RKO Boston Theatre
614 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
614 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
10 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 139 comments
Prometheus- If you look at the back of the building you will notice that there are several stories that have no windows. This is the are that the theater occupies. Also there is a large double door on the Avery Street side this is the loading dock for the stage. The dressing rooms had bathtubs. The building has three sub basements. The original theater was indeed impressive. While it could be restored it is unlikely as cement was poured in an attempt to make the space usable for other things but to my knowledge the space where the balcony and upper lobby was never used for anything since this was done.
Prometheus- I don’t get your point either. Why are you surprised that the building is still there? It has tenants in it. It was built in the 1910-era and once had a department store in part of it. The RKO Boston was constructed in space at the rear of the building in 1925. The MBTA entrance at the front of the building is fairly recent and occupies what was the theatre’s outer lobby. You can go to the Landmarks office in Boston City Hall and read the info they have on the structure.
I don’t really understand your question. The theatre is part of the 600 Washington-Essex building.
Does anyone know anything about the 600 Washington Street building near this theater? I do not know if it ever had a theater in it, but with everything in the area undergoing such dramatic change, I was wondering why this remains. Is there something significant about it? I cannot find it in any historic preservation documents, and in many ways it appears fairly unremarkable.
The entertainment page of the Boston Post for Sept. 23, 1947 has a listing of movie times at Boston theatres. The Keith Boston is listed (without the “RKO”) showing the movie “High Conquest” which is screened 5 times during the day, starting at 1045AM, and a stage show which is presented 4 times during the day starting at 1230PM.
I remember watching the conversion to Cinemrama in 1953. The three projection booths on the main floor were being constructed.
Attending the premiere of THIS IS CINERAMA was a real theatrical event.Klieg lights, Black and Yellow uniforms, doorman on the curb to assist patrons. All the inside carpets,cutains etc were bright red. A great era !!
I was glad to hear the cinema is still there, even if it is being used merely as a supply closet by the building’s maintenance people. I was wondering if other viewers of this website remember the way the projection booth sat in the middle of the theater. When I was there in 1958, 1967, and 1968, there seemed to be one large booth sitting right in the center of the lower level of the theater — or perhaps a little bit more to the rear of the main floor. During the Cinerama and Cinemiracle showings in the 1950’s before 70mm was created, three projectors were combined in this one booth. In Cinemiracle’s case for the 1958 film “Windjammer,” the outer projectors used mirrors to project the image across to the opposite side of the screen and the center projector merely projected straight ahead. The “Windjammer” souvenir book explains this very clearly. I still remember being able to easily discern the lines between the three images on the screen created by the three projectors. 70mm of course improved everything by only needing one projector. But I do think that the original large projection booth hurt the theater in the sense that fewer seats were available for the viewing public. In both 1967 and 1968 there were some seats for sale to the left and right and slightly back from the projection booth on either side, but the large area directly behind it was roped off. I do not remember how big the balcony was in this theater, but that must have been a compensating factor. I wish I could go back in time to 1958.
Dennis- the parking lot is just to the north of the building which contains the RKO Boston. The lot is directly across from the Paramount and Opera House. If you go down to the east edge of the parking lot and look south you will see the rear stage wall of the RKO Boston, painted gray with a big scenery-loading door and a small stage door. Go around the corner to the east wall and you will see all the fire exit doors and fire escapes along the right side of the auditorium.
I was only 7 when my parents took me here to see “Windjammer” and we still have the souvenir book that was sold in the theater. I also remember coming back to it about 1967 to see “Grand Prix” in 70mm and at that time I noticed that the projection equipment seemed to block a huge number of rear seats from being able to view the screen. Those seats were roped off and not for sale. It was the strangest sight in a cinema. In late 1968, I came to this place to see “2001: A Space Odyssey”, as billboards around town were still saying that it was at the Boston Cinerama, but when we arrived it turned out that “Ice Station Zebra” had suddenly been rushed in to capture the pre-Christmas viewing market. We stayed and watched it, thrilled by the visual beauty of the curving screen and the surround sound quality of the theater. The film itself, however, was silly. I always regretted that I missed seeing “2001” at this fine cinema.
The odd thing is that years later I got the impression that a parking lot had been created where the theater once existed. I guess my memories of exactly where the theater was located were wrong.
People literally did come from miles around to see Cinerama in Boston in the 1950s. The shows were very popular. And 50 cents for a Coke in the mid-1950s was indeed a rip-off !! The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report form for the RKO Boston has an exterior photo taken in 1941. The front of the rather small marquee says, in white letters on a dark background, “2 Big First Run Features!” attached to the lower edges of the marquee are cloth banners which read “2 Big First Run Features 2”. The Report states that the theatre does not present MGM product; that it’s in Good condition; and has 1934 seats on the orchestra floor, and 1289 in the balcony; total: 3223 seats.
I was 12 years old when mom & pop took me and a cousin to Boston from Springfield, 90 miles away, to see “This Is Cinerama.” Arriving at the theater we got pop to spring 50 cents each for 4 Cokes which he grumbled about right up to showtime. Cokes at that time went for a dime. I recall the cousin and I complaining during the show about the 2 vertical lines in the picture, because of the 3 projector format.
I agree with Life’s Too Short. Not only did the building managment turn down the 2 individuals who asked to view the theatre, they twice refused the organizers of the THSA convention last June permission to take the group of 150 inside for a brief look. Meanwhile, maintenance staff go in and out of the theatre all the time. There’s little doubt that they don’t want a Gayety-type movement to “Save the RKO Boston!”
I get the impression from everything read here that they consider it their storage facility and would like the rest of the world, particularly preservationists, to forget about the the theatre. I think it is possible that recent events at the Gayety could have put this into focus for the owner (and prompted the paper covering).
When the Cinema Theatre Assoc. (U.K.) came to Boston in April 2004, members of the group peered through those glass doors on Essex Street at least twice. So did some of the people at the THSA convention in Boston last June. I know of at least two people who asked permission to look at the interior of the theatre and who were refused. It’s possible that the building management has covered up the glass from the inside to put a stop to this sort of interest.
Unfortunately, the doors to this theatre on Essex Street have now been painted or papered over, so you can no longer look into the theatre from the street. I hope this doesn’t mean that the building owners are about to damage or destroy the theatre.
Today’s Boston Sunday Globe has an article about former movie theatres of Chinatown, and an outdoor film festival that will be held there next month. It says that the Star Cinema was “where the kung fu movies of the 1970s created a generation of mini-Bruce Lees and where Jackie Chan’s ‘Spiritual Kung Fu’ drew such a crowd that people were left outside, begging to be let in.
“Jean Lukitsh , 56, threaded projectors at the Star Cinema, on Essex Street, and the China Cinema, on Beach Street, from 1978 to 1986. She had come to Boston from Pittsburgh to take tai chi classes in Chinatown. She lived there for 23 years.
“A classmate got her a job at the cinemas, and she fell in love with Chinese film.
“ ‘The thing that drew me to these movies was that, in them, anybody can be a master of martial arts,’ she said, as a 1957 Chinese musical called ‘Mambo Girl’ played in her Dorchester living room recently. ‘Old women, monks, nuns, beggars. I just really liked that fact.’
The kung fu movies were the most popular, she said, and the comedies. She recalled one series from the early 1980s called ``Aces Go Places" that had audiences falling off their seats with laughter.
“But in 1985, the glory days of the Chinatown movie houses ended abruptly.
“The VCR killed them.
“ ‘Over the course of six months, we lost our whole audience,” Lukitsh said. 'We went from standing room only to a dozen old men who didn’t have VCRs at home. It was very traumatic.’
“The Star closed in 1986. The China closed a year or two later.
“ ‘I miss seeing those movies with large groups of people,’ said Lukitsh, who trained as a nurse when the cinemas closed and now works at a Chinatown home for the elderly.”
My father was an artist at the theatre during the 1940s and early 1950s. He has very fond memories of working there. He hand painted the movie posters, lobby posters and actually performed in the live horror shows (he was the Mummy). My father still has some of his original paintings of the movies, lobby cards, movie stills and some photos. I am very pleased to see at there is so much interest in the history of this theatre.
My father was an artist at the theatre during the 1940s and early 1950s. He has very fond memories of working there. He hand painted the movie posters, lobby posters and actually performed in the live horror shows (he was the Mummy). My father still has some of his original paintings of the movies, lobby cards, movie stills and some photos. I am very pleased to see at there is so much interest in the history of this theatre.
To the question above: a few years ago, a reporter from the Boston Herald managed to get inside the theatre and take a few photos for a feature article which appeared on the Real Estate page. The impression was that the building management would rather hope that the public forgets that the theatre still exists. It apparently is being used as a gigantic “supply closet” by the building’s maintenance department.
Is there ever talk of doing something with this place?
This 1928 map shows at least 11 downtown Boston theatres. West is at the top of this map.
At the northeast corner of Washington and Essex streets is the very large WASHINGTON-ESSEX BLDG. The east side of this building, along Harrison Avenue, is labelled KEITH-ALBEE BOSTON THEATRE.
Yes, that’s correct. The RKO Boston was built as a replacement for the old 19th-century Boston Theatre just north of, and adjacent to, the little Bijou. The new theatre opened the night after the final performance in the old theatre. Why would they have called it the New Bijou ? I think that Mr. Dumas, who lived in New York, must have been somehow misinformed about the name. Yet, he got most of the details correct in his facade drawing of the new theatre. He even includes the Bond Clothing sign above the entrance.
Boston did have a Bijou Theatre, and it was part of the Keith-Albee circuit. However, it was one block north of the RKO Boston, and on the opposite side of Washington Street.
In the huge new book “Theaters” by Craig Morrison there is on page 118 a selection of facade drawings by the artist Anthony Dumas. In 1927, Dumas drew the facade of the RKO Boston. The drawing looks quite accurate except that he has “Keith Albee Bijou” on the marquee and his title for the drawing is “Keith-Albee New Bijou Theatre”. I hve never heard of this house being called “Bijou”, which is, in fact, a name usually given fairly small theatres. One wonders where the prolific Dumas got his information. Many more of Dumas' Boston theatre sketches are included.
The engagement of “Don Juan in Hell” on stage mentioned above took place from Monday Nov. 24 to Sat. Nov.29, 1952. Charles Boyer played Don Juan, and Vincent Price played the Devil. The program states that there will be one performance of “John Brown’s Body” by Stephen Vincent Benet on Wed. evening, December 17, 1952 at the RKO Boston. Cast included Tyrone Power, Judith Anderson and Raymond Massey. That production also played a longer engagement at the Boston Opera House on Huntington Avenue in Nov. 1953. Between Dec. 1952 and the opening of Cinerama one year later, there may have been other attractions on stage, in addition to movies.