Paris Cinema
68 Franklin Street,
Worcester,
MA
01608
68 Franklin Street,
Worcester,
MA
01608
10 people
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Additional Info
Architects: Roger Garland
Styles: Atmospheric, Spanish Renaissance
Previous Names: Capitol Theatre
Nearby Theaters
News About This Theater
- Apr 28, 2012 — Paris Cinema sign in Worcester to be auctioned
The 2,500-seat Capitol Theatre opened on December 11, 1926, one of downtown Worcester’s movie palaces. It was designed by architect Roger Garland in an Atmospheric/Spanish Renaissance style. It was equipped with a Wurlitzer theatre organ. It was twinned and reopened December 25, 1956. In April 1982 it became an adult cinema and the name changed to Paris Cinema. The original Atmospheric style theatre auditorium was still in use.
The Paris Cinema was closed down by the authorities in January 2006. The building deteriorated over the years and it was demolished in July 2017.
Contributed by
Gerald A. DeLuca
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Recent comments (view all 42 comments)
CORRECTION! I made a mistake in the above post, the URL for the Flickr set of the interior of the Paris Cinema is:
View link
enjoy
Still sitting empty when I biked by it last night. Were all the theatres called ‘Paris’ (in Boston, Worcester, NYC, and elsewhere) once linked together in a chain?
Preservation Worcester provides this page about the Capitol Theatre, with four small photos of interior details and a few paragraphs of text. The Capitol was placed on the organization’s “most endangered” list in 2005.
The owners of the building recently offered to donate the huge “Paris” sign out front to a local preservation office to sell as a fund-raiser. Most collectors of theater memorabilia would not have room for it!
The theater’s sign is up for auction, and a developer has plans to raze the theater and adjacent structures: View article
Is there another still-operating Paris Cinema (perhaps the one in NYC) who could use the sign?
“…the building behind it is due for replacement.” Ah, euphemism.
As of early 2016, the building is still there intact.
Recent photos of the inside of the theater: http://www.masslive.com/news/worcester/index.ssf/2016/08/we_explored_the_old_paris_cine.html
I photographed the theater before demolition started. Check out some images and a short history at After the Final Curtain