History
The one screen cinema was built by Hyman Berlin and opened on February 10, 1947 as the Nelson Cinema. The theatre had air conditioning, with a seating capacity of 980, including an upper loge area. Admission was 25 cents, 35 cents for the upper loge. Soon after it was leased to the Famous Players chain of cinemas and for decades was one of the city's leading cinemas. The theatre was renovated in the 1960s, reducing seating to 790, and adding 70 mm projection facilities.
In 1988 Famous Players closed the cinema when the chain moved to multiplexes. The Berlin family sold the cinema to the operators of the independent Towne Cinema on Beechwood Avenue, in the New Edinburgh district of Ottawa. The Towne cinema subsequently closed and was renovated into retail space. The Nelson was punnily renamed the ByTowne, in honour of Bytown, Ottawa's original name until January 1, 1855, and became the venue for alternative films and repertory.
The cinema was renovated again in 2000, salvaging relatively new seats from the recently closed Capitol Square multiplex of downtown Ottawa. This reduced the seating again, to 670.
Read more about this topic: ByTowne Cinema
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