Another lost cinema of Newcastle

I often walk or drive past this rather shabby looking 10-pin bowling alley on Westgate Road, Newcastle. It has paint that is chipping and weeds growing all over it but I try to imagine what it could have been in the past........
Today, I took a photo of it to blip then went to investigate further. It was previously called The Brighton Electric Theatre and opened in 1911 as a cinema and expanded to contain a hall for dances and then a billiard hall. I found this photo online and also in one of my books (cinemas of Newcastle by Frank Manders). Both the grand, elegant cinema and the attractive, tree-lined boulevard is barely recognisable compared to the shabby state of the building today and this busy end of Westgate Road filled with takeaways and disused buildings.
The Brighton cinema lasted much longer than most suburban cinemas of the time and closed 20th April 1963 and opened later that year as a bowling alley, as it is today.