Stuart Theatre
700 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02130
700 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02130
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Showing 26 - 48 of 48 comments
This 1928 map shows at least 11 downtown Boston theatres. West is at the top of this map.
The UNIQUE THEATRE is on the east side of Washington Street, at the corner of Kneeland Street, at the far left edge of this map. In an earlier comment, I quoted from a pamphlet which said the theatre’s name changed to Stuart in 1925. Either this was inaccurate, or the mapmaker didn’t notice the change.
Yes it played The Gary!
Based on your reply just above mine, I’m going to guess that you actually saw Earthquake at the Gary Theatre, not the Stuart.
Are you sure you saw it here? This was never a Sack Theatre.
That should read “sub sonic…"
I recall this as being on Stuart St and not on Washington – or am I thinking of another place?
It was some really old building not too far away from Jacob Wirth’s?
An good friend, the sound man at the Ark/Tea Party, saw “Earthquake” in NYC and was wowed big time by the sun-sonic sound provided in the film. Coming back with this story of being shaken big time, he and his wife got a group of about 15 of us to go see “Earthquake,” hoping to catch what they had experienced in NYC. Entering, we could see the amplifiers and speakers that were on the floor to make this a real unforgetable cinematic experience.
Not only had the actual earthquake scenes been unmercifully cut to shreds, but the sound had been turned down so as not to bring the house down, which was probably wise, considering what an old old building this theater was. Another Sack Theater memory.
We left the theater a bit miffed but kind of into being able to kid these folks that dragged us there.
Never set foot in the theater again. This would have to have been early ‘70s.
The Pussycat closed some time between the 2nd half of 1987 and the first half of 1988; The West End Pussycat (ex-Lancaster Th.) also closed in this same timeframe. I don’t recall that the Stuart remained closed for a very long time before being converted into a McDonald’s.
I went to the Stuart a number of times in the 1950s and 1960s. It had a flat floor and an asymmetrical middle aisle – I think that the right side of the aisle had more seats than the left. It was really sort of an old Nickleodeon, and had been constructed in an existing building. The restrooms were on either side of the screen. The admission circa 1960 was only 25 cents for 2 last-run double features. It smelled like a horse-stable inside. I don’t believe I ever saw a woman in there, although there was no “Men Only” sign out front! Young males, especially teens who were alone, were “prey” in there. The outside right wall, along Stuart St., was solid brick and had 2 double fire doors, painted red. I don’t believe that it was ever open 24 hours, like the Rialto in Scollay Square. When it was taken over and renovated into the Pussycat, I assume they got rid of the stable odors! Around 1990 it was converted into a McDonalds. All traces gone, even the right brick wall with the 2 firedoors is gone. It was orignally the Unique, then Stuart, then Pussycat. Interestingly, the only other downtown Boston theatre to be converted into a restaurant is right next door, the Globe/Center/Pagoda. (Or, I should say, converted in recent years, because the old Keith’s just north of the Paramount became the Normandie ballroom and bar in the 1930s.) along
It satarted when it was still the “Stuart”, housing many homeless and prostitute types due mainly to its cheap admission policy!
Do you mean the final days when it was still called the Stuart (showing second-run double features), or the final days as the Pussycat (showing X-rated films)?
The “Stuart Theatre”, in its final days was like a toilet! The place reeked of urine and bodu odor and was raided on many occasions by police for illicit sexual activity!
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, this one started out as an amusement called Hale’s Tours, where “customers sat in mockups of train coach interiors, which shook, rattled and rocked as film scenery rushed by on a motion picture screen. This was a short-lived attraction. The location then became the Unique Theatre, then the Stuart.”
As the Unique Theatre, it opened in January 1907, with 250 seats.
I believe that the Stuart was open 24 hours a day back during the early ‘60’s.
In his 1968 unpublished draft manuscript entitled The Puritan Muse (available in the Fine Arts room of the Boston Public Library), Douglas Shand-Tucci refers to the Stuart as the last surviving nickelodeon in Boston.
I’m now looking at a photo of the Stuart, published in the Third Quarter 1974 issue of the Theatre Historical Society’s magazine Marquee. It sure looks to me like the Stuart was right on the corner, where McDonald’s is now. The Stuart’s marquee advertises a movie called I MET A MURDERER.
I have a booklet called “Boston Theatre District: A Walking Tour”, published by the Boston Preservation Alliance in 1993. It says:
[in 1907] the Unique Theatre, an early nickelodeon, opened at the corner of Washington and Kneeland Streets. It became the Stuart in 1925 and the X-rated Pussycat in 1976, before giving way to McDonald’s in the late 1980’s.
The Stuart Theatre designed by Clarence H Blackall, opened in 1907 as the Unique Theatre with 458 seats. It was later named the Stuart Theatre because of its proximity to Stuart Street.
Are you saying the old theatre is still there somewhere? Or did it get converted to something other than McDonald’s?
Correction. The old Stuart is not now a McDonalds, but is right next to it. The most vivid memory I have of the Stuart was the smell of Lysol which permeated it. As a side note, the storefront which is now a McDonalds was in the 1930’s the Boston office of the “Daily Worker” newspaper, the official mouthpiece of the American Communist Party. How times have changed.
In its final declining years, the Stuart became the ‘Pussycat Cinema’ which I believe was the name of a chain of porno theaters. At the same time, the old E.M. Lowe’s West End Cinema became the ‘West End Pussycat’.
I found a note that I saw the following western double bill here in September, 1972: Frank Perry’s “Doc” paired with William Witney’s “Arizona Raiders” from 1965.
These theatres taught me more about film then any book or class could. I saw so many second features I would have never been exposed to in single feature first run houses. Sometimes on 42nd St or at The Thalia you would get a triple bill.
It’s now a McDonald’s.
It was the kind of grind-run movie theatre (cheap, tacky, dingy, wino-populated) that we used to call a “scratch house.” And yet, snobbery aside, what a film education you could get by going there…so many movies, new and old…in constant turnover. A poor man’s cinematheque. Nothing like it exists any more.