Yes, the New Art Cinema 3, in the mall across Commercial Street, upstairs at what used to be the Provincetown Theatre decades ago. It’s a single screener. They have been showing Michael Moore’s SiCKO.
Just to give an idea of the kind of film programs offered at the Aetna, I will list the films being shown the current 2007 summer film program: The Lives of Others, Sounds of Sand, The Great Match, The Rape of Europa, The Missing Star, The Iceberg, The Namesake, DarkBlueAlmostBlack, Kontakt. Additional films include outdoor screenings of two classic American films: The Awful Truth and the 1922 silent western Big Stakes, with life musical accompaniment by the Devil Music Ensemble of Boston.
Oh yes, Warren, you are absolutely right and I rue that sad fact every time I come to the city from my Providence area residence. I was there on Sunday for an Italian movie at the Aetna. Right across from the Wadsworth Atheneum there used to be two great movie palaces, almost side by side, the Loew’s Poli and Loew’s Palace. Up a few blocks was the Strand. The Allyn and E.M. Loew’s were destroyed for the building of the misconceived and monstrous Civic Center. The Princess and Regal bit the dust in an orgy of “renewal.” I never went into those movie palaces or mini-palaces, but I remember driving by almost all of them on my way to other places in the early 1960s, when I wasn’t really interested in theatres per se, only in movies, which I generally saw near where I lived in Rhode Island. The only movie theatres I’ve visited in Hartford are the Rivoli when it was an art house, and the Art Cinema when it was indeed an art house. Both are on the outskirts. The Rivoli is gone; the Art remains as a porno house. The Lyric on Park Street, a few blocks from the state capitol building, does still stand, shuttered and decrepit. If one of the great movie palaces like the Poli or Strand had survived, it could have today been used for touring Broadway shows instead of the Bushnell Auditorium. The Bushnell is more properly a concert hall and I feel it should have been used exclusively for musical and operatic events. Never a movie theatre, the Bushnell has quite an eye-popping interior though. At least this survives, and the new smaller auditorium next to it is a pleasant concert venue. In Providence we have the magificent former Loew’s State, now the Providence Performing Arts Center. That was a real preservation success story, though most of our other palaces were razed or gutted. Hartford had no movie-palace success story, not even one.
I will attempt to scan and post them as links to a photo server in the next few days. The add-a-photo function on this website doesn’t work, and in any event would allow for only one photo per theatre page.
In the “Images of America” book Hartford, Volume II, on page 52, appears a 1960 photo of the theatre along with the nearby Allyn. Hard to read what was on the marquee at the time. The E.M. Loew’s would be be razed in 1970, along with its neighbor the Allyn, in preparation for the construction of the huge Hartford Civic Center.
In the “Images of America” book Hartford, Volume II, on page 52 appears a 1960 photo of the theatre. On the marquee is the Walt Disney program, The Jungle Cat and The Hound that Thought He Was a Raccoon. We can also see the marquee of the E.M. Loew’s up the street. Hard to read what was there. On the same page there is a sad October 1970 photo of the Allyn being demolished to make way for the construction of the Hartford Civic Center. The E.M. Loew’s would also be razed for that civic project.
Two photos with the Regal in the foreground and the Princess in the background can be found on page 25 of the “Images in America” book Hartford, Volume I. You can see the marquee displays on the Regal. The Verdict and Child of Divorce in one (both 1946), Tomorrow the World (1944)and Song of the Sarong (1945) on the other. On the Princess program in the photo 1946 was The Dark Corner.
A period photo of the theatre when it was the (New) Palace Theatre can be seen in the “Images of America” book Hartford, Volume I, page 61. The marquee displays the 1929 film The Cockeyed World.
And yet two more on page 25 of the above volume. Two photos of the Regal in the foreground and the Princess in the background. In one you can see the marquee display on the Princess as the 1946 The Dark Corner.
Part of the entrance to the theatre along with a billboard for the 1930 Marion Davies film Not So Dumb can be seen on page 23 of the volume I just mentioned in my previous post above. Also on that page is another photo of the Princess in 1930, a long shot of the area buildings. The billboard here is for the 1930 Doorway to Hell.
The Princess was located a couple of doors away from the Regal Theatre, which was at 42 State Street. You can see the marquees (sort of) of both theatres in one photo in the “Images of America” book Hartford, Volume I on page 22.
Two period photos (1940s?) of the State Theatre can be seen in the “Images of America” volume Hartford, Volume I on page 43. One of the pictures shows the vertical marquee. Another has a large mob of patrons circling the entrance area. Perhaps I should scan and post.
No less than four period photos of the Strand appear in the “Images of America” volume Hartford, Volume I, on pages 74 and 75. One shows the marquee listing Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), another has Air Force (1943), and the two others show Doctor Zhivago (1965). Perhaps I should scan and post them. From the looks of its position on the map, it seems that this theatre and the adjacent area might have been demolished for the construction of I-84. Am I correct?
This article appeared in the Providence Journal after a meeting at the East Providence city hall where possible plans for the future of the theatre and surrounding area were discussed. The idea of actually restoring the Hollywood as a theatre did not seem to be the priority, sad to say.
NativeForestHiller,
A good deal is being done. I cannot provide you with much in the way of figures or statistics, though it is clearly my observation in walking around the city a lot. I don’t live in Newport. I come from another part of RI and like to go there often, especially by ferry from Providence during the warm months. A good deal of the area called The Point, with its historic little houses, owes its survival to the efforts of the late Doris Duke (whose mansion Roughpoint is now open to the public). The Preservation Society of Newport might be of some assistance in learning about these issues if you were to connect with them.
The theatre closed in the early 1940s, I believe. It was a Newberry’s (five and dime) store for a long while. It became an Express only a few years ago with the trend toward upscale shops in the area, like the very inappropriate-looking Banana Republic next to the in-restoration Opera House around the corner in Washington Square. After 65 years or more, most Newporters don’t even know there was ever a vaudeville and movie theatre in the building that now houses Express.
An in-depth Providence Journal article on this drive-in appeared in the newspaper on July 13, 2007. The print edition has more photos than the online version and even takes us into the projection booth. LINK TO THE ARTICLE
A very attractive framed photograph of the nearby Community Theatre (later Campus Cinema) in 1942, can be seen in the lobby of the Narragansett Theater. Pi Patel, who owns (owned?) the Narragansett, also owned the Campus Theatre in Wakefield. That one closed in 2003, after the opening of the multiplex Entertainment Cinemas on Route 1 in South Kingstown. The Narragansett continues to operate with first-run features. In 2004 a Providence Journal article said that the theatre was due to be closed permanently, but that has not happened.
A very attractive framed photograph of this theatre in 1942, when it was known as the Community Theatre, can be seen in the lobby of Pi Patel’s nearby Narragansett Theater.
From the South County Independent in July 24, 2003:
Movie house to shut down
By Alicia Korney/Independent Staff Writer
WAKEFIELD – Campus Cinema will close its doors after tonight’s movie screenings, but owner Pi Patel said he still hopes shows – whether in the form of dinner theater or art house flicks – eventually return to Columbia Street.
“It breaks my heart to do this,” said Patel, who bought the theater in 1998 and added a third screen. “After a while it became a foregone conclusion. I kept hoping the losses would stop but they didn’t.”
The Wakefield theater already has lost $70,000 through this year, according to Patel, and his three-screen Narragansett Theater in the Pier Marketplace has lost an additional $60,000 to date.
Patel said the trend dates back over the past three years, long before his theaters had to compete with the eight-screen Entertainment Cinemas that opened last summer in South County Commons on Route 1.
“I was losing money before they got here,” Patel said. “I’ve supported the community for three years in a row, investing more than a million dollars. It’s not the quality of the product or service – the movies just got overbuilt in South County. There’s not enough business to support 14 screens.”
Patel said he is formulating a new business plan and may try to bring dinner theater to the building at 17 Columbia St. He closed his Park Cinema in Cranston earlier this year and after receiving a liquor license from the state and Town Council reopened it to dinner theater.
“A similar concept may work here,” Patel said. Beyond the installation of a stage and lighting, he said he would need a liquor license from the town of South Kingstown to make the dinner theater realistic financially.
In many ways, Patel’s backup plan would be a return to the roots of the location.
First known as Wright’s Hall, the barn-style building opened in 1882 and became known as the Wakefield Opera House six years later. The hall was part of the village center that belonged to another time, long before council members and residents grappled with what continued development in South Kingstown would mean to the fate of the small businessman.
In 1978’s “A Stroll Through Memory Lane,” South County historian Oliver H. Stedman remembered that the theater got its start after the burning of Columbia Hall in the summer of 1882. After a few months of reconstruction, the hall opened to traveling minstrels and stock productions before the birth of “moving pictures.
“Ten, twenty and thirty cents were the prevailing prices, the center of the hall being the thirty cent section where one felt obliged to sit while having an evening out with wife or sweetheart,” Stedman recalled.
John W. Miller of Narragansett was the longest owner of the theater, buying the building in 1915 and making plans to rebuild after a serious fire in 1918 as he prepared to head off to France to serve in the Army during World War I. Miller continued to lease out the theater until his death in 1965, when his wife took over, rebuilding after a 1968 fire and continuing to lease the building until her own death in 1979.
John W. Miller Jr. of Narragansett said the family finally sold the sometimes-literal hot spot in 1981. Miller remembered how the hall was used for dancing after the much shorter movies of the early 1930s and said he’s not surprised the theater is closing, especially with the competition on Route 1.
“I naturally feel a little nostalgic and sentimental about the whole thing,” Miller said. “I just hope something good can come out of this for the public.”
Patel said he will continue to operate the Narragansett Theater to see whether the closing of the Wakefield location buoys business. Far from laying blame, Patel said he hopes Entertainment Cinemas sees a stronger business for the community’s sake, so people can still enjoy movies in South County.
Yes, the New Art Cinema 3, in the mall across Commercial Street, upstairs at what used to be the Provincetown Theatre decades ago. It’s a single screener. They have been showing Michael Moore’s SiCKO.
The place is now a café and bar, with the cinema auditoriums now used for Theatre Go Round events.
PHOTO
Ken,
Spellbound was made in 1945. The photo has to be from at least 1945.
A big selection of exterior and interior photos of the Avon, including the projection booth, can be seen if you CLICK HERE.
Just to give an idea of the kind of film programs offered at the Aetna, I will list the films being shown the current 2007 summer film program: The Lives of Others, Sounds of Sand, The Great Match, The Rape of Europa, The Missing Star, The Iceberg, The Namesake, DarkBlueAlmostBlack, Kontakt. Additional films include outdoor screenings of two classic American films: The Awful Truth and the 1922 silent western Big Stakes, with life musical accompaniment by the Devil Music Ensemble of Boston.
Oh yes, Warren, you are absolutely right and I rue that sad fact every time I come to the city from my Providence area residence. I was there on Sunday for an Italian movie at the Aetna. Right across from the Wadsworth Atheneum there used to be two great movie palaces, almost side by side, the Loew’s Poli and Loew’s Palace. Up a few blocks was the Strand. The Allyn and E.M. Loew’s were destroyed for the building of the misconceived and monstrous Civic Center. The Princess and Regal bit the dust in an orgy of “renewal.” I never went into those movie palaces or mini-palaces, but I remember driving by almost all of them on my way to other places in the early 1960s, when I wasn’t really interested in theatres per se, only in movies, which I generally saw near where I lived in Rhode Island. The only movie theatres I’ve visited in Hartford are the Rivoli when it was an art house, and the Art Cinema when it was indeed an art house. Both are on the outskirts. The Rivoli is gone; the Art remains as a porno house. The Lyric on Park Street, a few blocks from the state capitol building, does still stand, shuttered and decrepit. If one of the great movie palaces like the Poli or Strand had survived, it could have today been used for touring Broadway shows instead of the Bushnell Auditorium. The Bushnell is more properly a concert hall and I feel it should have been used exclusively for musical and operatic events. Never a movie theatre, the Bushnell has quite an eye-popping interior though. At least this survives, and the new smaller auditorium next to it is a pleasant concert venue. In Providence we have the magificent former Loew’s State, now the Providence Performing Arts Center. That was a real preservation success story, though most of our other palaces were razed or gutted. Hartford had no movie-palace success story, not even one.
I will attempt to scan and post them as links to a photo server in the next few days. The add-a-photo function on this website doesn’t work, and in any event would allow for only one photo per theatre page.
In the “Images of America” book Hartford, Volume II, on page 52, appears a 1960 photo of the theatre along with the nearby Allyn. Hard to read what was on the marquee at the time. The E.M. Loew’s would be be razed in 1970, along with its neighbor the Allyn, in preparation for the construction of the huge Hartford Civic Center.
In the “Images of America” book Hartford, Volume II, on page 52 appears a 1960 photo of the theatre. On the marquee is the Walt Disney program, The Jungle Cat and The Hound that Thought He Was a Raccoon. We can also see the marquee of the E.M. Loew’s up the street. Hard to read what was there. On the same page there is a sad October 1970 photo of the Allyn being demolished to make way for the construction of the Hartford Civic Center. The E.M. Loew’s would also be razed for that civic project.
Two photos with the Regal in the foreground and the Princess in the background can be found on page 25 of the “Images in America” book Hartford, Volume I. You can see the marquee displays on the Regal. The Verdict and Child of Divorce in one (both 1946), Tomorrow the World (1944)and Song of the Sarong (1945) on the other. On the Princess program in the photo 1946 was The Dark Corner.
A period photo of the theatre when it was the (New) Palace Theatre can be seen in the “Images of America” book Hartford, Volume I, page 61. The marquee displays the 1929 film The Cockeyed World.
And yet two more on page 25 of the above volume. Two photos of the Regal in the foreground and the Princess in the background. In one you can see the marquee display on the Princess as the 1946 The Dark Corner.
Part of the entrance to the theatre along with a billboard for the 1930 Marion Davies film Not So Dumb can be seen on page 23 of the volume I just mentioned in my previous post above. Also on that page is another photo of the Princess in 1930, a long shot of the area buildings. The billboard here is for the 1930 Doorway to Hell.
The Princess was located a couple of doors away from the Regal Theatre, which was at 42 State Street. You can see the marquees (sort of) of both theatres in one photo in the “Images of America” book Hartford, Volume I on page 22.
A sad photo of the State Theatre in the process of demolition can be seen in the “Images of America” volume Hartford, Volume II on page 62.
Two period photos (1940s?) of the State Theatre can be seen in the “Images of America” volume Hartford, Volume I on page 43. One of the pictures shows the vertical marquee. Another has a large mob of patrons circling the entrance area. Perhaps I should scan and post.
No less than four period photos of the Strand appear in the “Images of America” volume Hartford, Volume I, on pages 74 and 75. One shows the marquee listing Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), another has Air Force (1943), and the two others show Doctor Zhivago (1965). Perhaps I should scan and post them. From the looks of its position on the map, it seems that this theatre and the adjacent area might have been demolished for the construction of I-84. Am I correct?
This article appeared in the Providence Journal after a meeting at the East Providence city hall where possible plans for the future of the theatre and surrounding area were discussed. The idea of actually restoring the Hollywood as a theatre did not seem to be the priority, sad to say.
NativeForestHiller,
A good deal is being done. I cannot provide you with much in the way of figures or statistics, though it is clearly my observation in walking around the city a lot. I don’t live in Newport. I come from another part of RI and like to go there often, especially by ferry from Providence during the warm months. A good deal of the area called The Point, with its historic little houses, owes its survival to the efforts of the late Doris Duke (whose mansion Roughpoint is now open to the public). The Preservation Society of Newport might be of some assistance in learning about these issues if you were to connect with them.
The theatre closed in the early 1940s, I believe. It was a Newberry’s (five and dime) store for a long while. It became an Express only a few years ago with the trend toward upscale shops in the area, like the very inappropriate-looking Banana Republic next to the in-restoration Opera House around the corner in Washington Square. After 65 years or more, most Newporters don’t even know there was ever a vaudeville and movie theatre in the building that now houses Express.
The conversion was done in the early 1980s, I believe.
An in-depth Providence Journal article on this drive-in appeared in the newspaper on July 13, 2007. The print edition has more photos than the online version and even takes us into the projection booth.
LINK TO THE ARTICLE
A very attractive framed photograph of the nearby Community Theatre (later Campus Cinema) in 1942, can be seen in the lobby of the Narragansett Theater. Pi Patel, who owns (owned?) the Narragansett, also owned the Campus Theatre in Wakefield. That one closed in 2003, after the opening of the multiplex Entertainment Cinemas on Route 1 in South Kingstown. The Narragansett continues to operate with first-run features. In 2004 a Providence Journal article said that the theatre was due to be closed permanently, but that has not happened.
A very attractive framed photograph of this theatre in 1942, when it was known as the Community Theatre, can be seen in the lobby of Pi Patel’s nearby Narragansett Theater.
From the South County Independent in July 24, 2003:
Movie house to shut down
By Alicia Korney/Independent Staff Writer
WAKEFIELD – Campus Cinema will close its doors after tonight’s movie screenings, but owner Pi Patel said he still hopes shows – whether in the form of dinner theater or art house flicks – eventually return to Columbia Street.
“It breaks my heart to do this,” said Patel, who bought the theater in 1998 and added a third screen. “After a while it became a foregone conclusion. I kept hoping the losses would stop but they didn’t.”
The Wakefield theater already has lost $70,000 through this year, according to Patel, and his three-screen Narragansett Theater in the Pier Marketplace has lost an additional $60,000 to date.
Patel said the trend dates back over the past three years, long before his theaters had to compete with the eight-screen Entertainment Cinemas that opened last summer in South County Commons on Route 1.
“I was losing money before they got here,” Patel said. “I’ve supported the community for three years in a row, investing more than a million dollars. It’s not the quality of the product or service – the movies just got overbuilt in South County. There’s not enough business to support 14 screens.”
Patel said he is formulating a new business plan and may try to bring dinner theater to the building at 17 Columbia St. He closed his Park Cinema in Cranston earlier this year and after receiving a liquor license from the state and Town Council reopened it to dinner theater.
“A similar concept may work here,” Patel said. Beyond the installation of a stage and lighting, he said he would need a liquor license from the town of South Kingstown to make the dinner theater realistic financially.
In many ways, Patel’s backup plan would be a return to the roots of the location.
First known as Wright’s Hall, the barn-style building opened in 1882 and became known as the Wakefield Opera House six years later. The hall was part of the village center that belonged to another time, long before council members and residents grappled with what continued development in South Kingstown would mean to the fate of the small businessman.
In 1978’s “A Stroll Through Memory Lane,” South County historian Oliver H. Stedman remembered that the theater got its start after the burning of Columbia Hall in the summer of 1882. After a few months of reconstruction, the hall opened to traveling minstrels and stock productions before the birth of “moving pictures.
“Ten, twenty and thirty cents were the prevailing prices, the center of the hall being the thirty cent section where one felt obliged to sit while having an evening out with wife or sweetheart,” Stedman recalled.
John W. Miller of Narragansett was the longest owner of the theater, buying the building in 1915 and making plans to rebuild after a serious fire in 1918 as he prepared to head off to France to serve in the Army during World War I. Miller continued to lease out the theater until his death in 1965, when his wife took over, rebuilding after a 1968 fire and continuing to lease the building until her own death in 1979.
John W. Miller Jr. of Narragansett said the family finally sold the sometimes-literal hot spot in 1981. Miller remembered how the hall was used for dancing after the much shorter movies of the early 1930s and said he’s not surprised the theater is closing, especially with the competition on Route 1.
“I naturally feel a little nostalgic and sentimental about the whole thing,” Miller said. “I just hope something good can come out of this for the public.”
Patel said he will continue to operate the Narragansett Theater to see whether the closing of the Wakefield location buoys business. Far from laying blame, Patel said he hopes Entertainment Cinemas sees a stronger business for the community’s sake, so people can still enjoy movies in South County.