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From Cinema Paradiso<\/a> to Schwarzenegger<\/a>, artists are suckers for the romance of an old cinema \u2014 the remnants from a golden age when everything from the letters on the marquee to the projection to the tearing of the tickets was done by human hands. <\/p>\n The Strand has more history than most. The oldest working cinema in Northern Ireland and a \u201cjewel of art deco design,\u201d The Strand has been there for so long that there\u2019s an entire website<\/a> dedicated to managing its history. Opened to the public in 1935, The Strand was constructed during what the current caretakers call \u201cthe boom years\u201d of cinema in Belfast, with a design featuring curving shapes and porthole features inspired by a nearby shipyard. It looked, visitors and patrons would say, something like an ocean liner. <\/p>\n There probably used to be a place like The Strand in your hometown. And it\u2019s probably long gone, crushed into a parking lot or a Starbucks unless you\u2019re very, very lucky. The Strand survived sometimes as a movie theater, sometimes as a performance venue, a multiplex and, since 2013, as an arts center supported by a charity dedicated to preserve and restore the old building at the center of the community.<\/p>\n