There's been a lot of fuss in my town these days about the demolition of an old building we still call "Kino Tesla" althoguh the movies stopped broadcasting along time ago.
There was 3 movie theatres in my town when I was younger, "Kino Tesla", "Kino Šibenik" and "Kino 20. april, later called Odeon", but later on that kind of business wasn't profitable any more with the arival of the computers and DVD players and flat screen TV's. And to be honest old movie theatres were uncomfortable with wooden chairs and just had to be modernized, which demands a lot of money to be invested.
Today we have a "Cinestar" here with 4 small halls and a big hall and we must agree, although old movie theatres have that nostalgic momentum, we always choose comfort and quality over that.
Kino Šibenik was closed a long time ago and in his hall there are two bars now as it is located in the old part of the town just by the coast. Kino Odeon is now being transformed into a modern multimedial hall and the last one standing was Kino Tesla.
It has been demolished a couple a days ago and on that site is going to be a big business center. But the demolition stired up a lot of memories.
It started on Christmas of 1921. Ivan Fulgosi called Đovo bought an old warehouse and turned it into a movie theatre.
A lot of people went there to see their first movie, even their first grown up movie, if you know what I mean :wink :wink, and after the closure that place hosted some events when our Theater was reconstructioning.
And after that there was a great number of concerts that was held there. A lot of big names in Croatian music scene held their concerts in "Kino Tesla".
Kino Tesla was later on sold to a local businessman whose intention is to build a business center there.
And a lot of fuss is there about the way all this happened and why "Kino Tesla" couldn't be preserved and fitted into the new building but I think it's mostly nostalgia speeking. That building was a warehouse repurposed into a movie theater and probably was a life threatening and it is safer to just demolish it and build a new one.
Now we have to wait and see just how will the new business center fit in and will the nostalgia fade away.
Sources:
http://tris.com.hr/2018/02/kino-tesla-dokumentarni-film-katastrofe/
http://www.sibenik.in/sibenik/u-kinu-tesla-se-pjevalo-plesalo-i-setalo-po-pisti-koju-su-96-pokrpali-daskama-iz-kazalista-a-i-antitalenti-su-imali-svoju-vecer/88381.html
or any local news portal from Šibenik.