State Theatre
617 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
617 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
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Today’s Boston Sunday Globe has an article about former movie theatres of Chinatown, and an outdoor film festival that will be held there next month. It says, of this theatre:
“As a youth, [Jeffrey] Wong [now 62] would sneak in and hide in the balcony of the State Cinema on Washington Street, hoping to catch some of the skin flicks before the lights came up and the bums were pushed out and he joined his friends and relatives and neighbors, who then filled the theater , eager for that week’s offering from Shanghai or Taiwan.
Not all the films had the highest production values: The fights were obviously staged, which made them even more entertaining for some."
These maps are great fun to study. Actually, Bumpstead Court was not a dead-end (note the little arches on the pink square directly behind the Park Theatre’s stage (north end). You could walk underneath this structure which contained the Park’s dressing rooms. I have a very vague memory that this structure was still there circa 1948 or so. Also note the Hotel Brewster just to the south of the Park’s stage. This is where Lotta Crabtree lived at one time and there was supposedly a passageway from the hotel basement to the Park’s basement. The Park’s scene loading door was in the little jog on the south side of the stage (stage-right). I used to patronize the ground floor coffee shop of the Hotel Brewster occasionally. There was a gas explosion there sometime in the early 1960s which resulted in the demolition of the hotel. Note that on the maps you can see that Boylston St. did not line up with Essex St. After the hotel demolition, a new entrance was built for the Orange Line on the property, then the entire street was swung over to the north to line up with Essex. This was when they built the little park on the south side of the intersection.
This 1928 map shows at least 11 downtown Boston theatres. West is at the top of this map.
To find the PARK THEATRE on this map, go to the corner of Washington and Boylston Streets. Go west on Boylston, then north on Bumstead Court, a small dead-end alley. You’ll see the theatre labelled on the right side of Bumstead Court, just before this alley turns to the left.
This map, too, identifies the owner as Lotta M. Crabtree. In fact, it looks like she owned several adjoining buildings as well.
This 1895 map shows part of downtown Boston. The Park Theatre is visible near the top left corner, in the block bounded by Tremont, Boylston, Washington, and Avery streets. (If you’re having trouble finding it, look just below the end of Haymarket Place.) The map identifies it as the property of Lotta M. Crabtree.
In the early sixties the State played a lot of “nudist camp” movies: pretty girls playing volley ball in the “all together”. Someone had the job of drawing bikinis on the girls in the 8"x10" glossies that were posted outside.
I did get a chance to sneak inside once (underage) to see Bridget Bardot in And God Created Woman.
A couple of strip clubs remain on La Grange Street — the Glass Slipper and Centerfolds. These, and a couple of lingering adult bookstores, are all that remains of the Combat Zone.
Too bad for the whole Combat Zone – it always made a walk through to Chinatown all that much more alluring to my teen mind, if that was “allure” and not something more prurient. Saw my first xxx rated penetration film in this locale – as hookers walked the aisles and god-know-what went on in the balcony.
What ever became of all the strip and burly clubs and whatnot around the area? I would really like to get my hands on the 8x10 glossies of the lovelies that worked these clubs that were posted in columns at the front door areas beckoning. This would make for one great coffee table book. Anyone know of the photographers that plied their trades there?
There was a theatre history buff who lived in the Back Bay named William Morris Hunt. I believe that he was the grandnephew of the noted 19th century designer, Richard Morris Hunt. William attended a meeting of theatre buffs in the BRA offices in Boston City Hall around 1985 or so, called by the Theatre District planner. Among the goodies he had with him was a drawing of the Park Th. entrance before the Crabtree Building was constructed. The entrance was originally thru a house, something like the Old Corner Bookstore building at School and Washington streets today. His collection was donated to the Harvard Theatre Collection before he passed away about 8 or 10 years ago. Does anyone know when the Crabtree Building (which contained the Trans Lux entrance) was opened? I will guess about 1910 or 1915 ??
I went into the Trans Lux for the first time circa 1960, before the change of name to State. There was a black and white movie of girl volley ball players who played the game nude. The house was in good condition. The dressing rooms for the Park Th. were in a seperate building across the alley to the rear of the stage and there was an overhead bridge connecting. I have a very vague memory of seeing this when looking up the alley circa late-1940s. After that, it was gone. The actor James C. Powers played at the Park in 1880 in a show called “Dreams” with Willie Edouin. In his autobiography, published around 1943, Jimmy Powers tells of life at the Park in those days. He and Willie Edouin apparently had a relationship similar to Homer and Bart Simpson. Movies pretty much took over the Park after 1912 or so, until Minsky Burlesque came in during the 1930s. The original Park Th. had 2 balconies, an orchestra circle, and boxes.There was a tunnel from a small hotel to the south which led to the backstage. This hotel was demolished after a gas explosion there in the early 1960s. The State II was located in a storefront on Washington St. and was not carved out of the State itself. The State closed in 1985.
Here is a 1968 Harvard Crimson article about the sex film venues on Washington Street. The writer discusses the Pilgrim, the Mayflower, and the State.
Here is a Harvard Crimson review from March 2, 1957 of a Trans-Lux program of a French and an Italian film: La Sorcière & Three Forbidden Tales. This may have been the typical kind of programming here during that decade, i.e., racy foreign films, but not necessarily without artistic merit. These were both very good movies.
King says that the Park presented its first motion picture in May 1912, at the end of its stage season. “The house was probably leased by Universal Film Manufacturing Company to show its Rainey’s African Hunt.”
Adolph Zukor leased the Park in 1914 for his Famous Players Corporation, gutting and rebuilding the theatre. King refers to it as “Boston’s first movie palace”. It had 1200 seats after the reconstruction. It was remodeled again in 1929.
In November 1933, the Park became Minsky’s Burlesque, featuring striptease acts. Minsky left in 1937, and it was remodeled yet again, becoming the Hub Theatre.
After still another reconstruction, it became the Trans-Lux on September 10, 1938. The Trans-Lux no longer had a stage or boxes, and featured Boston’s first turnstile box office. Other Trans-Lux chain theatres featured rear projection, but there was not enough space here for that system. The Trans-Lux initially showed a combination of newsreels and short subjects, but by 1939 had added a feature film to its program.
In 1960, the Trans-Lux became the first Washington Street theatre to show sex films. The company’s stockholders demanded that the theatre change its name, and it became the State.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, this was originally built as Beethoven Hall in 1873. The book says that “early attractions were minstrel shows, variety shows, and French drama, along with an appearance by Buffalo Bill; in October the Howard’s John Stetson presented a vaudeville troupe.”
In 1879, New York theatrical managers Henry Abbey and John Schoeffel leased Beethoven Hall and, over 50 days, converted it to the Park Theatre. Their lease lasted until 1889, at which point they built the Tremont Theatre.
Tho I’ve never been in the Gaiety, I feel like I’ve lost an old friend…to see the wrecking ball tear down the walls is very sad.. I can’t understand how Mennino can be for the preservation of the Paramount, the Majestic, and the Opera house, and thumb his nose at all the protesting of the tearing down this great old theater..and after seeing pictures of the inside…I, like lots of other people, had hopes of trying to save the Gaiety…why couldn’t this tower/apartments be built OVER the theater?? I feel that was the perfect plan..and I must thank Ron Newman…your knowledge of Boston and it’s theaters histories are truly amazing…thanks for all your time spent, for a good cause…and ALL the people in Friends of the Gaiety…for your efforts…we DID try and do the right thing…now to get Kenningson to build a replacement theater..Lee Eiseman, thank you for all the updates sent to my email…I guess the fight isn’t truly over yet…tho this has been a sad week…
This 1933 postcard shows it as the Park, with Rex Bell in “Rainbow Ranch”.
This 1936 postcard, a nearly identical view, shows it as the Hub, with Ronald Colman in “Under Two Flags” and Dick Powell in “Thanks a Million”.
Somewhere I’ve read that after this theatre began showing porn films, the stockholders of the Trans-Lux Corporation (which I guess still owned it) demanded that the theatre change its name.
Here’s a photo of the marquee as the Trans-Lux. The photo was taken in 1943 and is described here. The marquee advertises Bob Hope and Betty Grable in “Give Me a Sailor”, plus Roger Pryor and Rochelle Hudson in “The Officer and the Lady”.
According to an unpublished 1968 draft manuscript by Douglas Shand-Tucci entitled The Puritan Muse (available in the Fine Arts room of the Boston Public Library), the Park went to a movies-only policy in 1919, but returned to live shows in 1924.
It later became a Minsky’s burlesque house, then went back to movies again as the Hub Theatre. In 1938 it became the Trans-Lux, showing newsreels and short subjects. Later (I’m not sure when) it changed its name one more time, to the State.
Here is a biographical sketch of Lotta Crabtree, at a web site devoted to San Francisco history. I remember seeing the small but ornate fountain which she donated to the city in 1875, and which still stands on a triangle of land where Market, Geary and Kearney Streets intersect.
Though born in New York City, in 1847, she spent most of her childhood in the Sierra mining town of Grass Valley, only a few dozen miles from where I live. One of California’s most colorful golden era characters, she went on to become, in the late 19th century, one of the most successful performers on the New York stage. She retired at the age of 45, living first in rural New Jersey and then, after the death of her mother, in Boston. Upon her death at the age of 76, Boston newpapers reported that her extensive real estate holdings had made her the city’s second largest taxpayer.
Wise in her investments, she died in 1924, leaving much of her considerable fortune to benefit disabled WWI veterans, and some for animal welfare, destitute thespians, and discharged convicts. A considerable, but undisclosed, amount of her fortune remains today in the Lotta Agricultural Trust Fund, which provides loans to New England farmers. (See the “New Standard: 1/28/98” link on the page at the link above.)
This is listed as a Single Screen, and I’m sure it was for most of its life. But in the 1970s, I recall walking around the area and seeing a marquee for a “State II Cinema” next to the “State”. I don’t know if this was done by dividing the original auditorium or by carving it out of some other part of the building.
The CVS Pharmacy which is part of the Ritz-Carlton Towers/Millenium Place occupies roughly the same patch of land where the State Theatre once stood.
Notes on Lotta Crabtree. There’s a musical movie of her life with Mitzi Gaynor called ‘Golden Girl’ 1951. She made her money dancing(?) for the 49ers in the California gold rush. Back in Boston, she bought the Park theater, and had a secret passageway connecting her dressing room to her apartment in an adjacent hotel. I guess she performed well into old age. Some of her bequests were for drinking fountains for animals, there is one for dogs on Boston’s esplanade, and one for horses in San Fransisco.
To Richard Dziadzio, do you have a web site with your interior photos of the State Theatre? I’d love to see them. Or maybe you’d be kind enough to email them to me at
According to a booklet called “Boston Theatre District: A Walking Tour”, published by the Boston Preservation Alliance in 1993, this opened as the Park Theatre in 1879. It says:
Lotta Crabtree, the famous actress who subsequently owned the theatre (which was constructed from Beethoven Hall), opened the Park with “La Cigale”. she was followed in later years by Booth, Mansfield, St. Denis, and Nazimova. The theatre was remodeled by Clarence Blackall in 1903 and assumed several other identities (inclding Minsky’s Park burlesque) before its demolition in 1991, at which time it was Boston’s oldest theatre.
A newspaper ad I just found in the Boston Record American for March 3, 1962, lists the State address as 617 Washington Street. That day they were showing NAKED ISLAND, “Land of 1001 surprises…scenes in blushing color.” Also on the bill was THE FACTS OF LOVE.