Modern Theater

The Modern Theatre in Manchester was mentioned in Boxoffice as early as the issue of June 22, 1940.

An October, 1982, Boxoffice item about the recent death of David H. Brinn, a retired Manchester projectionist and manager, said that he had been associated with the Modern Theatre there for 35 years.

A July 20, 1964, Boxoffice item named David Brinn as the projectionist at the Bedford Grove Drive-In, so the Modern was surely closed by that time. But if Brinn had spent 35 years there, the theater must have opened in the 1920s or earlier.

The 1915 Manchester City Directory lists the Modern Theatre as 58 Amory Street. I don’t know if that is an error, or if the Modern Theatre actually moved across the street, or if Manchester flipped its odd and even numbers to the opposites sides of the streets.

There is no listing for a Notre Dame Theatre, though Notre Dame was an apt name in this district of Manchester. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the area west of the river was the home of many French Canadians who had come to work in the Amoskeag company’s textile mills.

The vertical sign and side wall of the Modern Theatre can be seen at the left in this photo from the Library of Congress. A large poster on the theater’s wall advertises the 1937 movie Thunder in the City, starring Edward G. Robinson.

As can be seen by comparing the photo with the Google Street View of this neighborhood, the entire area has been redeveloped and the Modern Theatre building is gone, along with everything else on the block.