File:Former Granada Theatre, Buffalo, New York - 20201231.jpg

English: The former Granada Theatre, 3176 Main Street at West Northrup Place, Buffalo, New York, December 2020. Built in 1928, the Mediterranean Revival architecture employed by the firm of Bacon & Lurkey was a common style in University Heights - one of the few Buffalo neighborhoods in which that's the case - but the Granada presents a decidedly more restrained version of the aesthetic. The shallow-pitched roof of red Spanish tile and the blind arches crowning the windows over what was once the lobby entrance represent the style well, but the red brick façade is decidedly a deviation from the norm. Witness also the plaster theatre masks above the aforementioned blind-arched windows, in between which the vertical marquee originally hung. The Granada opened in 1928 as part of the Schine cinema circuit for many years, screening films from Columbia Pictures, and soon gained renown from Buffalonians for providing a cinema experience that was both luxurious and decidedly old-school. For much longer into cinema history than was usual, movie showings were treated in much the same way as live theater, with assigned seating enforced by ushers, musical overtures and codas preceding and following each film, and a screen framed by draperies that were ceremonially opened and closed for the screening. Patrons took in all of this in an elegant environment of wall-to-wall carpeting, padded seats, chandeliers and draperies. Later on, in the 1960s and '70s, the influence of the nearby University at Buffalo not only helped keep the Granada profitable even as most audiences were abandoning single-screen neighborhood theaters in favor of suburban multiplexes, but also inspired its conversion into an arthouse theater: some of the "alternative" films screened here include the Cinemiracle presentation of Windjammer, Sergei Bondarchuk's four-part Russian-language treatment of War and Peace (eight hours total, screened over two consecutive nights), and the 1970 Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter. In its last days, it was perhaps best known as the venue of choice for local Rocky Horror Picture Show fans. The theater was closed about 1982 and the auditorium demolished; only the former lobby, seen here and now mostly occupied by a pizzeria, remains.