Astor Theatre
176 Tremont Street,
Boston,
MA
02108
176 Tremont Street,
Boston,
MA
02108
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There is an ad for the Tremont Theatre in the Boston Post for Wed., February 25, 1931. The attraction is Charlie Chaplin in “City Lights”. The ad states that the Tremont is “Boston’s New House of Mirth”. Admission ranges for 50 cents to 75 cents to $1., with the note that seats in the second balcony are 50 cents for all shows. In 1931 the theatre would have been still in its 1889 appearance.
I read somewhere (I think it was in a Landmarks booklet) that the fancy facade on Avery Street, with “Tremonth Theatre” carved into it, was added around 1914 when Avery Street was extended up to Tremont Street. The theatre’s entrance from 1889 to the end was always on Tremont St., in a building which pre-dated the theatre. Donald King claimed that the entrance was originally one-storefront to the south (or was it north?) and was moved over a bit. It originally had 2 balconies and a very ornate interior. Its left sidewall was very similar to the right sidewall of the old Broadway Th. in New York, designed by McElfatrick at about the same time. When I started going there, it was the Astor, a first-run movie house with a “draped” interior. A draped house is one whose walls are covered with long drapes. Boring ! The entrance from Tremont St. led to a high-ceiling inner foyer which ran along the right side of the auditorium. I sat in the balcony once, to see “Splendor in the Grass”; main floor was full. The orchestra seating extended into the stage area. The 2nd balcony was removed. Seats from this theatre, removed during the mid-1940s renovations, are in the Highfield Theatre in Falmouth, MA. The Tremont had about 1400-plus seats, and the Astor had about 1700 seats. The name “Astor” in big pink neon script letters could be seen from a distance across the Common when the leaves were off the trees. After the Union Station arcade occupied tthe house, there was a fire in the outer lobby structure. The house was demolished in July 1983.
I saw the movie “Lets scare jessica to death” back in the early seventies. I also remmeber this theater becoming a disco club in 1979/1980. I was called Union Station and featured the first “Juice Bar. The gimmick behind the juice bar at the time was that no alcohol was served and thus allowed the club to stay open till 5am (like New York clubs).
The “Astor Theatre” always had that blank sign under the big marqee. I only saw it once with a poster on it! It was in the early 70’s when the 3D flick “The Stewardesses” played there! I think the Ann- Margret hit “Bye Bye Birdie” also screened there in 1963.
From the photo collection of the Boston Public Library:
Tremont Theatre, “early 20th century”
From Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History:
“The gloom of the Great Depression hung over Boston, and every theatre advertised ‘Big Shows! Little Prices!’ and ‘1,000 seats for 25 cents!” The proud Tremont Theatre became the home of the 'proven pictures’. Old films and double features changing every few days were offered at 15 and 25 cents, and the policy caught on. The new proprietor, Frederick E. Lieberman, also leased the Majestic Theatre for ‘proven pictures’. His subsequent elimination of union stagehands and union projectionists brought about bombings of both houses, but fortunately no one was injured and little permanent damage was done.
“In the late 1930s Lieberman performed drastic surgery on the Tremont, removing its stage. The house remained open during construction, and its moving pictures continued to be shown on a small screen painted on the front of a tall, wide barricade. Beams, which had supported the boxes, proscenium, and the roof trusses, were left in place at each side of the auditorium. The stage had been removed, and new orchestra flooring sloped down to its back wall under a new ceiling. The screen was hung on the back stage wall inside a tiny proscenium. There were no curtains.
“On November 11, 1947, the Tremont became the Astor Theatre. The house was remodeled, its gallery shaved back as far as structurally possible, and its projection booth was dropped to the balcony below. New seats were installed, and a new false ceiling was hung to level off Lieberman’s earlier surgery. The Astor boasted a ‘three dimensional screen’ and dubbed itself ‘the theatre of the future.’ John Ford’s controversial The Fugitive, a first-run RKO picture, was screened for the premiere. For Christmas the Astor landed Goldwyn’s The Bishop’s Wife, starring Cary Grant.”
King’s book says that the Astor was demolished in July 1983.
A parade down Tremont Street, somewhere between 1939 and 1941. You can see the Tremont Theatre’s vertical sign. The photo is described here.
A second photo of the same parade, described here.
A 1910 panoramic photo of Tremont Street and the Boston Common):displayType=1:m856sd=pan:m856sf=6a06343), from the Library of Congress online collection. At the far right, partially hidden by a subway kiosk, you can just barely see the Tremont Theatre’s street-level marquee. (Third building from the right edge.) There’s also a TREMONT sign, presumably lit at night, on top of the building.
Further to the left, I think the BF Keith’s Theatre arched entrance building is partially hidden by another subway kiosk.
Judging from these photos, I conclude that the Tremont’s entrance was always on Tremont Street, and that the etched “Tremont Theatre” sign on the Avery Street wall was simply an advertisement for it.
This postcard, probably from the 1930s, shows Tremont Street with the Tremont (Astor) Theatre and, beyond, B.F. Keith’s Tremont Street entrance.
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From the Boston Athenaeum’s Theatre History page:
Several Boston playhouses were named Tremont Theatre (built in 1827, 1889 and 1908, respectively), but the major one represented in the Athenæum’s playbill collection is the Tremont built in 1889 by J.B. McElfatrick and Sons, and located on Tremont Street at the corner of Avery. Extremely successful and fashionable in the 1890s, this theater is famous for hosting the great Sarah Bernhardt, who enraptured Bostonians in 1891 with her performance of La Tosca.
When D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation opened at the Tremont in 1915, a riot broke out. Until that time, motion pictures had been a relatively minor entertainment medium, but Griffith’s pioneering, albeit admittedly racist epic, inaugurated a new era for films and film-making. Twelve years later, the first sound film, The Jazz Singer, was also seen here. One then can then say that the Tremont Theatre exemplified the cultural transitions of an era when many “legitimate” stage theaters were either razed or converted into movie houses featuring the new entertainment of choice.
A picture postcard of the Tremont Theatre, from some time between 1907 and 1915, described here.
A large sign above the building reads “KLAW & ERLANGER’S ADVANCED VAUDEVILLE”.
The Astor marquee is just barely visible at the right of this 1948 photo, described here. The building’s façade has not yet been “modernized”.
Another photo of the Astor, from 1958. You can see the whole façade better in this one. The photo is described here.
The marquee advertises Deborah Kerr, David Niven, and Jean Seaberg in “Bonjour Tristesse”. I do not know why there is a huge, blank sign-board above the marquee, and below the “Astor Theatre” neon sign. It was always blank when I saw this theatre in the 1970s, too.
Here’s a 1970 photo of the Astor, described here. The marquee advertises “The Molly Maguires” with Sean Connery and Samantha Eggar.
Further down the street you can see a vertical sign for the Savoy. That theatre is now the Opera House, which no longer has an entrance or sign on Tremont Street.
According to an unpublished draft manuscript by Douglas Shand-Tucci entitled The Puritan Muse (available in the Fine Arts room of the Boston Public Library), the last live show at the Tremont occurred in 1935.
I saw ‘10 North Frederick’, ‘El Cid’, and ‘The Matchmaker’ there when it was a first-run house. ‘Blackula’, ‘Mark of the Devil’, etc. when it went downhill. It was interesting structurally, and this probably explains the increase in seating capacity noted above by Warren; the original entrance seemed to be on Avery St, and the name ‘Tremont Theater’ was cut into the stone on that facade. When it got renovated into the Astor, a new promenade entrance was put through perpendicular to the auditorium. A new candy counter and a sprawling staircase behind it ran up to the balcony level. The entire stage and proscenium were removed and replaced with orchestra seats. The 70 m screen and curtain were directly on the back wall of the old stage house. All the old brick walls of the stage house were painted dark blue to disguise them. The balconies remained the original ones from the theater, and had the bowed fronts like all the old legit theaters, abruptly ending at where the old proscenium had been.
By the late 1960’s and the 1970’s the Astor had really gone down hill. It was notorious for showing “slice and dice” films..complete with gimmicks. For instance, when it played “Mark of the Devil” a Sweedish film set in the 1700’s about witchcraft, it passed out airline type “air sickness bags” as you entered the theater. It showed other films “so terrifying” that it had an ambulance parked out front during all performances. I do not recall the name of another film, but the radio advertisement stated that it was so scary that a doctor and a nurse would be in the lobby during all screenings should anyone expire from the terror. Such was the schlock of the Astor toward the end of its days. In the late 1970’s it became a “juice bar” catering to minors in particular. That activity was promptly ended by the city.
I have a booklet called “Boston Theatre District: A Walking Tour”, published by the Boston Preservation Alliance in 1993. It says:
The Tremont Theatre, designed by J.B. McElfatrick Sons, appeared on the site of the [former] Haymarket Theatre in 1889, using a three-story granite building, designed in 1869 by N.J. Bradlee, as an entrance. Sarah Bernhardt played in “La Tosca”, and “Birth of a Nation” opened in 1915. It was remodeled as the Astor Theatre in 1949 and demolished in 1983.
From the Boston Globe archives:
June 21, 1981:
“The theater, called the Tremont, opened in 1889 and for years was a prime legtimate house where the likes of Sarah Bernhart and George M. Cohan performed.
When talkies came in the theater switched to movies playing mainly second runs. Later it was renovated, with the stage ripped out to provide more seats and had a bit of glory as a first-run house called the Astor.
Eventually it went downhill to action films and before it was closed, it was a juice bar.”
May 31, 1981:
“The Tremont Theatre opened on October 12, 1889, with the noted English actor Charles Wyndham in a performance of David Garrick. It was described as "a magnificent temple of dramatic art … an ornament to the city.
Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) made many visits to the United States with his company and did perform at the Tremont.
The theater was modernized in 1930 and wired for sound motion pictures. It became the Astor Theater in 1947”
June 30, 1980:
“When D.W. Griffith’s silent classic "The Birth of a Nation” opened in April 19l5, at the Tremont (later the Astor) Theater, there were protests from the black community, denunciations from Harvard and Mayor James M. Curley ordered certain scenes cut."
March 3, 1980:
“The once famous house, which opened as the Tremont in l889 featured Sarah Bernhardt in the play "La Tosca” (not the opera, Bernhardt couldn’t sing) in 1891"
After it was abandoned, the theater suffered numerous fires in the early 1980s, probably dooming any thoughts of restoration.
This was originally called the Tremont Theatre before it became the Astor.
EL CID is listed as playing here in early 1962. 70mm Super Technirama. One evening show daily and matinees on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.
I think this was the third 70mm Roadshow house in Boston after the
Saxon and Gary Theatres. I saw “EL CID” here. It was last used as some kind of Disco club, then abandoned and left without any doors.