Providence Performing Arts Center

In his book Downcity: Downtown Providence in the 1950s, Carmen Maiocco gives a thumbnail history of Loew’s State Theatre:

“To understand the history of Loew’s State Theater, now the Providence Performing Arts Center, at 220 Weybosset Street, you have to go back to the first decade of the twentieth century, to one of the early moguls of the American film industry, Marcus Loew. Loew got started in 1905 running peep shows in penny arcades. He began buying up vaudeville halls, and by the end of World War I, he controlled approximately 60 silent movie theaters. Not satisfied merely to exhibit films, he wanted to produce them too. In the early 1920s, Marcus Loew purchased two struggling businesses, the Metro Picture Company and the Goldwyn Picture Company. He merged the pair and hired a gentleman named Louis B. Mayer to oversee making the films, and, voilà – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, MGM, was born. MGM cranked out the pictures, which were then shown in Loew’s theaters from coast to coast. In time, Loew’s Theaters became one of the largest movie house chains in the United States with over 300 locations. In the mid-1920s, Loew’s company decided to construct a huge theater in Providence on Weybosset Street. On opening day, October 6, 1928, over 14,000 people jammed the building to marvel at the eye-popping opulence, and to see the film Excess Baggage starring William Haines. The fans were led to their seats by 50 uniformed ushers, past perches in the lobby holding talking parrots. For the next 40 years, Loew’s State Theater, with its seating capacity of 3,200, was Providence’s premier motion picture palace.

“Arthur P. Slater was the State Theater’s chief projectionist for 40 years. The State’s final manager was M.J. Cullen. One of the major attractions of Loew’s State was always the Mighty Wurlitzer Theater Organ. On opening night, in 1928, the organ rose dramatically out of the orchestra pit, and was played by Joseph Stover, imported all the way from Paris. (The Wurlitzer can still be heard at free concerts presented to the public by the theater every summer.) In the ‘50s the organist was a very popular gentleman named Maurice Cook, who was tragically killed in an automobile accident in 1954.
(…)
"Skip ahead 20 years to the 1970s and things don’t look too bright for Loew’s State. The theater was suffering from that potentially fatal disease – empty seats. The parking lot developers who had a field day with downtown Providence in the 1970s started to eye the building, circling like vultures in the sky above a stumbling old lion. In steped downtown entrepreneur B.A. Dario. Dario purchased Loew’s State in 1971 and he and his family ran it for a few years as an arena for boxing matches and rock musical shows. But even that didn’t work, and in the mid-1970s, Dario announced his intention to tear down the building. [His RKO Albee a block over on Westminster Street was torn down in 1970 after having acquired that. ~GD] According to one account, when Dario’s wife Sylvia heard her husband’s demolition plans, she burst into tears. Those tears marked the beginning of the salvation of one of Providence’s most glamorous structures. Thank you, Mrs. Dario. In 1977 Dario sold Loew’s State to a consortium of preservationist-minded businessmen, led by the head of the Outlet Company, Bruce Sundlun. The group, aided by the city and Mayor Vincent "Buddy” Cianci, Jr., refurbished the building, and to universal acclamation, held a grand re-opening on the evening of October 6, 1978, fifty years to the day from the theater’s original start. Thousands packed the aisles to watch Ethel Merman lead a night of lively entertainment. Since then the Providence Performing Arts Center has enriched our community far more than words can ever tell, with an endless procession across its stage of musical performances and cultural events."

The Wizard of Oz revival of August 1949 and a stage show.

Did you know that Bruce Springsteen began his “Born to Run” tour at this theater (it was called the Palace at the time) in the summer of 1975? The band had just finished recording the album in New York City— way behind schedule— and they jumped into the van for the drive to Providence for that night’s concert. An amazing moment in rock & roll history— right in Providence!
My wife and I attended a concert by Chicago, the band, at the PPAC in September, and both the concert and the surroundings were lovely. The restoration on this theater has been first rate! Thanks.

Actually, the marquee in the above photo, upon close examination of the postcard, announces the film Personal Property with Jean Harlow and Robert Taylor. That would place the image at around 1937.

The original 1,500 pipe organ was sold in 1963 to one Patsy Fucci of Waltham, Massachusetts. It had been in the theatre for a good 30-plus years. It was a four-manual Robert-Morton organ that had cost about $125,000 when new in 1928. A Providence Evening Bulletin article of March 16 that year reported manager William Trambukis as saying that Mr. Fucci had carted the organ away over a period of weeks, using big trailers. Some of the pipes were taller than a house. The instrument had only been used occasionally after the advent of sound movies. It had also been seriously damaged in the 1954 hurricane which flooded Loew’s. Mr. Fucci was a connoisseur of organs and a post office clerk and would set up the organ in his basement. It would be powered by a motor in his garage.

Opening day at Loew’s State Theatre

On opening day, October 6, 1928, the feature film attraction was the “Metro Movietone sound picture” Excess Baggage with William Haines. Also on the program were Movietone and Vitaphone offerings, M.G.M. and Fox news, and Joseph Stoves at the “mighty $100,000 Morton organ.”

The first person to purchase a ticket was a 14-year-old Providence boy by the name of James Riley, who had waited hours for the honor. The first day’s attractions began at 10 A.M. Capacity crowds filled the 3800-seat theatre throughout the day, for a total of 14,000 patrons by day’s end. Admission prices ranged from 20 cents to 50 cents. At the dedication ceremony in the evening Governor Norman S. Case, Senator Peter Goelet Gerry, and Mayor James E. Dunne offered words of praise and congratulation.

Rhode Island’s most beautiful theatre was born.

When the theater was renamed the Ocean State in 1976 with the purpose of showing first run movies, I attended the opening of its first feature presentation “Murder By Death” and the film that followed that engagement, “King Kong.” I never really believed, however, that this policy would entice moviegoers downtown on a regular basis.

Here is a crowd of mostly men beneath the marquee of Loew’s State in 1928.

Here is a 1941 photo of Loew’s State when it was showing Shadow of the Thin Man and Miss Polly.

In late June of 1976, when the theatre was called Ocean State Theatre, there was a first-run policy initiated with Murder by Death. It wasn’t until it became the Providence Performing Arts Center, however, that this magnificent theatre captured new success.

PROVIDENCE THEATRES: “TEMPLES OF ILLUSION"
A book called "Temples of Illusion,” by Roger Brett, was published in 1976. It is Mr. Brett’s detailed history of all the old downtown area theatres of Providence from 1871 to 1950. It includes numerous rare photos, a list of theatres with name changes, and a map to show exactly where they all were. The book is an invaluable resource and is owned by many libraries in the R.I. CLAN system. I found a copy for sale online and will use it as a reference for future postings.

Recent color photos of this theatre can be found on the site: “America’s Stunning Theatres” by photographer and stagehand Noah Kern at: http://www.pbase.com/affablebeef/theatres Comments and information may be left there without registration; such can be public view or only to Mr. Kern. Scroll down the page to find the name, and then click on the sample image above it to be taken to the page of photos of it.