At the Aaben in Hulme .......... with heaps of interesting movies

 I have fond memories of the Aaben Cinema in Hulme.

Although I have to say my time there was pretty much limited to the late 1970s.

By the mid 1980s the kids were coming along and trips out were pretty much limited to the pub and the odd theatre trip.

But back in the day it was a grand place to go where you could see films you had missed first time around and a whole clutch of interesting movies which would never make it on to the main circuits as well as heaps of “arts” productions from around the world.

A full 45 years on and I am hard pressed to remember what I saw although I have memories of accompanying Jenn and Tricia to silly, bizarre, and earnest films.

The history of the place is equally interesting, and for its story I fell back on cinema TREASURES which is a cornucopia of accounts about our lost picture houses.

And the entry on the Aaben has the added authenticity that it was co written by John Wojowski who ran it in the 1980s until 1990.  He writes it was “opened in 1928 as the York Cinema, it was located on York Street, Hulme, an inner-city district of Manchester. 

Seating was provided for 1,414 and in 1937 the operators were given as Thomas and Norman Royle, who operated it into the late-1940’s. By 1954 it was operated by York Cinema (Manchester) Ltd. and the seating capacity was given as 1,300.

In 1967 it was closed and converted into a bingo club, but this was short lived as in 1969 it was taken over by the Unit Four Cinemas Ltd. of Burnley who made one of their first conversions of a former single screen cinema here, when they converted the building into four screens, re-opening as the Unit 4 Cinemas. 

Seating capacities in the screens were 210, 101, 102 and 102. There was a bar and a snack bar for patrons. It was a 4-screen independent arts cinema from the mid-1970’s through to when it closed finally in 1991”.*

Now never one to steal other people’s research, I won’t quote anymore but instead direct you to Mr. Wojowski’s account by following the link.

In its way the cinema walks with the history of Hulme, having offered entertainment when Hulme was still a densely packed area of terraced housing and closing as the clearances swept away the original housing and its population.

Only to reopen as an “arts” cinema in the mid-1970s catering for a mix of students and young professionals who had begun to make Hulme their home.

The programme dates from 1988 and is a bit of a mystery given that by then I was no longer a patron, but maybe I picked it up somewhere with the vague intention of popping along, and as so often happens it went from the coffee table to a cupboard before being filed as a future bit of history, which of course it now is.

Location; Hulme

Pictures, Aaben Cinetheque, February/March ’88, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Aaben Cinema, Jackson Crescent, Manchester M15, John Wojowski, & Ken Roe,  cinema TREASURES, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/22901