Denver Regal Continental Theater Demolition
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The Denver Continental Theater, located on the east side of I-25 and Hampden/285, has stood since 1966.
Open until 2023, this cinema has been showing the greats, and the flops for 57 years now.
South Denver area movie-goers have waited in line to see such cinematic master-pieces like: ”Jaws”, “Star Wars” (before it was “A New Hope”), “The French Connection”, “Taxi Driver”, “Raiders of the Lost Arc”, “Independence Day”, “Saving Private Ryan” (I’m still mad at “Shakespeare In Love”), “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace”, “Inception”, and “Avengers: Endgame”.
My own partner has shared with me several stories where in her youth she remembers good-times with friends going to see movies at the Regal Continental.
I suspect this to be true for many people. With the theatre open 1966 to 2023, surely many thousands of people must have memories of buying tickets, buying over-priced popcorn, and taking their seat to watch the latest (possibly great, possibly awful) movie. Then to move on, getting ice-cream or dinner; chatting about what they liked, and/or hated about the movie, and going home.
The amount of friends, the lonely, the lovers, and successful and unsuccessful dates that the Regal Continental Movie Theatre must have seen is enormous.
No to be cliché but, “If these walls could talk”:
How much of the human condition has this theatre seen over 57 years? Surely; Excitement, joy, laughter, anticipation, companionship, and intrigue.
But also: sadness, let-down, loneliness, tears, fear, and impatience.
A good movie is capable of extracting any of these feelings
How much art have these projectors and it’s audience seen? What powerful scenes of drama, suspense, comedy and the very art of cinema have thousands of people seen here?
And now: this incredible place, with so much history is being torn apart. The Continental Cinema Theatre is being reduced to dust, and trucked away to an unknown fate.
What is being demolished now in 2025, is not just a building. Not just walls, popcorn machines, seats, and a silver screen. But rather the physical iteration, a landmark in both space and time; of 57 years of art, 57 years of emotion, good-times, and memories. 57 years of the human condition.
The demolition of the Denver Regal Continental Theater will be overlooked. ignored, or simply scrolled past by many. Many of these people have been to the theatre, possibly with deep memories that they cannot place or remember.
And for others; They will remember this great place. An old and grand theatre that they used to go to. A place for friends, and dates, and independent contemplation; to go to and enjoy a couple hours of story-telling in the dark.
A theatre that their generation and their parents generation, and maybe even their grandparents generation used to line up, buy tickets and popcorn, and be excited for the movie experience that they were about to witness.
And all of this means something. Something that is real to you and to me, and to all the other movie goers over these last 57 years.
Thankyou for reading my ted talk.
- Travis R Vowell
Demolition of the Denver Regal Continental Theater. The cinema was open from 1966 to 2023. Located in southern Denver, Colorado
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