Universal Theatre

Daryl7280 on November 28, 2024 at 5:15 pm

My father was an usher at the Universal before WWII. I remember him telling me how he would jog or run to work each evening up Summer Street to lower Main Street all the way from South Fitchburg.

In the mid to late 1960’s, I distinctly remember that there were two businesses operating in the front of the building. There was a coffee shop type restaurant that served breakfast and lunch to the right hand side of the main entrance. You could see the lunch counter through a large window on that side of the entryway. You went in the main doors in the center of the entryway and turned right through another door into the restaurant.

On the left hand side, there was a second hand store that sold all kinds of stuff. Again, you entered through the main doors and entered the store through a secondary door on the left. The interior doors that led from that area into the theater itself were either locked or boarded up at that point so you could not access the auditorium.

In 1970 when the the theater was being demolished, my grandfather who heated his home with a huge wood and coal furnace apparently talked to the contractor who was doing the demo work, and made arrangements to remove some remnants of lumber for burning in the furnace.

I lived right down the street from my grandparents, so I spent a lot of time with them as I was growing up. I just happened to be at their house the day he was going downtown to load the trunk of his car with lumber from the theater.

The thing that I’ll never forget is loading the trunk of his 1955 Plymouth with what turned out to be square wooden organ pipes that I believe were made of mahogany. We then spent the afternoon outside the bulkhead door of his basement sawing these pipes into bite sized pieces and tossing them down the stairs to be stored and eventually burned in the furnace. Imagine that! It seemed sad even back then.