Salón Novedades

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1912 · Authors: Antonio Pintor y Ocete

The Salón Novedades was the second cinema to operate regularly in Santa Cruz after the Parque Recreativo. Now disappeared, the Novedades occupied almost the entire block between the streets of San Vicente Ferrer, Santa Rosa de Lima and San Francisco Javier, in the heart of the El Toscal neighbourhood.

It was designed by the architect Antonio Pintor for the entrepreneur Manuel Velázquez and inaugurated on 13 April 1912 with a variety show and the screening of films from the Pathé company.

Of the same style as the Parque Recreativo, the Salón Novedades was a huge eclectic pavilion of wood and iron, with a projection booth on the main façade facing San Vicente Ferrer street. Its interior had a large rectangular stalls area, without boxes, divided into a first zone with a capacity for 250 spectators and a second for 264. On the sides, sixteen rows of wooden benches were added, eight on each side.  It looked more like a theatre hall than a cinema, but in those early years cinematographs copied the layouts of theatre halls.

The Salón Novedades was in operation for a little over eleven years. In 1923 it was completely destroyed by a fire.

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