Gem Theatre

Daryl7280 on December 3, 2024 at 7:23 pm

I grew up in Fitchburg in the 50’s and 60’s and graduated from Fitchburg High School in the 1970’s. I remember being a kid, maybe about 14 years old, and walking down Day Street past the old Shea’s Theater which had become The Gem at some point and had closed several years earlier.

In my minds eye, I can still see the old v-shaped markee sign out front with it’s changeable letter board and big stainless steel and neon letters at the top on each side which read GEM.

If my memory serves me correctly, the building was torn down about the time that the new I-C Credit Union building was built at the corner of Main and Day Streets. I believe the credit union was built approximately where the Bon-Ton Restaurant and Murphy’s Drug store once stood. The area where the theater sat became part of the rear parking lot for the credit union.

If you walked past the theater and continued down Day Street, you would walk past a small shop called Delucci the Tailor. I remember being fitted for a tux for a wedding there. Shortly after the tailor shop was The Hotel Raymond, which is still there, but was converted into apartments many years ago.

Directly across from the theater on the corner of Main and Day was Christian’s Luncheonette. Continuing down Day Street next to the restaurant was the Ideal Barber Shop and Keosha Bros. Shoe Repair. Next to that was a parking lot that I believe was for the Hotel Raymond directly across the street.

At that point in time the old Universal Theater still existed just down the street on Main Street, although it hadn’t been used as a theater in several years. I’ve uploaded a nice example of a poster from the Gem from 1931 when it was still called Shea’s Theater. Oddly enough, I found this poster in an antique shop in York Maine many years ago.

The Fitchburg, The Saxon (originally the Lyric), both on upper Main Street, and the Strand in the Cleghorn section of town were still operating at that time. The Strand was later converted into a bowling alley.

Joe Vogel on April 6, 2018 at 4:38 pm

Shea’s Theatre on Day Street was under construction in 1914 when this item appeared in the February issue of The Electrical Contractor:

“In connection with its contract to wire and equip two theatres in Fitchburg, Mass., the Bruce-Heustis Electric Co. makes the following report: Shea’s Theatre, Day street, has a seating capacity of 850. first floor with balcony. The stage is to be fitted with all modern conveniences for the putting on of vaudeville acts and moving pictures. This theatre is illuminated by the semi-indirect system of lighting, using Equalite glass bowls. Mercury arc rectifiers are to be used in the moving picture machines, and the outside of the building is to be decorated with about six hundred and fifty to-volt, 5-watt mazda lamps arranged in the shape of set pieces in the panelling on the outside of the structure.”

The other theater for which Bruce-Heustis had the electrical contract was a larger house located on Main Street called the Quinlan Theatre. Either it is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures, was opened under a different name, or is listed under a later name and missing the aka.