Worcester, MA - A rare look inside Worcester’s abandoned Paris Cinema

posted by ThrHistoricalSociety on August 4, 2016 at 8:00 am

From MassLive: A tour through the present-day Paris Cinema makes one thing clear: If the theater is to be revitalized, there is a lot of work to be done.

The Grid apartment complex, which owns the Paris Cinema, would like to demolish the dilapidated Worcester cinema and replace it with a beer garden, which would put on live shows and outdoor movie screenings.

According to a Joe Donovan, vice president of MG2, the company that owns The Grid, said demolishing the building might only cost $500,000. A look at the inside of the old theater Monday shows the property to be in an intense state of decay, which Donovan said would cost upwards of $20 million to restore.

“This is just my opinion here, but it seems to me with what we’re doing with The Brew and the significant capital investment we’ve put into the building, I don’t really see the Paris Cinema as a good representation of Worcester today, or Worcester tomorrow.” said Frank Peace, who is opening five restaurants in The Grid.

The Paris Cinema was originally named the Capitol Theater, which opened in 1925. It closed down in 1966 for renovations and became the Paris Cinema in 1967, with the first showing being Bonnie and Clyde. By 1980 however, the cinema had become an adult movie theater, and it was closed down in 2006 by authorities following allegations of sex acts taking place in the building.

There is another vote coming up in mid-August to determine the future of the Paris Cinema, where Grid representatives will argue that returning the theater to its former glory would be fiscally infeasible.

Link, with extensive photo gallery and video: http://www.masslive.com/news/worcester/index.ssf/2016/08/we_explored_the_old_paris_cine.html

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