Paramount Center
549-59 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
549-59 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
18 people
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Showing 51 - 75 of 266 comments
I am a current BFA Film Student at Emerson College, I used to work at The Ioka Theater in Exeter, NH as well as The Somerville Theater in Somervile, MA. I am also a volunteer down at The Jersey City Loew’s in Jersey City, NJ. I am currently a projectionist at The Stuart Street Playhouse in Boston, MA, and hope to experience the change-over projection system they have in Emerson College’s Paramount Center…in their screening room they are calling The Kevin Bright Family Screening Room.
To me personally, they should have renovated the main theater to be a more of a multi-use venue. It is right now a performing arts venue, but how hard would it have been to renovate/rebuild a projection booth for use of the VMA department at Emerson College.
The Screening RM they have in The Paramount Center is more so in the adjacent building and is about a 250 seat capacity (about the size of the Harvard Film Archive, maybe even smaller).
Status should be changed to ‘Open’, since the theatre hosted its first public event last night (Max Raabe & Palast Orchester’s show A Night in Berlin)
Counting the seats on that Celebrity Series seating chart, I get: Orchestra- 302, Balcony- 248, Boxes- 16; total: 566 seats, compared to 1,797 in the original Paramount.
A seating chart for the new Paramount is now online.
It looks like they did a fantastic job. I remember seeing this place in about ‘89. At that time I figured there was a good chance it would never open again.
Here’s a corrected, direct link to the video tour of the new Paramount:
View link
I found this public event on Emerson’s calendar page. Oddly, it’s in the film screening room even though it’s a live event.
Tony Hoagland Reading
02/11/2010
Paramount Center
The Kevin Bright Screening Room
free
Poet Tony Hoagland, guest editor of the Winter 2009-10 issue of Ploughshares, will visit campus Thursday, Feb. 11. A Q&A session at 4:00 will be followed by a reading at 6:00.
This event is open to the public.
Sponsored by Ploughshares with Writing, Literature and Publishing.
A friend who works in downtown Boston told me that late yesterday afternoon she noticed that the lights in front of the Paramount were all on and that it looked great. Until recent days, the marquee and the vertical outside have been dark.
To Ron Newman- No, I did not find seating charts; the seating capacities were mentioned in the text of the website. I would suspect that the seating is flexible in the Black Box. I got the impression that you access the Black Box by climbing the staircases from the Paramount’s lobby. There must be a connection upstairs into the Arcade Building.
The screening room (unofficially?) opened on Monday with a 35mm screening of “Precious” for Emerson students. The venue is supposed to open officially later this spring.
Did you find seating charts?
According to Emerson’s website, the seating at the Paramount is 596 seats; the Bright Film Screening Room has 170 seats, and the Black Box Theatre (which is upstairs at the front of the Arcade Building, has 125 seats.
Here are direct lnks to yesterday’s Sunday Herald article and to their photo essay.
Since the reopened theatre has three separate spaces — the main auditorium, a smaller black-box theatre, and a film screening room — I’d argue that the number of ‘Screens’ should be changed to 3 (even though there will never be an actual movie screen in two of those spaces).
Emerson now has a five-minute promotional video tour here: http://www.emerson.edu/news/index.cfm#12137
Today’s Boston Sunday Herald has a feature article about the Paramount restoration written by Tenely Woodman. There are 4 photos. The theater will open in March with attractions presented by the Boston Celebrity Series. The Grand Opening will be in September. The auditorium has 550 seats (compared to nearly 1800 in the original). The main floor is a steeply-raked stadium-style. There is a balcony with about 9 rows. The only original decor is the wood paneling along the staircases. Everything else is a recreation. There appear to be 3 boxes along each sidewall, extending down from the balcony front. The original had a narrow side-gallery along each side-wall. There is a nice, deep stage. The street-level lobby looks a good deal larger than what I remember. The decor is really beautiful.
Emerson College’s footprint extends next door (to the north) in what they call the “Arcade Building” (because there was a game arcade in there years ago) but what could really be called the “Bijou Building” or even the “Keith Building”. They have a 200-seat screening room, plus a “black-box” theater. Emerson has one person who is responsible for arranging attractions for all of these venues: Paramount, Majestic, screening room and black-box theater.
There is a Photo Gallery of nice color photos of the Paramount at www.bostonherald.com/entertainment (These photos may not remain posted for too long.)
To the right of the theatre’s main lobby entrance.
Sounds interesting..on which side is this door and hallway located?
There is a side door next to the Paramount leading to a long hallway whose wall is lined with old Boston theatre seating charts. I hope to get a better look at this once the building is open.
It’s also possible that the Mayor wanted to show off two theatres on the same night, or that the Paramount lobby just doesn’t provide a sufficiently ornate and fancy setting compared to that of the Opera House.
I hope Emerson will schedule a public open house before the first paid event takes place this spring.
According to today’s Boston Herald, the 5th-term inauguration of Boston Mayor Tom “Mumbles” Menino took place Monday in the Paramount. Prior to the event, there was a reception next door in the Grand Lobby of the Opera House. This seems to imply that there wasn’t a space large enough in the Paramount to host the reception, or perhaps such a space, if it exists, was not ready for use.
The three photos are great, but they don’t begin to tell the story of this restoration’s magnificence.
I saw this interior recently with the work a little farther along, and with the dramatic illumination at play. This restoration is going to be winning awards.
Good looking pics. Looks like every city had a PARAMOUNT the one in Nashville,Tennessee was torn down in 1977 and has been a 1 level parking lot ever since.It opened in 1930.
I was surprised at the restoration photos of the Paramount. I think due to pressure from many that the theatre was partly restored which I am very happy. Good going Boston. brucec
Thanks for posting this link, CWalczak. I have a black & white photo of the Paramount interior when it was new. The new design elements are pretty true to the original, for the side-walls, where the walls meet the ceiling, and the ceiling itself. The first photo of the set of 3 seems to show the design right above the center of the proscenium. The caption says that the Paramount had 1,700 seats, but it was really close to 1,800. It says that they will have 800 seats in the new Paramount. Three very nice photos.