Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre

Toronto

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This restored masterpiece is the world's last operating Edwardian double-decker theater. Celebrating its centennial in 2013, the Winter Garden was built as the flagship for a vaudeville chain that never really took off, while the downstairs Elgin was converted into a movie house in the 1920s. Today it serves as a stage for traveling Broadway shows. Fascinating tours run at 5pm Monday and 10am Saturday.

Saved from demolition in 1981, the theaters received a $29 million face-lift: bread dough was used to uncover rose-garden frescoes, the Belgian company that made the original carpet was contacted for fresh rugs, and the floral Winter Garden ceiling was replaced, leaf by painstaking leaf.

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