From Temples of Illusion by Roger Brett, about Jacob Conn’s building of the Olympia Theatre:
“Shortly after leasing the Weybosset Street house [Gaiety] and changing its name to Conn’s City Theater, he built Conn’s Olympia Theater in Olneyville Square. This edifice included an office block and in it he installed a radio station, WCOT. All this he accomplished in 1926 and 1927. By now he considered Olneyville to be his personal fief, his base of power…”
I have a postcard-photo of Conn’s Theatre in Concord, NH. Does anyone know if that still exists, was renamed? Built by Jacob Conn, perhaps in the 1920s, it was touted as America’s first fireproof house of entertainment. Conn built two theatres in Providence, the Metropolitan and the Olympia.
Here is a recently discovered photo of the Metropolitan Theatre from circa 1932, perhaps not long after it opened in August of that year. The marquee and roof signs show it was then called simply “Conn’s Theatre.” This is the Chestnut Street side. There was an entrance on Broad Street as well. Photo courtesy of Laura Frommer, granddaughter of original builder-owner Jacob Conn.
Here is a full shot photo of the Gaiety Theatre, circa 1918. The film playing is Law’s Outlaw with Roy Stewart. Photo courtesy of Laura Frommer, granddaughter of Jabob Conn.
In his recent memoir A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, Bill O'Reilly wrote of his student days in Boston at B.U. and contributing articles to several weekly papers. One of his breaks came when he wrote a piece for Free Press on the noted stripper Fanne Foxe. O'Reilly had interviewed her backstage at the Pilgrim Theatre. He wrote:
“On a cool November night, I ventured into Boston’s notorious Combat Zone, a vice-ridden area just north of Boston Common. There, I met Ms. Bombshell backstage at the Pilgrim Theatre, where she was preparing to take off her clothes for three thousand dollars, a hefty one-night sum in 1974.
“The woman was very nice to me and my photographer, Conn O'Neill, two young Irish guys just trying to get through school. In fact, the Foxette actually changed into her costume right before our eyes, displaying an admirable female form. Am I getting paid for this? I thought. The answer was no. But it was okay.”
At this point, on page 114 of the book, O'Reilly quotes what he had written in the article about Ms. Foxe, about Fanne sauntering about the Pilgrim stage and throwing candy to the patrons. The published article was met with some praise, including from film critic Rex Reed. In later years O'Reilly told Reed that he had been directly responsible for his entering the field of mass communications. Reed’s reply was to laugh and say he would pay him not to make that public.
In his recent memoir A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, Bill O'Reilly writes that, when he was in the fifth grade, he went with the entire student body of the Catholic school he attended to see a movie at the Westbury. It was a revival of the 1943 The Song of Bernadette, for which Jennifer Jones had won the Academy Award.
He writes, “The thinking here was to use a Hollywood film to reinforce the Catholic faith. Since the movie jaunt got us out of math and English, the outing was fine with me.
“Unfortunately all plans can go awry, and this one proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. The turn-of-the-century theater had an extensive balcony from whence water balloons were launched just as the Virgin Mary was appearing to Jennifer. Pandemonium ensued; the sanctity of the occasion was lost.
“Clem and I denied any part in the sacrilege. One of us was lying.”
I attend Boston Symphony concerts at Symphony Hall all the time, coming up from Providence by the MBTA. Week after week I have walked for many blocks in every direction, day and night, with no problems. I have been doing this for many years. I am a compulsive walker, and often use side streets in the area. I often walk before and after performances to or from Ruggles Station, the Massachusetts Avenue T station, at night up and down the dark walkway over the rail line between Mass Avenue and Back Bay Station, up or down Columbus Avenue. Never a problem. I do not see any social decay here or anything going to hell. Quite the contrary; I find it an exciting, lively, safe area. I’d love to live there! It reminds me of the upper West Side in Manhattan near Lincoln Center.
Harriet,
Please do post links to those photos. If one of them is the Olympia in Olneyville, that would be a first, since there have been no known photos of that place. There is a glossy photo of the Gaiety at the Rhode Island Historical Sciety. A good number exist of the Metropolitan, and I have posted links to them on this page.
Here is an aerial photo of seaside Narragansett in the 1960s. On the left above the red X, next to the post office, you can seen where the Casino Theatre/Pier Cinema used to be. It is the long white building.
Recently at Providence Place Mall there was an art display of Rhode Island buildings and places, each constructed out of tin cans. Here is the one representing the Rustic Drive-In.
Those early live concerts on Sunday were put into the theatre (and other Providence theatres) because in Providence at the time, blue laws made it illegal to have stage shows, plays, and movies on Sunday. Live musical events were exempt from the regulation.
Philharmonic Hall (renamed Avery Fisher Hall) was regularly used for the opening and closing nights of the New York Film Festival each year, as well as for special film events. In its first years it was pretty much used for the entire festival. (I have in front of me a program booklet from 1966). I remember seeing Gance’s Napoleon and Stroheim’s Greed there.
I have been to a number of these, and the presentation is a class act! I wish they were shown in more theatres across the land. Many of the theatres used are suburban multiplexes, making it difficult to get to them by public transportation. I wish there were a venue within my city of Providence, such as the Providence Place Mall 16. At present someone in this area has to go to Swansea, Massachusetts or else Warwick, RI, each a good twenty minute drive from the city…if you have a car!
The above comment skirts the issue. The fact that the people at Trinity are hard-working and dedicated does not change the reality that the interior was totally altered and vandalized by them. “Redid” is an appalling euphemism. There is very little of the original except a bit in the lobby rotunda. Everything else is gone forever. I grew up in the fifties and sixties and remember quite vividly what a gorgeous wonder it was. Do you?
Trinity could have created what they did out of any nondescript building in Providence. By comparison, look at PPAC and see how that place was respected; look at the Hanover Theatre in Worcester; look at the beautiful Emerson Majestic in Boston. Our own Majestic deserved as much.
When members of the Theatre Historical Society of America visited Providence, they were very immensely disappointed by what they saw inside. Regarding “they love the fact that they are in a building with so much history,” I find that rather lame since there is no evidence of that history inside any more, nor does anyone there really know or care about that, in my opinion. When I was on that tour, the Trinity Rep person who gave the presentation patronizingly denigrated the history of the Majestic as having become just another second run theatre at the end. That’s not true, and even if it were, the place was still a magnificent edifice whose interior deserved better than what Trinity Rep inflicted on it. Finally, the Majestic was by no means a shambles before Trinity acquired it. It was a fully functional well-maintained movie palace that could no longer compete with suburban mall cinemas.
1933 newspaper ad for the Hollywood Theatre. Torch Singer with Joan Crawford and a Zane Grey western To the Last Man. Note that later that week “3 BIG TIME VAUDEVILLE ACTS” would alternate with the film program. The Hollywood Theatre, built by Samuel Bomes in the 1920s, was a popular neigborhood theatre until not much after 1960. True to its name, it generally presented popular recent Hollywood films for the whole family as a second-run area theatre, though much of what it showed was first-run for East Providence. It was razed in August 2008.
From Temples of Illusion by Roger Brett, about Jacob Conn’s building of the Olympia Theatre:
“Shortly after leasing the Weybosset Street house [Gaiety] and changing its name to Conn’s City Theater, he built Conn’s Olympia Theater in Olneyville Square. This edifice included an office block and in it he installed a radio station, WCOT. All this he accomplished in 1926 and 1927. By now he considered Olneyville to be his personal fief, his base of power…”
I have a postcard-photo of Conn’s Theatre in Concord, NH. Does anyone know if that still exists, was renamed? Built by Jacob Conn, perhaps in the 1920s, it was touted as America’s first fireproof house of entertainment. Conn built two theatres in Providence, the Metropolitan and the Olympia.
Correction: great-granddaughter of Jacob Conn.
Correction: great-granddaughter of Jacob Conn.
Here is a recently discovered photo of the Metropolitan Theatre from circa 1932, perhaps not long after it opened in August of that year. The marquee and roof signs show it was then called simply “Conn’s Theatre.” This is the Chestnut Street side. There was an entrance on Broad Street as well. Photo courtesy of Laura Frommer, granddaughter of original builder-owner Jacob Conn.
Here is a full shot photo of the Gaiety Theatre, circa 1918. The film playing is Law’s Outlaw with Roy Stewart. Photo courtesy of Laura Frommer, granddaughter of Jabob Conn.
In his recent memoir A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, Bill O'Reilly wrote of his student days in Boston at B.U. and contributing articles to several weekly papers. One of his breaks came when he wrote a piece for Free Press on the noted stripper Fanne Foxe. O'Reilly had interviewed her backstage at the Pilgrim Theatre. He wrote:
“On a cool November night, I ventured into Boston’s notorious Combat Zone, a vice-ridden area just north of Boston Common. There, I met Ms. Bombshell backstage at the Pilgrim Theatre, where she was preparing to take off her clothes for three thousand dollars, a hefty one-night sum in 1974.
“The woman was very nice to me and my photographer, Conn O'Neill, two young Irish guys just trying to get through school. In fact, the Foxette actually changed into her costume right before our eyes, displaying an admirable female form. Am I getting paid for this? I thought. The answer was no. But it was okay.”
At this point, on page 114 of the book, O'Reilly quotes what he had written in the article about Ms. Foxe, about Fanne sauntering about the Pilgrim stage and throwing candy to the patrons. The published article was met with some praise, including from film critic Rex Reed. In later years O'Reilly told Reed that he had been directly responsible for his entering the field of mass communications. Reed’s reply was to laugh and say he would pay him not to make that public.
Harriet, yes, please email them. (italiangerry(at)gmail.com.)
In his recent memoir A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, Bill O'Reilly writes that, when he was in the fifth grade, he went with the entire student body of the Catholic school he attended to see a movie at the Westbury. It was a revival of the 1943 The Song of Bernadette, for which Jennifer Jones had won the Academy Award.
He writes, “The thinking here was to use a Hollywood film to reinforce the Catholic faith. Since the movie jaunt got us out of math and English, the outing was fine with me.
“Unfortunately all plans can go awry, and this one proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. The turn-of-the-century theater had an extensive balcony from whence water balloons were launched just as the Virgin Mary was appearing to Jennifer. Pandemonium ensued; the sanctity of the occasion was lost.
“Clem and I denied any part in the sacrilege. One of us was lying.”
I attend Boston Symphony concerts at Symphony Hall all the time, coming up from Providence by the MBTA. Week after week I have walked for many blocks in every direction, day and night, with no problems. I have been doing this for many years. I am a compulsive walker, and often use side streets in the area. I often walk before and after performances to or from Ruggles Station, the Massachusetts Avenue T station, at night up and down the dark walkway over the rail line between Mass Avenue and Back Bay Station, up or down Columbus Avenue. Never a problem. I do not see any social decay here or anything going to hell. Quite the contrary; I find it an exciting, lively, safe area. I’d love to live there! It reminds me of the upper West Side in Manhattan near Lincoln Center.
Harriet,
Please do post links to those photos. If one of them is the Olympia in Olneyville, that would be a first, since there have been no known photos of that place. There is a glossy photo of the Gaiety at the Rhode Island Historical Sciety. A good number exist of the Metropolitan, and I have posted links to them on this page.
Here is an aerial photo of seaside Narragansett in the 1960s. On the left above the red X, next to the post office, you can seen where the Casino Theatre/Pier Cinema used to be. It is the long white building.
Recently at Providence Place Mall there was an art display of Rhode Island buildings and places, each constructed out of tin cans. Here is the one representing the Rustic Drive-In.
Those early live concerts on Sunday were put into the theatre (and other Providence theatres) because in Providence at the time, blue laws made it illegal to have stage shows, plays, and movies on Sunday. Live musical events were exempt from the regulation.
Philharmonic Hall (renamed Avery Fisher Hall) was regularly used for the opening and closing nights of the New York Film Festival each year, as well as for special film events. In its first years it was pretty much used for the entire festival. (I have in front of me a program booklet from 1966). I remember seeing Gance’s Napoleon and Stroheim’s Greed there.
I have been to a number of these, and the presentation is a class act! I wish they were shown in more theatres across the land. Many of the theatres used are suburban multiplexes, making it difficult to get to them by public transportation. I wish there were a venue within my city of Providence, such as the Providence Place Mall 16. At present someone in this area has to go to Swansea, Massachusetts or else Warwick, RI, each a good twenty minute drive from the city…if you have a car!
The above comment skirts the issue. The fact that the people at Trinity are hard-working and dedicated does not change the reality that the interior was totally altered and vandalized by them. “Redid” is an appalling euphemism. There is very little of the original except a bit in the lobby rotunda. Everything else is gone forever. I grew up in the fifties and sixties and remember quite vividly what a gorgeous wonder it was. Do you?
Trinity could have created what they did out of any nondescript building in Providence. By comparison, look at PPAC and see how that place was respected; look at the Hanover Theatre in Worcester; look at the beautiful Emerson Majestic in Boston. Our own Majestic deserved as much.
When members of the Theatre Historical Society of America visited Providence, they were very immensely disappointed by what they saw inside. Regarding “they love the fact that they are in a building with so much history,” I find that rather lame since there is no evidence of that history inside any more, nor does anyone there really know or care about that, in my opinion. When I was on that tour, the Trinity Rep person who gave the presentation patronizingly denigrated the history of the Majestic as having become just another second run theatre at the end. That’s not true, and even if it were, the place was still a magnificent edifice whose interior deserved better than what Trinity Rep inflicted on it. Finally, the Majestic was by no means a shambles before Trinity acquired it. It was a fully functional well-maintained movie palace that could no longer compete with suburban mall cinemas.
Poster for Lubitch’s Sumurun (1920) when it played here.
Old poster for Children of Divorce, starring Clara Bow, at the Rialto in 1927.
Here is a poster for the movie Holiday at the Crescent:
John G409, Yes, fine.
“wrong size print"
You mean they sent a 70mm print instead of 35mm one? I mean, what other possibilities are there?
Yes, of course. Thanks. Sometimes it pays to check what you write for factual errors.
1933 newspaper ad for the Hollywood Theatre. Torch Singer with Joan Crawford and a Zane Grey western To the Last Man. Note that later that week “3 BIG TIME VAUDEVILLE ACTS” would alternate with the film program. The Hollywood Theatre, built by Samuel Bomes in the 1920s, was a popular neigborhood theatre until not much after 1960. True to its name, it generally presented popular recent Hollywood films for the whole family as a second-run area theatre, though much of what it showed was first-run for East Providence. It was razed in August 2008.
My blog on the Hollywood Theatre after its demise.