This custom 4x6" photo flipbook of the Towne Theatre is the latest addition to my Around the Hat shop. Featuring 22 original images from inside the Towne, this affordable flipbook seemed like a really cool way of sharing my rare pictures of this old movie theatre before parts of it were dismantled. Check out this new item here.
Last year I bought myself a vintage 16mm projector to watch and digitize some of my old film school projects. It came with this old WWII reel of an airstrip at a US army base and a few shots of Japanese cities in the 1940s. It's interesting to get a glimpse into random footage like this. It's not like it was a newsreel, it's just a few minutes of random footage shot by someone who was in the army.
My intention has been to digitize this reel as well, but it's in rough shape and doesn't run through the projector very well. I don't want to wreck it, and haven't got around to fixing the damaged sprockets and splicing the broken frames back together. In the meantime, I thought the old box and reel were still pretty neat mementos to share. I'll be sure to post the footage here if I'm ever able to screen it again.
Located on 2nd Street in downtown Medicine Hat, Alberta, the Porter Block was constructed by James and Robert Porter in 1910. This brick and sandstone building originally housed a jewelry and watch shop on the main floor operated by G.W. Elliot. It was reported in the News at the time that the jeweler was one of the finest in all of Western Canada, and that all of the stores high-end fixtures were brought directly from Toronto.
Much like many of the other old buildings downtown, the Porter Block has had substantial interior renovations and a number of different tenants in the last century. Today the building appears to be vacant (or being used for storage perhaps) and I imagine it received some damage after the Central Block burned down next door in 2007. It's similar to the old Pingle's building in that respect. It'll be interesting to see if anything becomes of this historic building in the years ahead.
