Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 02:04:00

Canada's first super-suburban photoplay palace has outlived every rival that ever renamed it. The Danforth Music Hall at 147 Danforth Avenue in Riverdale opened on August 18, 1919, as Allen's Danforth Theatre, built by the Allen brothers' cinema chain in the construction boom that followed the Prince Edward Viaduct's opening across the Don Valley. The names track Toronto's century: the Century Theatre from 1929 under B and F Theatres, the Titania from 1970 serving the neighbourhood's Greek community with Greek-language cinema, and finally The Music Hall from 1978, when live performance took over the room. The live era started fast - James Brown, The Clash and The Police all played the hall's first years - and the building was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1985, protecting the Palladian-styled shell through the rocky decades that followed. Those decades were rocky indeed: structural problems closed the theatre from 2004 to 2006, financial trouble closed it again in 2010, and its current stability dates to the 2011 relaunch under Impresario Inc. with Embrace Presents and Live Nation running the booking. The configuration explains the venue's touring popularity: roughly 1,427 general admission or 1,145 reserved-seated on a gently raked floor that gives clean sightlines from anywhere, directly across from Broadview station on the Bloor-Danforth subway line. The modern calendar runs over 200 shows a year across every genre - the hall has carried everything from Rihanna club shows to Metric and St. Vincent - and industry awards have recognised it among Canada's best sub-1,500 rooms, a century-old movie palace working harder than ever. The room's acoustics - a byproduct of its cinema-palace proportions - draw live recordings and broadcast tapings regularly, and its position one subway stop across the viaduct from downtown makes it the rare heritage hall that is genuinely easier to reach than the clubs it out-books.