Cabot Street Cinema Theatre

Also, here’s a great video from last year (uploaded Oct. 2015) about the theater. It showcases all of the original features of the building from the original painted fire curtain to storage spaces behind bathrooms: https://youtu.be/nWYuEZ8LhgA

Ignore what I said in my last comment about the lobby being gutted. at around the 3:00 minute mark in the video above, the host shows that the original lobby is still intact above a drop ceiling. Simply amazing.

Unfortunately, “phase two” of the current owner’s renovation process seems to include “modify[ing] front of stage, flatten floor and purchase 150 removable chairs,” along with “install[ing] 400 new balcony seats,” rather than working with the original seating arrangement or refurbishing the current seats. You win some, you lose some.

It has reopened.

http://thecabot.org/

Now closed

http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x1387891334/Last-picture-show

I never heard of it, but their web site is http://www.lpfstudio.com/cinema/

Cesareo Pelaez, who played Marco the Magi in the Le Grand David company, died March 24 after a long illness. He was 79 and appeared in shows on stage in Cuba as a youth. He founded the Le Grand David magic shows in the 1970s and purchased the Cabot Street Cinema, and later, the nearby Larcom Theatre in Beverly. He is survived by his godson, David Bull, the “David” in the troupe’s name. Obit from the Boston Herald, 3-28-2012.

The Boston Sunday Herald of Feb. 18, 2007 has an article titled “Le Grand David’s spectacular longevity no illusion” by Lauren B. Falcone which states that the matinee performance of Feb. 18th at the Cabot Street Theatre will mark the 30th anniversary of the Le Grand David magic shows on stage. There are Sunday matinees at the Cabot St. while a different show plays on Thursdays at the Larcom Theatre nearby.

PS from ASONGBIRD…

….or —of course —-anyone else who has info on the early Salem theatres (after 1896).

thanks

A few more photos of Cabot Theater.

• This one is not very impressive, it shows the sprawling strip-mall-like front of the building which hosts the theater.

• Here is a close-up view of the entrance, with spring blooming all around it.

• Another view shows a Grand David mural.

• And this is a close-up of the mural.

Hi Ron,

Yes, I followed your suggestion and entered those four theaters I mentioned in the thread. Maybe others will be able to add more information about them as time goes on.

I grew up in Salem, MA in the 40s and 50s. At that time there were actually four (4) theaters on Essex Street: The Paramount was on the north side of the street near St. Peter St. The Empire, the Plaza, and E.M. Lowe’s Salem were fairly clustered together on the south side of lower Essex Street down toward Jerry’s Army & Navy.

The Paramount opened as a Publix Theater in 1928. It was designed as a classic movie palace with 2,187 seats. Its interior was Rococo style with a balcony. The side walls featured faux boxes, which actually housed lights to illuminate enormous murals in the manner of Watteau in tall arches behind the boxes. The two front boxes had curtains instead of murals. They hid away the giant Wirlitzer organ pipes. The screen was 85 feet long, which later became an equally long cinemascope screen. When the theater opened in 1928, it boasted air conditioning, a first. The balcony was originally designated as the smoking section. Seeing a movie in that grand old theater was an event. Phil Bloomberg was the owner/operator in that era. It was demolished in the 60s to make way for a parking garage, which had to be the folly of the decade. It would have made an extraordinary performing arts center.

The Empire Theater was already shuttered when I was a kid. It had 1,200 seats and had been used as a playhouse as for vaudeville in its time. I peered through the front doors when it was being demolished, and its interior was beautifully ornate.

The Plaza was actually the “New Plaza” built in 1917 with 750 seats to replace its predecessor, which had burned down. The Plaza had a Spanish motif interior. The orchestra floor had very little slope if any and was surprisingly small. The balcony was far larger than the downstairs, as it overlapped not only part of the main floor, but extended back as well over the lobby. This theater had deteriorated over the decades and was quite dingy and musty. It closed in the late 50s and never reopened. Its perpetual coming attraction was a David Frye Real Estate poster in its movie feature display by the ticket window.

E.M. Lowe’s Salem Theater was built in the early 50s and had 1,000 seats. By then the artisans had retired or died off, so movie theaters were no long grand in appearance with molded ceilings, lunnets, and filigree decoration. The Salem was instead a modern, plain vanilla movie house with nondescript wallpapered walls, a plain tile ceiling, and no balcony. I will concede that the seats moved forward on rails so that one could recline a bit. Despite its shortcomings, if it were still there (it burned down in the 90’s I believe), it would lord it over the multiplex shoeboxes that pass for “theaters” today with their screens slightly larger than television screens.

My mother told me that when she was a kid, there were two small silent picture theaters on Central Street, the Comique and the Nickelodian. Those had disappeared by the time I came along. There was also the larger Federal Theater which was a vaudeville house and showed some movies before closing. By the time I came along, it had long closed and been converted first into a bowling alley, and subsequently a First National supermarket. If memory serves, it was located on New Derby Street.

Now they’re all gone.

Thanks vandusen, but I swear there was another theatre at the opposite end of Essex St near the spot where there’s a corner park now. I’m not old enough to have gone to the Empire but I had been to the Paramount as a kid and I remember seeing many double features at the Salem.

Thanks Ron
I wasn’t sure if the theatre was even there anymore. They did show movies there since I remember seeing ads all the time in local papers for its adult theatrr name ‘The Fine Arts.’

Next maybe you can help dredge up the name of the 3rd theatre that used to be in Salem MA (besides the current compact triplex beneath the garage.) I can recall the Salem Paramount which was demolished to build the garage, and also where I saw my first movie, EM Loews Salem which was a nice if nondescript house demolished to make way for condos. But there was a third one that I recall going to but can’t remember a name for. Likely gone for decades.

The owners of The Cabot also own or likely owned another theatre in Beverly whose name escapes me. For decades it was a minor blight in local papers since it was a porn house. The management of the Cabot tried to rehab it (must have been a job since it was twinned) and did the magic shows from there during weekdays. Anyone know the name of the place?