Gardner Cinemas 1 & 2
34 Parker Street,
Gardner,
MA
01440
34 Parker Street,
Gardner,
MA
01440
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: George A. Giles Co., Publix
Previous Names: Orpheum Theatre
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The Orpheum Theatre was opened prior to October 1914. Seating was provided for 702 in the orchestra, 416 in the balcony and 40 in the loges. In 1925 an Estay theatre organ opus 2333 size 2/17 was installed in the Orpheum Theatre. In the 1940’s it was operated by the George A. Giles circuit of Cambridge.
In late-1968 it was remodeled as the Gardner Cinema 1 and an addional screen was added at the side which became Grardner Cinema 2. After closing as a movie theatre in 1999, the building was converted to retail use. It most recently housed a health food store and Chinese restaurant. On May 5, 2007, the former Gardner Cinemas was destroyed by a fire. The remains were demolished in late-February 2017.
Contributed by
Bryan
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
As the Orpheum, this theater was included in the MGM Theatre Photograph and Report project. The form has an exterior photo taken in 1941. The theater had a narrow entrance with a small rectangular marquee and a vertical blade sign above. Movies posted were “That Night in Rio” and “Man Who Lost Himself”. To the right of the entrance was Student Bros. shoe store. The Report says that the Orpheum had been playing MGM films for over 15 years; it was over 15 years old (as of 1941), and in Good condition, and had 1158 seats, with the same breakdown as in the heading above. The theatre was on Parker St., and the competing theater was the Uptown.
Here is a 1939 photo from a new collection of Life Magazine images on Google:
http://tinyurl.com/5celtq
According to the article mentioned above, the building had been triplexed by the time of its closing. From the looks of the google photo, the building had a very long narrow lobby going to the auditorium which was well back from the street.
The marquee in the 1939 Life photo found by mister boob is the same marquee which was on the Orpheum in the 1941 photo on the MGM Theatre Report. This theater did have a narrow entrance.
The Orpheum in Gardner is listed in the 1927 Film Daily Yearbook as having 1,000 seats and open 6 days per week.
The Worcester Telegram reported on 2/28/17 that the building was being demolished.
An item about the conversion of the Orpheum to the Gardner Cinema I and Cinema II appeared in the October 2, 1968, Fitchburg Sentinel:
Also, the Orpehum appears to have been older than we thought. This item is from the November 24, 1917, issue of Motography:Indeed, a photo of the audience in the Orpheum runs across the bottom of page 633 of the October 11, 1914, issue of The Moving Picture World (scan at Internet Arcnive.)