Granada Theatre

21 Pleasant Street,
Malden, MA 02148

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Additional Info

Styles: Atmospheric, Spanish Baroque

Nearby Theaters

Granada Theater

The Granada Theatre was one of downtown Malden’s most popular and long-standing theaters (along with the nearby Strand, which itself was demolished for the new police station). Decorated in a spanish flavored design, the theater was located near the corner of Pleasant and Main streets in Malden Square, across the street from the former Joslin’s department store (later a Jordan Marsh and now an office building).

Before closing in the mid 1980’s, the Granada was triplexed. It suffered a minor fire in 1987 after being closed (newspaper accounts indicate two young girls snuck in and started the fire, and that at the time the theater was scheduled for demolition, to be replaced by a commercial block) and was soon demolished, leaving Malden without a movie theater.

Contributed by Ian Judge

Recent comments (view all 38 comments)

Ron Newman
Ron Newman on December 10, 2008 at 3:04 pm

Can you scan them in and upload them?

rosens
rosens on December 10, 2008 at 3:27 pm

Sure: Where do I send them. The “add a photo” link won’t take anything. For some of the cards I looked up the dates in historic newspaper microfilms, matching the films on the marquee.

Ron Newman
Ron Newman on December 10, 2008 at 4:52 pm

Best thing to do is upload them to a photo-sharing site such as Flickr, ImageShack, or PhotoBucket, then post a link to them here.

rosens
rosens on December 12, 2008 at 7:53 pm

I am willing to upload postcards to a photo-sharing site, but only to one that does not share my address with advertisers that send unsolicited e-mails. I don’t mind if they put links or ads on the photo page, but no unsolicited e-mails!

longtassle
longtassle on October 23, 2010 at 3:30 pm

That was such a great pic. i moved near the high school from linden in the summer of 80 and started working at granada right after….but i barely remember those stores at all. wow. and i don’t remember the windows up above the marquee. i guess i never looked up, i was 11 after all.

Don Lewis
Don Lewis on November 27, 2010 at 10:29 pm

From 1960 a photo postcard view of Pleasant Street along with the Granada Theatre in Malden.

joel49
joel49 on December 26, 2010 at 7:44 pm

I went to my first horror movie (“Frankenstein”) around 1957 at the Capitol Theater in Suffolk Square, Malden. I was about eight years old. I had nightmares for days, but I was back again for the next Saturday matinee (“The Giant Tarantula” – nightmares again). They would start the show with a couple of serials (“Flash Gordon” and “Rocketman” e.g.) and follow that up with a horror flick. I loved it.

JonT
JonT on September 17, 2016 at 2:12 pm

Interesting to see postcard pic of the Granada with its new two-sided marquee. The original one (or at least the one I remember) was a rather dark, three-sided one, but it did take awhile to get used to the new look. Without a doubt my favorite Malden movie theater; its unique feature was that it had not only the main entrance on Pleasant Street, but another on a street alongside. Don’t remember the name of that street, but if one were to go pas this other entrance, one would encounter a large parking lot, but if you entered this smaller box office, you would encounter the balcony section — quite a sight as you passed a view of the entire audience, balcony and orchestra, lit up by the movie playing on the big CinemaScope screen …

JonT
JonT on September 24, 2016 at 3:36 pm

Good to see that 1980 photo of the Granada, long after the last time I was in that theater, 1965. Moved back to Washington DC. It was featuring three films I do not care for and worse, this splendid theater had been converted to three — probably ruined the whole thing !

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