Modern Theatre
523-25 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
523-25 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
10 people
favorited this theater
Showing 101 - 125 of 134 comments
That was a great article, thanks for finding it and posting the link. When the downtown theatres lost their exclusivity to the suburban theatres that sprung up in the shopping malls, it was the beginning of the end for downtown being a destination for moviegoers. Until that time, downtown played exclusive for 3 weeks and the mall Cinemas only played subrun. It was around that same time that a Harvard student who was “slumming” with his fraternity friends one night, got into an altercation with a group of street savvy hoods, and was stabbed to death. It was the beginning of the end for the combat zone being a good-time destination for students. too.
Here is a 1968 Harvard Crimson article about the sex film venues on Washington Street. The writer discusses the Pilgrim, the Mayflower, and the State.
I hesitate to quote the Herald again after the fiasco two weeks ago, but here goes:
Condo developers may help to revive Hub theaters
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald, Friday, July 22, 2005
A condo development firm has snapped up two Downtown Crossing buildings in a deal that is expected to provide another boost to City Hall’s efforts to revive a trio of historic lower Washington Street theaters.
Gold Associates has bought two buildings next to the defunct Modern Theatre, according to Harry Collings, executive secretary for the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
The firm plans to convert the buildings to condos, possibly with additional floors and height, he said.
In turn, the development firm is in talks with City Hall about taking on the first floor of the adjacent Modern Theatre and rehabilitating it into a performance venue, the details of which have yet to be hammered out, Collings said.
The Herald ran a tiny little correction on the Business page yesterday, saying that the Friday article should have been about the façade of the Gaiety, not the Modern. The correction is not online, and the erroneous article is still online.
That’s exactly what happened, Ron. I snagged a copy of today’s Boston Herald here in NYC this evening; the photo is a side-angle photo (from just south of LaGrange Street) of most of what remains of the Gaiety Theatre building, while the accompanying caption and article describes the Modern. To put it mildly, very, very sloppy reporting (and editing) on the Herald’s behalf.
Two interesting points: the article, as it is, isn’t credited to any specific writer and, I wonder as well, if the Herald will run a correction tomorrow…
I phoned both the Sager Foundation and the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and both denied that the Modern is being demolished.
The BRA said that the building is legally protected against demolition.
The Sager people think the Herald may have confused the Modern with the Gaiety — which is being demolished, several blocks south of the Modern. If so, I wonder how a major newspaper could make such an egregious mistake.
Thanks for posting that article, Ron. I’d have to think the structural demolition of the Modern would be a bear to deal with for the workers carrying out the project, given the lack of free space along the exterior. It would be interesting to know how it’s being done.
The Boston Herald published this short article yesterday. I don’t know anything more:
Collapse scare stops traffic
By Herald staff
Friday, July 15, 2005
Traffic was gridlocked on Washington Street between Chinatown and Downtown Crossing yesterday when the dilapidated Modern Theatre building looked as if it might collapse into the street.
The building, which is being demolished, was acquired for $1.5 million in 2003 by the Sager Family Traveling Foundation, and then transferred to the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
The foundation, in turn, was given rights to redevelop the site.
Efforts are focused on preserving the building’s historic facade, which dates to 1913, while tearing away most of the crumbling structure behind it.
Yesterday, however, engineers spent considerable time studying the site while traffic was routed around it.
City Hall hopes to preserve the Modern in much the same way the nearby Paramount Theatre and the Opera House have been revitalized.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, Jacob Lourie opened the “small but deluxe” Modern Theatre on June 25, 1914, inside an office building that was built in 1876. A sign in the front archway read, “The Modern Theatre, High Class Photoplays.”
“The screen was deeply recessed inside a permanent wood-paneled drawing room setting. The stage started well within this area, and on its level were large ornate double doors at each side. An Estay organ was played in the small orchestra pit.”
On February 19, 1949, the Modern was renamed the Mayflower. In 1967, it could no longer compete with neighborhood first-run theatres, and it began an adult film policy.
It’s currently owned by the Boston Redevelopment Authority which took it by eminent domain (or threat of same) from an owner who was letting it fall apart and had applied for a demolition permit. The city wants it restored, not demolished.
Did Arthur Fiedler ever go to this theatre?
I hope this theatre doesn’t meet the same fate as the Gaiety Theatre.
Way above, someone asked about the Trans-Lux. That was a couple blocks further south, had several different names during its history, and is listed here as the State, which was the name it had when it closed.
It was demolished in 1991. The Millennium Place/Ritz-Carlton Towers complex (which includes the 19-screen Loews Boston Common multiplex) now stands on its site.
A 1958 photo, described here, as the Mayflower Theatre. The marquee advertises the film “Sayonara”. Down the street, the RKO Keith’s (now the Opera House) is showing “My Man Godfrey”.
The Modern Theatre, with a large vertical sign, is visible in this 1943 photo from the Bostonian Society Library, described here. The marquee advertises a double-feature of Ida Lupino in “In Our Time” and Joel McCrea in “Buffalo Bill”.
A third factor was 1960s ‘urban renewal’. It didn’t have much effect on the downtown theatre district, but it obliterated two other clusters of theatres: Scollay Square (replaced by Government Center) and a group around Mass. Ave. and Huntington Avenue (replaced by the expanded Christian Science Center and related development).
Some fascinating information on that link. It’s really a shame that there seems no hopefor it as a theatre.
The blame for Bostons complete loss of any classic theatres as moviehouses is twofold.
First was the ‘Combat Zone’ that took a large chunk of Theatre Row and made the area so awful that people avoided it and no legit business would open. Lawyers kept the pron going and the city seemed to be satisfied with keeping it contained. But Chinatown merchants wanted it gone. As a result any building that went up for sale they bought. They ended up owning some small theatres in the area but they were not theatre people for the most part and with Boston a monopoly for movies they could not sell them to theatre companies who might want to rehab them into multiplexes such as happened to some New York City theatres.
The second problem was the Sack/USA theatre chain that had that monopoly. They had no interest in taking over any of the theatres left due to Bostons very intense preservation programs. They fought the drive to make the Saxon registered as a historic building because they did not want to have to restore it. And of course they had no interest in taking over any of the theatres that were vacant.
For a time in the 1980s, the Modern Theatre auditorium was used after hours as storage space for Downtown Crossing vendor pushcarts.
And during that short time, I recall seeing ads and posters for the Modern that read:
Love a Theatre
David Archer was the guy who tried hard, but ultimately failed, to keep it open.
Looking back through the Boston Globe archives, it appears that the theater reopened in March 1979 as a live stage, but then closed again for good in May 1981. During those two years, it presented jazz concerts, musical events, mime, dance, and a couple of plays including “American Buffalo”.
I have a booklet called “Boston Theatre District: A Walking Tour”, published by the Boston Preservation Alliance in 1993. It says:
In 1913 C.H. Blackall designed a long, narrow, 800-seat cinema which was inserted in the ground floor of the Dobson Building, a five-story Ruskinian Gothic, sandstone warehouse, designed by Levi Newcomb and Son in 1876. Blackall added an elegant but somewhat incongruous two-story, Florentine Renaissance, white marble façade to the building.
He was aided in the theatre design by acoustician Wallace Sabine, a Harvard professor who first applied scientific principles to the study of sound and space. It was Sabine and Blackall’s only collaboration.
Douglas and Richard –
If you want to contact the Sager Foundation, who now own the theatre, their web site is www.TeamSager.org . The site gives a phone number of 617-948-9449 and a fax of 617-948-9448.
In March 2003, the city of Boston announced a partnership with the Sager Family Foundation to save this theatre. A sign with the Sager logo is on the outside of the theatre. However, I don’t know what progress has been made since then.
Here’s an article from Backstage.com, and another from Boston Business Journal, both published around the same time as the official announcement.
A newspaper ad from March 3, 1962 lists the Mayflower (formerly Modern) showing a double bill of “The 3 Stooges Meets Hercules” and “Underwater City.”
The theater looks like it is currently in the process of being restored. It is a few steps up from the Opera House, which has just undergone a complete and magnificent renovation.
I photographed this theater in early July. The arch visible at the top of the photo has been partially removed, or perhaps collapsed. There was a tarp over it, and a cherry-picker in the street out front. The whole neighborhood needs a little help.