ACO Toronto - Standard Theatre

BUILDING INFORMATION

Name & Location:

Standard Theatre
285 Spadina Avenue
Toronto
Kensington-Chinatown

Year Completed:

1921

OTHER IDENTIFICATION

Alternate Name:

The Victory Burlesque / 500 Dundas Street West

Notes:

Theatre building straddling the Kensington Market neighbourhood and TorontoÂ´s Chinatown.

Status:

Completed

Map:

Loading Map

Companies:

The following companies are associated with this building

Architect - Benjamin Brown <-- More buildings by this architect.
Architect - John MacNee Jeffrey <-- More buildings by this architect.

BUILDING DATA

Building Type:

Low-rise

Current Use:

Commercial

Former Use:

Theatre

Heritage Status:

Designated under Part IV Ontario Heritage Act

Sources:

Click to see 4 Source(s)

Inventory of Heritage Properties
Author - City of Toronto
Date - May 8, 2007
Document - 38618b321661a2c985e674e5ea4877a5.pdf
More information
Blog To: Old Theatre in Toronto's Chinatown to reopen as food and entertainment venue
Date - December 12, 2018
Notes -
The Rexall drug store at Dundas and Spadina could one day be Toronto's hottest nightclub—and not for the first time, either.
That huge, brownish-yellow block of a brick building on the northeast corner of Chinatown's main intersection was actually built in the early 1920s as a theatre. Designed in the Art Deco style by architect Benjamin Brown, it was developed by Toronto's Jewish community and known for hosting vaudeville performances in Yiddish.
The venue was known as Standard Theatre when it opened back in 1921, but changes in ownership saw the name switch around a few times before The Victory Theatre was born in 1941.

The Victory became one of Toronto's raciest performing venues after the end of World War II. Image via City of Toronto Archives.
With a focus on all things burlesque, the Victory was controversial in its day. Once, a dancer dropped her pasties, exposing her nipples to the crowd mid-act, violating Toronto's morality clause, and inspiring news articles with names such as "Crisis at the Victory Burlesk."
Facing competition from actual strip clubs a few decades later, The Victory closed down in 1975 after more than 30 years on the scene. It was eventually converted into a Chinese-language cinema and then, in 1996, converted for retail purposes.
A 2007 heritage assessment, however, revealed that much of the interior structure from the 1970s remains intact.
"The auditorium with the stage, the side walls with the Classical decoration, and the recessed ceiling" are all listed as reasons for designating 285 Spadina Avenue under the Ontario Heritage Act, though the theatre part of the building has been boarded up since 1992.

The main entrance to the old Victory Theatre was bricked over by new owners back in the 1990s. Image via Google Maps.
Enter veteran Toronto club owner Rony Hitti, who signed a 20-year-lease with the building's new owners in 2015 and pledged $10 million toward renovating the space.
Hitti, who founded the Yorkville hotspot Boa Cafe back in the 1990s, told the Globe and Mail this week that he's now planning to reopen the Victory Theatre.
"You walk into a space like this and light bulbs go off," he said to the newspaper, later explaining his visions of "an old-style Spadina deli, a vampy Chinese banquet hall adorned with noirish references, immersive high-tech light shows, lectures," and maybe even burlesque performances.
Business was starting to slow down at the Victory by 1972, when this photo was taken. Image via City of Toronto Archives.
The businessman says he wants to reopen the venue this summer as an entertainment and heritage food emporium.
The theatre will be able to hold up to 1,000 people, if all goes well, and there will be seating for additional 400 patrons across two different on-site restaurants.
Some of his plans, like those for painting a "modern-day Sistine Chapel" over the elaborate frescoe ceilings, might not come to fruition thanks to challenges from the historical board, but we can, at the very least, depend on a cool marquee, should the Victory come back to life.

More information
Attachment 3: Reasons for Designation
Author - City of Toronto
Notes - REASONS FOR DESIGNATION ATTACHMENT NO. 3
285 Spadina Avenue: Standard Theatre
Description
The property at 285 Spadina Avenue is worthy of designation under Part IV of the
Ontario Heritage Act for its cultural heritage value, and meets the criteria for municipal
designation under the three categories of design or physical value, historical or
associative value, and contextual value. Located on the northeast corner of Spadina
Avenue and Dundas Street West, the Standard Theatre opened on August 18, 1921 as a
Yiddish theatre associated with the Jewish community in the neighbourhood along
Spadina Avenue. In 1935, it was converted to a movie house named The Strand. After
World War II, the premises became the venue for the Victory Burlesque and, in the
1970s, were converted to a Chinese language theatre.
Document - Reasons for Designation.pdf
Wikipedia Entry
Notes - The Standard Theatre is an inactive theatre in Toronto that originated as the city's main venue for Yiddishtheatre, and later became the Victory Burlesque, which would be the last traditional burlesque theatre in Toronto when it closed in 1975. It is located at 285 Spadina Ave. the corner of Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street.
The building was erected in 1921 as the Standard Theatre, a venue for live action Yiddish theatre, and was described as the only building in North America built for the purpose of being a Yiddish theatre.[1] It was designed by Benjamin Brown, one of the city's first Jewish architects, and financed by selling shares to members of the large Jewish community of Kensington Market. The theatre was home to a large number of productions of classic Yiddish works, comedy, and translations such as Shakespeare in Yiddish. It was also a centre of Jewish left-wing political activism. The centre for the activities of the Progressive Arts Club. In 1929 an event commemorating the death of Vladimir Lenin was raided by police. In December 1933, the agitprop play Eight Men Speak about the imprisonment of Canadian Communist leader Tim Buck premiered. The police ordered the play closed and threatened to revoke the theatre's licence if the play was performed again.
The theatre remained a centre of Toronto's Jewish community until the building was converted into a mainstream movie cinema known as The Strand, which opened in October 1934.[2] In 1941, it became the Victory, a cinema in the Twentieth Century Theatres chain. The theatre consisted of a single stadium seatingscreen and concession area selling snacks. Stairs from the street level on Spadina took moviegoers to the screen.
In 1961 it became the Victory Burlesque, joining the Lux (which had opened in 1959) and the Casino (which has existed since the 1930s) as one of three burlesques in Toronto but by the mid-1960s, the Victory was the sole traditional burlesque in the city.[3] It became an iconic destination, especially for students from the nearby University of Toronto. In its last years, it also featured musical acts such as the New York Dolls, Kiss, Iggy Pop and Rush. Facing competition from adult theaters and modern strip clubs it closed in 1975.
The Jewish community had left the area, and Dundas and Spadina was now the centre of Toronto's Chinatown. The Victory was thus sold and subdivided in 1975 into shops on the main floor and a Chinese language cinema upstairs, first named the Golden Harvest and then the Mandarin. This cinema closed in 1994, and the building was renovated and is home to a number of retail stores. An independent theatre, Acacia Centre for the Performing Arts, opened in 2010, but it is no longer active.
The former ticket office is gone and the newer staircase to the upper levels is now a retail area.
More information

Standard Theatre

Sources for Standard Theatre

Loading Please Wait