Do you like movies?
Maria Isabel Cáceres Menéndez
Years passed. Slowly but surely. The inhabitants of the Center were emigrating towards the North of the city. Colonias México, Buenavista, Campestre, Montecristo, Altabrisa … not to mention how far the city has expanded now. I don’t think I will see it anymore, but the moment when Mérida is fully connected to Progreso with buildings, businesses and subdivisions on both sides of the current highway should not be far behind.
And as it is natural before the onslaught of progress and modernity, corpses and obscenities begin to appear in the Historic Center. Theaters were among the first to fall. Properties became memories left to the humidity and destruction of our climate. There were businessmen who, having acquired old properties in the center, purposely allowed the roofs to flood, plugging the drains so that they collapsed with the weight of the water and thus did not find obstacles to build modern and ugly constructions that replaced the beauties that surrendered to the rigor of time and oblivion.
El Cantarell becomes a store for a chain that is located throughout the Republic. The Apollo becomes a parking lot. By the grace of God, in this debacle, the José Peón Contreras theater recovers its brilliance and splendor. The Mérida will be Teatro Manzanero and casts the cinematograph into oblivion. The same happens to the Fantasio. It’s just theater now. The Rex is remodeled and continues to operate in Santiago until before the pandemic. The Novedades becomes Pasaje Picheta and the worst luck is run by the beautiful Colonial, they demolish it and turn it into a cement and glass bunker. Long before the Alcázar in La Mejorada and the Encanto in Santa Ana had already fallen, the Rialto of San Cristóbal had also disappeared.
The first shopping malls were born and in them the Gene brothers continued the family business with Cinemex, extending to all those that were built. And Cinépolis arrives. And the passion of the Yucatecans for cinema, which has always been great, explodes with renewed force in the face of the great offer that is now being proposed to them.
It is no longer just the cinema. It is going for a walk with the family in the square, eating there, having ice cream, buying a book, a cell phone, or beauty or household items, and the best, going to the movies! Ahh! and take advantage of doing the super when leaving. All in the same place. A family “combo” of fun and Sunday and / or Saturday rest.
Did you know that one of the places in the Republic where more family vans are sold is Yucatán? The traditional Yucatecan family moves in a “convoy” as we say around here, grandparents, parents, grandchildren and friends of the grandchildren go out together, and the bride and groom also join the “tour”.
In the next comment, kind reader, I will tell you about the beginning and the rise of streaming platforms that now with the pandemic have raised their income to stratospheric levels.
Lawyer and Writer [email protected]
-El Cantarell, El Apolo, el Novedades … cinemas already disappeared
