The Nelson and the Bytowne
By Michel Rossignol
For the first time in over a century, there is no cinema in Lowertown. The closing of the ByTowne Cinema will end the theatre’s major contribution to Ottawa’s cultural scene, but the history of the cinema which occupied the space at 325 Rideau Street before the ByTowne, the Nelson Theatre, also merits attention.
When the Nelson Theatre opened on February 10, 1947, it became one of a dozen downtown cinemas showing the newest films. Residents of Lowertown who wanted to see films could walk to the Théâtre Français on Dalhousie (from 1914 until 1961) and the Rideau Theatre at the southwest corner of Rideau and Dalhousie streets, as well as the Nelson.
They could take a streetcar or a bus and arrive within minutes at the Capitol on Bank Street, the Elgin on Elgin near Laurier, or many other cinemas. In the 1950s, the Nelson tried to attract customers while showing mostly low budget Hollywood films.
Things changed for the better in December 1959 when the Nelson upgraded its equipment to show 70 mm films (instead of the usual 35 mm) with widescreen images. It joined the ranks of Ottawa’s most prestigious cinemas like the Capitol by showing the popular big-budget productions from Hollywood. The Nelson hit the jackpot in April 1960 when it started showing the three-hours-long epic, Ben Hur, which won eleven Academy Awards.
In the June 14, 1960 Ottawa Citizen, the Nelson’s ad noted that 60,000 Ottawa theatre goers had already seen the film. I saw Ben Hur with students from Guigues and other local schools thanks to the school board, which arranged a Saturday-morning screening for the special admission price of 75 cents. The Nelson showed Ben Hur until October 25, 1960.
In the mid-1960s, the Nelson presented one big hit after another. On October 28, 1964, the Nelson held the motion-picture premiere of the popular musical, My Fair Lady. The song about the rain in Spain was heard until July 1965, when Julie Andrews started singing in the hills in the film The Sound of Music.
For a full year, the Nelson was the place to go to see the classic film version of the Broadway hit. On July 20, 1966, another popular film started, Doctor Zhivago, but it played only until January 1967.
Five decades later, Lara’s theme from Doctor Zhivago and the melodies from The Sound of Music again reverberated within the walls of 325 Rideau Street when the ByTowne showed these films as part of its must-see cinema series.
By the mid- 1980s, many of the old one-screen cinemas downtown had closed because of competition from new multiscreen cinemas. The family of the builder of the Nelson, Hyman Berlin, sold the theatre, which in 1988 became the home of the ByTowne Cinema. Under a new name, the cinema on Rideau continued to give us wonderful memories.