellesley Street. Now, you can purchase your ticket with a Credit or Eft-Pos card at an automatic ticketing machine.