There was a theatre history buff who lived in the Back Bay named William Morris Hunt. I believe that he was the grandnephew of the noted 19th century designer, Richard Morris Hunt. William attended a meeting of theatre buffs in the BRA offices in Boston City Hall around 1985 or so, called by the Theatre District planner. Among the goodies he had with him was a drawing of the Park Th. entrance before the Crabtree Building was constructed. The entrance was originally thru a house, something like the Old Corner Bookstore building at School and Washington streets today. His collection was donated to the Harvard Theatre Collection before he passed away about 8 or 10 years ago. Does anyone know when the Crabtree Building (which contained the Trans Lux entrance) was opened? I will guess about 1910 or 1915 ??
The photo on page 22 of “Weymouth” by Sullivan & Tighe (Arcadia Pub.,2001) shows part of the Weymouth Theatre in the center background. You can see the tall stagehouse covered in tarpaper with a fake brick pattern on it, plus the top of the left sidewall. The photo dates from 1935. This theatre was included in the MGM Theatre Photograph and Report project. The photo of the facade dates from April 1941. The Report states that the theater is showing MGM product, that it is less than 15 years old, is in Good condition and has 712 seats, all on one floor. The facade appears to be covered in the same fake-brick tar paper. There are 2 double doors and a box offfice below the marquee. But the odd thing is that there are commercial buildings on each side of the theatre. In the 1950s, my memory is that it was a stand-alone building with nothing on each side.
One Sunday afternoon in the mid-1980s I was walking west on 47th St and noticed that the scene door of the Palace was open— they were loading in a TV awards show. The scene door was on the rear stage wall, near its north end. The stage door for performers was located under some fire escapes at stage-right on W. 47th St. As I stood in the alley by the scene door, I noticed a sign in large white letters painted on the wall of a building at the south end of the alley which said “Stage Door” with an arrow pointing to the right. This implies that the stage door of the Palace was originally at stage-left, not at stage-right on 47th St. as it is today. Does anyone know anything about this ??
The message on the marquee was one they didn’t have to change weekly.It read something like “XXX Three Big XXX Features” or something like that. Possibly, if you go thru the various photo links above, you might find it. In December 1992, the distinctive facade of the Pilgrim received a paint job, and the marquee was repaired or renovated. But I think they put the same message back on it as before.
Here is a summary of the changes made to the building in 1900 and 1915. The auditorium was similar to that of Symphony Hall- a rectangle with 2 balconies each with long side galleries, with half-circle clerestory windows high above. There was a hip roof and on the west side a 3-story wing. The south end of this wing contained the Hamilton Place entrance. During the summer of 1900 the Hall was converted into a vaudeville theatre. The 2 balconies were removed and replaced by a proscenium stage. The concert platform was replaced by 2 new balconies. The side galleries were converted into loges. The rear of the orchestra floor under the 2 new balconies was stepped or sloped. The ceiling remained the same. The lobbies and lounges were all redecorated. After Marcus Loew took over, he hired Thomas Lamb to completely rebuild the Orpheum. Lamb removed the hip roof and built a new, higher roof with an elevated stage-house. He demolished the old west wing and built a new west wall on the outer edge of the property line. The Orpheum today has an auditorium which is higher and wider than the original. He designed a new entrance at Hamilton Place which is in the same location as the old entrance in the old west wing. After he got through in early-1916, there was not much left of the old interior except maybe for some spaces in the basement ?? If you go down the alleys off Bromfield Street and look at the north wall, you can see the 3 clerestory windows high above (which are bricked-up) and the remaining section of the cornice which ran around the north, west and east walls in 1852. There was once a pedestrian way which ran from Tremont to Washington streets and ran right along the north wall of the Boston Music Hall. That was in the 19th Century, long before Loew’s Orpheum.
The Weymouth Theater was on the east side of Weymouth Landing directly across from the Sacred Heart Church rectory. It was of wood-frame construction and apparently was built in the late-1920s, possibly as a replacement for the Bates Opera House nearby on the west side of Weymouth Landing (in Braintree) just south of where Marion’s Shoes is located. There were live shows at the Bates and I assume movies played there too. In the Fall of 1954, a new friend of mine told me that she had just participated in a talent show on stage at the Weymouth Th. on a recent Saturday morning. How I wish now that I had asked her for details about the building!! (I never went into it). By 1958 it was closed, and it was demolished around 1959 or 1960. Nothing was ever built on the site.
It was originally called the State Theatre. It was on the north side of Adams Street, just east of East Milton Square, and in the 500-block, I think. There is a MGM Theatre Photograph and Report for this theatre, dated April 1941. It was a MGM customer, was in Fair condition, Was over 15 years old, and had 710 seats, all on one floor. I don’t know when the name was changed to Milton Cinema, but I will guess circa 1970. It was very close to the Quincy line, but I never went in it when I lived in Quincy in 1940s and 1950s. I have notes that it closed in Sept 1987 after a bitter fight between the owner and the operator; then reopened in November 1987 with a new operator. Around 1990 or so it became a comedy club. During its long movie career, it was always a single-screen, I believe. I think the formal name was Milton Cinema and not East Milton Cinema— to be sure, one would have to look at old newspaper ads.
The Pussycat closed some time between the 2nd half of 1987 and the first half of 1988; The West End Pussycat (ex-Lancaster Th.) also closed in this same timeframe. I don’t recall that the Stuart remained closed for a very long time before being converted into a McDonald’s.
Here are some dates regarding the Old Howard demolition. I went to Scollay Sq on Monday March 19, 1962 and noted that demo had started on the Scollay Square Theatre. On Tuesday April 24th, demo had started on the stage-end of the Old Howard; I viewed demo in progress on both the Scollay Square Theatre and the Old Howard on Thursday April 26th and Monday May 7th. Then, a last visit on Friday, May 11th, 1962. The fire in June 1961 badly damaged the roof which caved in; but the auditorium was not badly damaged, and standing on the terrace in front of the Suffolk County courthouse I got a good look at the auditorium after the stage-house had been removed, nicely lit by the morning sun. In the book “Scollay Square' by David Kruh (Arcadia, 2004), on page 64 there is a photo of the lobby at showtime. This is exactly the way I remember it the first time I looked in there on a Sat. night in 1950. On page 109-top, the photo shows the facade just after the fire, with rubble in the street. On Page 108, the rubble has been cleaned up; you can see the stage-house of the Scollay Square Theatre right next to the Old Howard’s facade. (the 2 theatres were side by side, head to foot). The Old Howard did not have air-conditioning,so it closed each summer from about late-June to Late-August.
To- mb848- Some years ago while driving down Washington St., I realized that I could no longer figure out where the Lincoln had been. You can take the street address above, 585 Washington, and see if you can find it today. I got that address from the MGM Report. (For a discussion of the MGM Theatre Reports, see under Warner Th. Worcester MA) I recall that the Lincoln remained closed but standing for some time. One of the 1962 Quincy Patriot Ledger articles mentions that the Strand was the last movie theatre in Quincy center still operating (as of 1962); the Art was closed but availble for rent. I’m guessing that the Lincoln also closed around this time.
I’m often on as a “guest” because I don’t log in unless I’m fairly certain that I will be making a comment. For the past several days I have not been able to access the theatre sites at all- for every name I type in I eventually get the “Oops! Name not listed” message, even with common names like Warner and Strand. I hope that you can fix what ails CT so that Members and Guests alike can breeze thru the site as before.
Please let your army of fans know when Cinema Treasure’s health is expected to improve. CT is by far my favorite website and it has been an ordeal to visit or work in it for the past 3 weeks. I hope you can get some compu-brains to correct what’s wrong.
I went into the Trans Lux for the first time circa 1960, before the change of name to State. There was a black and white movie of girl volley ball players who played the game nude. The house was in good condition. The dressing rooms for the Park Th. were in a seperate building across the alley to the rear of the stage and there was an overhead bridge connecting. I have a very vague memory of seeing this when looking up the alley circa late-1940s. After that, it was gone. The actor James C. Powers played at the Park in 1880 in a show called “Dreams” with Willie Edouin. In his autobiography, published around 1943, Jimmy Powers tells of life at the Park in those days. He and Willie Edouin apparently had a relationship similar to Homer and Bart Simpson. Movies pretty much took over the Park after 1912 or so, until Minsky Burlesque came in during the 1930s. The original Park Th. had 2 balconies, an orchestra circle, and boxes.There was a tunnel from a small hotel to the south which led to the backstage. This hotel was demolished after a gas explosion there in the early 1960s. The State II was located in a storefront on Washington St. and was not carved out of the State itself. The State closed in 1985.
I saw movies a few times in the Mayflower in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was an ATC house and shared newspaper ad space with the Pilgrim. It had a tiny foyer, and a narrow auditorium with balcony. I understand that the seating capacity was 741. The arch in the facade was originally open, not closed in as it is today. The alley on the left side of the theatre led to the 3rd balcony entrance of hthe Boston Theatre in the old days. The Modern was carved out of space in an 1876 building. It was indeed a live theatre circa 1979-80 or so; and later in the 1980s it served as garage for push-cart vendors, a role which it shared with the stage of the nearby RKO Boston.
I went into the Pilgrim a number of times in the 1950s and 60s. It was an ATC house for years. It had 2 balconies and numerous big boxes on the sidewalls. But the stage wasn’t very big. The rear of the stage was one building in from Harrison Ave. The scene door and the stage door were in an alley back there, at stage-left. It did show first-run films years ago. I never saw the escalator operating; it was always stopped every time I went in. I never went up into the balconies. Just to the southeast of the theatre there is a big parking garage with entrances on Beach St. Someone told me that he had read that an entrance passageway was built circa 1948 between the northwest corner of the groundfloor of the garage and some point on the south wall of the Pilgrim lobby. I have no memory of this at all. The burlesque shows started circa 1971 and ended circa-1975. This was the last gasp of traditional Burley in Boston, following closure of the Casino in Spring 1962. Then, the Pilgrim went on triple-feature XXX films; the message on the marquee remained the same for many years afterward. It closed October 1995, and was razed summer 1996. It was originally a Nathan Gordon house and was “sister” to the Scollay Sq. Olympia, although not physically identical. It probably did have over 2000 seats, although not maybe the 2500 often attributed to it.
The reference above to the “Virgin Records” store on Winter Street should refer to the HMV Records store at 24 Winter St., directly across from the Music Hall Place alley.
In the mid-1990s, the 1880-era building at Tremont St and the north side of Hamilton Place was demolished to make way for the new Suffolk Univ. building now on the site. This exposed, for the first time ever, the 1915 west wall of the Orpheum. It remained exposed for 2 or more years, perfectly lit by the afternoon sun. I hope some of the local Orpheum fans got photos!
My grandparents had weekly season tickets to the Gaiety when it first opened. Charlie Waldron was associated with the theatre in its first days. It was part of the Columbia Wheel (circuit). Columbia went out of business gradually from 1928 to 1932, so the large ads for the Columbia shows painted on the Publix and which were in good condition right into the 1980s and still readable in the 1990s are a tribute to the quality of the paint used ! I went to the Publix often in the late 1950s and 1960s. They did not advertise in the newspapers at that time. It was stictly a walk-in audience. They opened at 830AM, a half-hour earlier than the other downtown houses. I believe the admission was 35 or 40 cents in the morning circa 1960.There were 2 recent films and shorts. They got good houses, consisting of students between classes, highschool students skipping school, people on business goofing off, etc. The manager was a no-nonsense woman who patrolled the aisles with a big flashlight as a club. I never saw any trouble in there. The balcony was never open in the mornings. I stopped going after 1968 or so. The house showed “action” movies in the 1970s, but no XXX. It closed for good in the spring of 1983, around April.
I think that Jess Cain is still among us— in addition to his radio work, he was also an occasional actor in local productions. As for the old Metropolitan, one aspect of it that I liked was that if you went into the theatre when it opened about 9AM on a sunny morning, the huge inner foyer was flooded with sunlight coming from the windows on the south wall. Outside of that wall there is a fine decorated facade which nobody ever sees because it’s now out of the way. The alley there was formerly Hollis Street, which ran down to Washington. Diagonally across from that facade when the Met was new was the Hollis St. Theatre, one of Boston’s legit houses. There were no buildings across from the east wall of the Met, or few buildings, so that you could get a good look at it, unlike today. And there was a narrow street which ran in back of the stage and alonside the north wall of the Wilbur Theatre. In other words, the Met’s rear stage wall was even with the north sidewall of the Wilbur, so you can see that the Met stage was not very deep. I saw the Metropolitan Opera on tour from NY at the Met in April 1958. Their scenary was in tents and trailers outside the theatre. The opera was there because the old Boston Opera House on Huntington Ave had been demolished in Jan-Feb. 1958. I went there during the summer of 1962 after it had been renamed Music Hall by Ben Sack, and the show was an excercise in 1929-era nostalgia, with the organ operating and a mini-revue on stage in addition to the movie. The organ was removed to a private collector sometime in the 1970s, I believe. The house seats about 3600 today. The ring of loges around the orchestra floor is not original and were installed during the 1990-era renovations.
Back in 1941 MGM began a project to identify movie theatres and to note the ones which were presenting MGM product. Some lucky guy got the job of driving around with his camera, finding theatres and snapping a photo of their facades and interviewing the manager and filling out a very brief form. Apparently, the project covered the entire USA, but I’m not sure of that. About 20 years ago, someone, and I can’t remember who, gave me a big handful of Xerox copies of these cards, for theatres in eastern- Massachusetts. Then, Donald King, author of the recent book on Boston theatres, and now, sadly, deceased, gave me a bunch of them, too. I don’t know where he got his. I understand that there are a selection of these cards in the archives of the THSA in Elmhurst IL. Who knows, possibly the MGM company still has the originals on file. Anyway, there is a card for the Warner Th. in Worcester.
Tremont Street is higher in elevation than Washington St, so that’s why one had to walk up a flight of stairs from the Orpheum’s entrance on Washington Street in order to reach the foyer which is at street level on Hamilton Place, off Tremont. I went to the movies at this theatre often, starting circa-1950. It was a busy house and in good condition right into the 1960s. A good view of the south wall can be obtained by going to the Virgin Records store on Winter St. on a sunny afternoon. Go to the front of the 2nd floor, west end.The alley you see is Music Hall Place. The orange-brick wall is the original from the 1852 Music Hall. The entrance to the Corner Mall at the head of the alley is an old entrance to the Music Hall. Lining the right side of the alley were poster boards for the Hall. At the corner, circa 1910, was a vertical sign for the Orpheum. Inside the entrance, in Music Hall days, there was a ticket office, and staircases. One staircase led up to the Hamilton Place lobby. One or more other stair cases led up into the auditorium. These had metal gates across them that were opened prior to the performance. Also down at that level was Bumpstead Hall, a smaller venue and part of the Boston Music Hall. As a performance hall and lecture room, Bumpstead Hall apparently went out of use after 1900. The area eventually became part of Gilchrist’s dept. store, and later the Corner Mall. The Music Hall’s stage was at the south end of the building. The stage was really a concert platform, like that of Mechanics Hall in Worcester, and did not have a proscenium arch. (Although they had a portable arch there which could be set up by request.) I’m not positive, but I think that the stage door of the Music Hall was the last door on the right as one stood in Hamilton Place looking at the entrance. The Music Hall was somewhat unique in that two major entrances, at Hamilton Place and at Music Hall Place, were both at the stage-end of the building. Most theatres and concert halls have their entrances at the audience-end of the structure !
The Adams was a small nabe at the south end of Quincy center. One walked in from the street and turned right to face the screen. All seats on one floor. It closed circa 1960 or so.?? If you go today to the side street directly behind it you can easily see the left side wall of the auditorium and the 2 fire exits.
There is a historical marker placque supposedly on the site of the Old Howard’s stage. To find it, go up in back of the north end of the Center Plaza building so that you are on the terrace in front of the Suffolk Country Court House. At the north end of the terrace there are several benches, and the plaque is (if it’s still there) affixed to one of the benches, or on the ground next to a bench. It was put in place circa 1980.
New England Theatres' leasing of the Casino in 1928 and installing a Wurlitzer organ could explain an oddity inside— The top tier of boxes on both sidewalls had grills over them. I could see that they were dummy boxes and thought that the grills had something to do with ventilation. Now it appears likely that the grills were for the organ. The Casino also had an inside stage door. Possibly the original stage door outside was located in a muddy dark alley. Performers came in through the front entrance, then down the right side aisle, through the right orchestra boxes and then through a door which led into the wings on stage-left. On that side of the stage was the pinrail for the rigging lines. The Casino obviously had a movie screen which was “flown” up out of the way when the stage shows began.
This theatre was included in the MGM Theatre Photograph and Report project. The photo (my copy is a washed-out Xerox) is dated May, 1941. There is a narrow entrance with a small square marquee above. Attraction is Betty Davis in “Great Lie”, along with “Strange Alibi”. In the street are trolley tracks. To the left is Brewer & Co. drug store, occupying the corner. To the right is what looks like Prudence Clothes. The report indicates that the Warner is not a MGM customer; that the house is in Fair condition; is over 15 years old, and has 700 seats on the main floor and 600 seats in the balcony. The address was listed as 62 Front St. in Worcester. Although this Warner is now gone from Worcester, there is still a Warner Th. there ! It’s on the campus of the Worcester Academy prep school, just south of downtown. I do not know why the school calls it the “Warner Theatre” .
There was a theatre history buff who lived in the Back Bay named William Morris Hunt. I believe that he was the grandnephew of the noted 19th century designer, Richard Morris Hunt. William attended a meeting of theatre buffs in the BRA offices in Boston City Hall around 1985 or so, called by the Theatre District planner. Among the goodies he had with him was a drawing of the Park Th. entrance before the Crabtree Building was constructed. The entrance was originally thru a house, something like the Old Corner Bookstore building at School and Washington streets today. His collection was donated to the Harvard Theatre Collection before he passed away about 8 or 10 years ago. Does anyone know when the Crabtree Building (which contained the Trans Lux entrance) was opened? I will guess about 1910 or 1915 ??
The photo on page 22 of “Weymouth” by Sullivan & Tighe (Arcadia Pub.,2001) shows part of the Weymouth Theatre in the center background. You can see the tall stagehouse covered in tarpaper with a fake brick pattern on it, plus the top of the left sidewall. The photo dates from 1935. This theatre was included in the MGM Theatre Photograph and Report project. The photo of the facade dates from April 1941. The Report states that the theater is showing MGM product, that it is less than 15 years old, is in Good condition and has 712 seats, all on one floor. The facade appears to be covered in the same fake-brick tar paper. There are 2 double doors and a box offfice below the marquee. But the odd thing is that there are commercial buildings on each side of the theatre. In the 1950s, my memory is that it was a stand-alone building with nothing on each side.
One Sunday afternoon in the mid-1980s I was walking west on 47th St and noticed that the scene door of the Palace was open— they were loading in a TV awards show. The scene door was on the rear stage wall, near its north end. The stage door for performers was located under some fire escapes at stage-right on W. 47th St. As I stood in the alley by the scene door, I noticed a sign in large white letters painted on the wall of a building at the south end of the alley which said “Stage Door” with an arrow pointing to the right. This implies that the stage door of the Palace was originally at stage-left, not at stage-right on 47th St. as it is today. Does anyone know anything about this ??
The message on the marquee was one they didn’t have to change weekly.It read something like “XXX Three Big XXX Features” or something like that. Possibly, if you go thru the various photo links above, you might find it. In December 1992, the distinctive facade of the Pilgrim received a paint job, and the marquee was repaired or renovated. But I think they put the same message back on it as before.
Here is a summary of the changes made to the building in 1900 and 1915. The auditorium was similar to that of Symphony Hall- a rectangle with 2 balconies each with long side galleries, with half-circle clerestory windows high above. There was a hip roof and on the west side a 3-story wing. The south end of this wing contained the Hamilton Place entrance. During the summer of 1900 the Hall was converted into a vaudeville theatre. The 2 balconies were removed and replaced by a proscenium stage. The concert platform was replaced by 2 new balconies. The side galleries were converted into loges. The rear of the orchestra floor under the 2 new balconies was stepped or sloped. The ceiling remained the same. The lobbies and lounges were all redecorated. After Marcus Loew took over, he hired Thomas Lamb to completely rebuild the Orpheum. Lamb removed the hip roof and built a new, higher roof with an elevated stage-house. He demolished the old west wing and built a new west wall on the outer edge of the property line. The Orpheum today has an auditorium which is higher and wider than the original. He designed a new entrance at Hamilton Place which is in the same location as the old entrance in the old west wing. After he got through in early-1916, there was not much left of the old interior except maybe for some spaces in the basement ?? If you go down the alleys off Bromfield Street and look at the north wall, you can see the 3 clerestory windows high above (which are bricked-up) and the remaining section of the cornice which ran around the north, west and east walls in 1852. There was once a pedestrian way which ran from Tremont to Washington streets and ran right along the north wall of the Boston Music Hall. That was in the 19th Century, long before Loew’s Orpheum.
The Weymouth Theater was on the east side of Weymouth Landing directly across from the Sacred Heart Church rectory. It was of wood-frame construction and apparently was built in the late-1920s, possibly as a replacement for the Bates Opera House nearby on the west side of Weymouth Landing (in Braintree) just south of where Marion’s Shoes is located. There were live shows at the Bates and I assume movies played there too. In the Fall of 1954, a new friend of mine told me that she had just participated in a talent show on stage at the Weymouth Th. on a recent Saturday morning. How I wish now that I had asked her for details about the building!! (I never went into it). By 1958 it was closed, and it was demolished around 1959 or 1960. Nothing was ever built on the site.
It was originally called the State Theatre. It was on the north side of Adams Street, just east of East Milton Square, and in the 500-block, I think. There is a MGM Theatre Photograph and Report for this theatre, dated April 1941. It was a MGM customer, was in Fair condition, Was over 15 years old, and had 710 seats, all on one floor. I don’t know when the name was changed to Milton Cinema, but I will guess circa 1970. It was very close to the Quincy line, but I never went in it when I lived in Quincy in 1940s and 1950s. I have notes that it closed in Sept 1987 after a bitter fight between the owner and the operator; then reopened in November 1987 with a new operator. Around 1990 or so it became a comedy club. During its long movie career, it was always a single-screen, I believe. I think the formal name was Milton Cinema and not East Milton Cinema— to be sure, one would have to look at old newspaper ads.
The Pussycat closed some time between the 2nd half of 1987 and the first half of 1988; The West End Pussycat (ex-Lancaster Th.) also closed in this same timeframe. I don’t recall that the Stuart remained closed for a very long time before being converted into a McDonald’s.
Here are some dates regarding the Old Howard demolition. I went to Scollay Sq on Monday March 19, 1962 and noted that demo had started on the Scollay Square Theatre. On Tuesday April 24th, demo had started on the stage-end of the Old Howard; I viewed demo in progress on both the Scollay Square Theatre and the Old Howard on Thursday April 26th and Monday May 7th. Then, a last visit on Friday, May 11th, 1962. The fire in June 1961 badly damaged the roof which caved in; but the auditorium was not badly damaged, and standing on the terrace in front of the Suffolk County courthouse I got a good look at the auditorium after the stage-house had been removed, nicely lit by the morning sun. In the book “Scollay Square' by David Kruh (Arcadia, 2004), on page 64 there is a photo of the lobby at showtime. This is exactly the way I remember it the first time I looked in there on a Sat. night in 1950. On page 109-top, the photo shows the facade just after the fire, with rubble in the street. On Page 108, the rubble has been cleaned up; you can see the stage-house of the Scollay Square Theatre right next to the Old Howard’s facade. (the 2 theatres were side by side, head to foot). The Old Howard did not have air-conditioning,so it closed each summer from about late-June to Late-August.
To- mb848- Some years ago while driving down Washington St., I realized that I could no longer figure out where the Lincoln had been. You can take the street address above, 585 Washington, and see if you can find it today. I got that address from the MGM Report. (For a discussion of the MGM Theatre Reports, see under Warner Th. Worcester MA) I recall that the Lincoln remained closed but standing for some time. One of the 1962 Quincy Patriot Ledger articles mentions that the Strand was the last movie theatre in Quincy center still operating (as of 1962); the Art was closed but availble for rent. I’m guessing that the Lincoln also closed around this time.
I’m often on as a “guest” because I don’t log in unless I’m fairly certain that I will be making a comment. For the past several days I have not been able to access the theatre sites at all- for every name I type in I eventually get the “Oops! Name not listed” message, even with common names like Warner and Strand. I hope that you can fix what ails CT so that Members and Guests alike can breeze thru the site as before.
Please let your army of fans know when Cinema Treasure’s health is expected to improve. CT is by far my favorite website and it has been an ordeal to visit or work in it for the past 3 weeks. I hope you can get some compu-brains to correct what’s wrong.
I went into the Trans Lux for the first time circa 1960, before the change of name to State. There was a black and white movie of girl volley ball players who played the game nude. The house was in good condition. The dressing rooms for the Park Th. were in a seperate building across the alley to the rear of the stage and there was an overhead bridge connecting. I have a very vague memory of seeing this when looking up the alley circa late-1940s. After that, it was gone. The actor James C. Powers played at the Park in 1880 in a show called “Dreams” with Willie Edouin. In his autobiography, published around 1943, Jimmy Powers tells of life at the Park in those days. He and Willie Edouin apparently had a relationship similar to Homer and Bart Simpson. Movies pretty much took over the Park after 1912 or so, until Minsky Burlesque came in during the 1930s. The original Park Th. had 2 balconies, an orchestra circle, and boxes.There was a tunnel from a small hotel to the south which led to the backstage. This hotel was demolished after a gas explosion there in the early 1960s. The State II was located in a storefront on Washington St. and was not carved out of the State itself. The State closed in 1985.
I saw movies a few times in the Mayflower in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was an ATC house and shared newspaper ad space with the Pilgrim. It had a tiny foyer, and a narrow auditorium with balcony. I understand that the seating capacity was 741. The arch in the facade was originally open, not closed in as it is today. The alley on the left side of the theatre led to the 3rd balcony entrance of hthe Boston Theatre in the old days. The Modern was carved out of space in an 1876 building. It was indeed a live theatre circa 1979-80 or so; and later in the 1980s it served as garage for push-cart vendors, a role which it shared with the stage of the nearby RKO Boston.
I went into the Pilgrim a number of times in the 1950s and 60s. It was an ATC house for years. It had 2 balconies and numerous big boxes on the sidewalls. But the stage wasn’t very big. The rear of the stage was one building in from Harrison Ave. The scene door and the stage door were in an alley back there, at stage-left. It did show first-run films years ago. I never saw the escalator operating; it was always stopped every time I went in. I never went up into the balconies. Just to the southeast of the theatre there is a big parking garage with entrances on Beach St. Someone told me that he had read that an entrance passageway was built circa 1948 between the northwest corner of the groundfloor of the garage and some point on the south wall of the Pilgrim lobby. I have no memory of this at all. The burlesque shows started circa 1971 and ended circa-1975. This was the last gasp of traditional Burley in Boston, following closure of the Casino in Spring 1962. Then, the Pilgrim went on triple-feature XXX films; the message on the marquee remained the same for many years afterward. It closed October 1995, and was razed summer 1996. It was originally a Nathan Gordon house and was “sister” to the Scollay Sq. Olympia, although not physically identical. It probably did have over 2000 seats, although not maybe the 2500 often attributed to it.
The reference above to the “Virgin Records” store on Winter Street should refer to the HMV Records store at 24 Winter St., directly across from the Music Hall Place alley.
In the mid-1990s, the 1880-era building at Tremont St and the north side of Hamilton Place was demolished to make way for the new Suffolk Univ. building now on the site. This exposed, for the first time ever, the 1915 west wall of the Orpheum. It remained exposed for 2 or more years, perfectly lit by the afternoon sun. I hope some of the local Orpheum fans got photos!
My grandparents had weekly season tickets to the Gaiety when it first opened. Charlie Waldron was associated with the theatre in its first days. It was part of the Columbia Wheel (circuit). Columbia went out of business gradually from 1928 to 1932, so the large ads for the Columbia shows painted on the Publix and which were in good condition right into the 1980s and still readable in the 1990s are a tribute to the quality of the paint used ! I went to the Publix often in the late 1950s and 1960s. They did not advertise in the newspapers at that time. It was stictly a walk-in audience. They opened at 830AM, a half-hour earlier than the other downtown houses. I believe the admission was 35 or 40 cents in the morning circa 1960.There were 2 recent films and shorts. They got good houses, consisting of students between classes, highschool students skipping school, people on business goofing off, etc. The manager was a no-nonsense woman who patrolled the aisles with a big flashlight as a club. I never saw any trouble in there. The balcony was never open in the mornings. I stopped going after 1968 or so. The house showed “action” movies in the 1970s, but no XXX. It closed for good in the spring of 1983, around April.
I think that Jess Cain is still among us— in addition to his radio work, he was also an occasional actor in local productions. As for the old Metropolitan, one aspect of it that I liked was that if you went into the theatre when it opened about 9AM on a sunny morning, the huge inner foyer was flooded with sunlight coming from the windows on the south wall. Outside of that wall there is a fine decorated facade which nobody ever sees because it’s now out of the way. The alley there was formerly Hollis Street, which ran down to Washington. Diagonally across from that facade when the Met was new was the Hollis St. Theatre, one of Boston’s legit houses. There were no buildings across from the east wall of the Met, or few buildings, so that you could get a good look at it, unlike today. And there was a narrow street which ran in back of the stage and alonside the north wall of the Wilbur Theatre. In other words, the Met’s rear stage wall was even with the north sidewall of the Wilbur, so you can see that the Met stage was not very deep. I saw the Metropolitan Opera on tour from NY at the Met in April 1958. Their scenary was in tents and trailers outside the theatre. The opera was there because the old Boston Opera House on Huntington Ave had been demolished in Jan-Feb. 1958. I went there during the summer of 1962 after it had been renamed Music Hall by Ben Sack, and the show was an excercise in 1929-era nostalgia, with the organ operating and a mini-revue on stage in addition to the movie. The organ was removed to a private collector sometime in the 1970s, I believe. The house seats about 3600 today. The ring of loges around the orchestra floor is not original and were installed during the 1990-era renovations.
Back in 1941 MGM began a project to identify movie theatres and to note the ones which were presenting MGM product. Some lucky guy got the job of driving around with his camera, finding theatres and snapping a photo of their facades and interviewing the manager and filling out a very brief form. Apparently, the project covered the entire USA, but I’m not sure of that. About 20 years ago, someone, and I can’t remember who, gave me a big handful of Xerox copies of these cards, for theatres in eastern- Massachusetts. Then, Donald King, author of the recent book on Boston theatres, and now, sadly, deceased, gave me a bunch of them, too. I don’t know where he got his. I understand that there are a selection of these cards in the archives of the THSA in Elmhurst IL. Who knows, possibly the MGM company still has the originals on file. Anyway, there is a card for the Warner Th. in Worcester.
Tremont Street is higher in elevation than Washington St, so that’s why one had to walk up a flight of stairs from the Orpheum’s entrance on Washington Street in order to reach the foyer which is at street level on Hamilton Place, off Tremont. I went to the movies at this theatre often, starting circa-1950. It was a busy house and in good condition right into the 1960s. A good view of the south wall can be obtained by going to the Virgin Records store on Winter St. on a sunny afternoon. Go to the front of the 2nd floor, west end.The alley you see is Music Hall Place. The orange-brick wall is the original from the 1852 Music Hall. The entrance to the Corner Mall at the head of the alley is an old entrance to the Music Hall. Lining the right side of the alley were poster boards for the Hall. At the corner, circa 1910, was a vertical sign for the Orpheum. Inside the entrance, in Music Hall days, there was a ticket office, and staircases. One staircase led up to the Hamilton Place lobby. One or more other stair cases led up into the auditorium. These had metal gates across them that were opened prior to the performance. Also down at that level was Bumpstead Hall, a smaller venue and part of the Boston Music Hall. As a performance hall and lecture room, Bumpstead Hall apparently went out of use after 1900. The area eventually became part of Gilchrist’s dept. store, and later the Corner Mall. The Music Hall’s stage was at the south end of the building. The stage was really a concert platform, like that of Mechanics Hall in Worcester, and did not have a proscenium arch. (Although they had a portable arch there which could be set up by request.) I’m not positive, but I think that the stage door of the Music Hall was the last door on the right as one stood in Hamilton Place looking at the entrance. The Music Hall was somewhat unique in that two major entrances, at Hamilton Place and at Music Hall Place, were both at the stage-end of the building. Most theatres and concert halls have their entrances at the audience-end of the structure !
The Adams was a small nabe at the south end of Quincy center. One walked in from the street and turned right to face the screen. All seats on one floor. It closed circa 1960 or so.?? If you go today to the side street directly behind it you can easily see the left side wall of the auditorium and the 2 fire exits.
There is a historical marker placque supposedly on the site of the Old Howard’s stage. To find it, go up in back of the north end of the Center Plaza building so that you are on the terrace in front of the Suffolk Country Court House. At the north end of the terrace there are several benches, and the plaque is (if it’s still there) affixed to one of the benches, or on the ground next to a bench. It was put in place circa 1980.
New England Theatres' leasing of the Casino in 1928 and installing a Wurlitzer organ could explain an oddity inside— The top tier of boxes on both sidewalls had grills over them. I could see that they were dummy boxes and thought that the grills had something to do with ventilation. Now it appears likely that the grills were for the organ. The Casino also had an inside stage door. Possibly the original stage door outside was located in a muddy dark alley. Performers came in through the front entrance, then down the right side aisle, through the right orchestra boxes and then through a door which led into the wings on stage-left. On that side of the stage was the pinrail for the rigging lines. The Casino obviously had a movie screen which was “flown” up out of the way when the stage shows began.
This theatre was included in the MGM Theatre Photograph and Report project. The photo (my copy is a washed-out Xerox) is dated May, 1941. There is a narrow entrance with a small square marquee above. Attraction is Betty Davis in “Great Lie”, along with “Strange Alibi”. In the street are trolley tracks. To the left is Brewer & Co. drug store, occupying the corner. To the right is what looks like Prudence Clothes. The report indicates that the Warner is not a MGM customer; that the house is in Fair condition; is over 15 years old, and has 700 seats on the main floor and 600 seats in the balcony. The address was listed as 62 Front St. in Worcester. Although this Warner is now gone from Worcester, there is still a Warner Th. there ! It’s on the campus of the Worcester Academy prep school, just south of downtown. I do not know why the school calls it the “Warner Theatre” .