Cine City.
Click To Expand
Cine City is the old Cinema in Withington, Manchester it originally opened in 1912 as the Scala but was renamed a few years later to Cine City.
The Cinema operated right up until July 2001 when it finally closed down after nearly 100 years of showing movies to the residents of Withington and its surrounding areas.
The building was threatened with demolition in 2005 but was saved after objections from heritage groups. However, the fabric of the building remained in a poor state of repair, and in January 2008 it was announced once again that the building was to be demolished.
Currently scaffolding emcompasses the entire building making exterior shots pointless and the bits that are not covered in scaffolding are not worth the effort as the rear section of the building looks more like a bomb site.
Britannia Property Group who now own the site proposed to build a futuristic leaning tower which would have provided something "unusual and interesting for Withington".
But the radical proposals were discarded by the local council as being "too modern" for the area,
the site is now to be demolished and replaced by a modern block of seventeen apartments above a large single ground floor shop.
I have known of this place for quite some time but always discarded it due to the fact that it looked rather small, that and the fact it was in reserve if we where ever in the vacinity and where stuck for something to do.
Since the place was originally explored some time back it has suffered greatly at the hands of the developers and they have been ruthless in there approach to it.
Inside is almost as bad as the exterior, the floors have been ripped up in sections, stair ways smashed and an awfull smell lingers from the basement.
Fortunatley the main screen room still retains some of its former elegance and history, with the seating still in situ and fancy looking ceilings and wall features still intact.
The projection rooms also still contain quite a few items of interest including some old 3D glasses we found and some old film cans and posters from some of the last movies the place shown.
Not the greatest explore but for its history and character it was worth the trip even if it was absolutley gutted inside, a shame really as in its hey day it would of looked rather nice.
Looks like we where just in time to explore here.
Date : April 2008 : Location : Manchester : Explorers : Havoc : Bungle : Gibbo
