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The missing Coroleu cinema in Barcelona was located on Calle Coroleu 26. Previously, this street was known as Calle de la Virgen del Pilar, named in honor of Pilar Moragas Quintana, wife of Francisco de Parellada Ribas, owner of some old land in the Sant Andreu area.
With the urbanization of this area in 1907, the street became Coroleu in honor of the Saarrian historian and politician José Coroleu Inglada, born on November 1, 1858, former correspondent of the Telegraphe newspaper in Paris in 1864.
El Telégraphe was a newspaper with a radical republican ideology, close to the federal democratic republican party and predecessor of the popular newspaper El Diluvio, published in Barcelona between 1879 and 1939.
In 1869 José Coroleu returned to Barcelona and obtained his law degree. Eager to know the Catalan historical past, he investigated the Archive of the Crown of Aragon, which led him in 1876 to write his work Las Cortes Catalanas, together with Pella and Forgas.
A large industrial warehouse was built at number 26 of the aforementioned street. Building that over the years had several uses. The Coroleu cinema was built in the old Can Pujadas warehouse, which was used as a wine cellar and was owned by Joan Pujadas i Batllori.
The Coroleu became famous in Sant Andreu del Palomar not only for being the place that offered the newest films in the neighborhood, but also for the large number of political rallies that were held without excluding any speaker because of their political ideology.
At the end of 1930, the primitive Coroleu was converted into the Coroleu Hall with a capacity of 700 spectators. A small stage was built on which political and union rallies and amateur theatrical performances were held. It was the only room in Sant Andreu equipped with heating.
While its construction was being carried out, a strong storm that occurred on February 14, 1931, raised fears for the structure, but seeing that the damage was not irreversible, the works continued.
On August 11, the Band of the Ninth District Musical Association, directed by Joan Pich i Santasusana, performed a concert that was a great success, so they had to repeat it several times. The last performance took place on May 27, 1936, in which 45 instrumental musicians participated.
In the autumn of 1931, following the Spanish general elections that followed the proclamation of the Second Republic and the approval by the Constituent Cortes, on December 9, of the new Constitution, in which the separation between Church and State, religious teaching was struck down. And in this place a series of rallies representative of the various ideologies were held.
On Monday, November 13, La Vanguardia inserted an announcement in which it announced that, at half past nine at night, a rally would take place at the Cine Coroleu in which the following speakers would take part: Emilio Román, Germán Riera, Juan Mujal , Federico Frigola, Mateo Ruiz, Manuel Santamaría, and the candidates Antonio Montaner and José Estadella.
In principle, this event was planned to take place in the theater of the Casal Católico of Sant Andreu de Palomar, but due to the large number of attendees, it was decided to move it to the Coroleu cinema as it has a capacity greater than the 150 seats at the Casal.
On April 13, 1932, the plays El Tresor (The Treasure) and De Can Borni a Can Tisó were staged (a play that made reference to two farmhouses that were located in the area of ??Sant Andreu de Palomar).
On October 25, 1932, at an event of the Catalan Party of Republican Action, a group related to Manuel Azaña’s Republican Action, Ernesto Schop gave a speech in which he highlighted that the Catalan Statute was the starting point for a Spain in tune with the rest of Europe.
In June 1933, on Thursday the 8th, Saturday the 9th and Sunday the 10th, six films were shown: The Flying Fleet, a documentary; The great tour, drawings; The devil carries them, comical; The cockroach, in natural colors; the boxing match between Max Baer (world champion) and aspiring Braddock held in New York and Flying to Rio de Janeiro, a feature film with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
The lack of resources to advertise in newspapers was solved with the hand programs printed by the Modern Printing Press on Malats Street.
At the beginning of 1936, a milestone caused the inhabitants of Sant Andreu to flock to the screening of the film starring Katharine Hepburn and Charles Boyer, Broken Hearts, released at the Astoria cinema on Wednesday, October 23, 1935, and which had been a scandalous success.
On April 5, 1936, the Democratic Union of Catalonia held several events commemorating the outbreak of the Tragic Week, in which Ángel Osorio Gallardo, civil governor of Barcelona, ??participated as a speaker, which is why he had to resign.
During the war the cinema remained closed longer than open. After the war ended, in 1940 Margarita Ventayol Grau, widow of Joan Martí Pujadas, requested permission to open a door at the back of the building on Montsec Street and some attributed it to an emergency door.
Although a resident of the neighborhood claimed that in 1948 he had seen a Tarzan film at the Coroleu, this seems impossible, since the magazine La España Cinematográfico, by Valerio Bernabé, in 1942, published in its pages the closure of the cinema to due to the lack of attendance of the spectators, which certifies that the building was converted into a warehouse.