Pilgrim Theatre

The Pilgrim Theatre was at 658 Washington Street, in the "combat zone" and diagonally across from the Publix (Gayety). It is said to have been called the Olympia at one time. It is not to be confused with the neighborhood Olympia at 1723 Washington Street.

I went to the Pilgrim in the early 1980's when it was an adult theatre. They had closed off the balcony but guys were up there anyway, doing their thing. It was a big beautiful house, and the boxes were still intact. Quite a trip for my first time in Boston. It is still standing?

No, it's not still standing. The whole building has been razed, and right now they seem to be readying the area for a new high rise. I was there today.

When I was there the marquee was still up and there was a nice vertical sign, as I recall.

It is being replaced by a high-rise residential building that was originally to be called 'Liberty Place' but is now going to be 'Park Essex'.

If you go to the gaietyboston.com site and click on "Photos," in the upper left corner is a postcard picture depicting the theater district in the 1930's. In the far left background you can just make out the vertical sign reading "Olympia," so this must have been the name prior to its becoming the Pilgrim. Note also that you can make out the Park in the lower right foreground, before it became the Trans-Lux.

The Pilgrim closed its doors for business in late December of 1995 and was demolished the following spring.

When the Pilgrim closed, it was the last remaining X-rated movie house in Boston. All of the others had already been torn down, closed, or converted to non-theatre uses.

The Film Daily Yearbook, 1950 gives a seating capacity of the Pilgrim Theatre as 1,500.

According to a booklet called "Boston Theatre District: A Walking Tour", published by the Boston Preservation Alliance in 1996 this theatre was originally called "Gordon's Olympia". The booklet says:

Architect Clarence Blackall designed the Olympia Theatre in 1912 within an existing 1891 office building designed by Winslow and Wetherell. It had a vaulted, frescoed ceiling. There were four floors of offices over a shell-like theatre entrance with a stucco finish. Its auditorium was in the very rear of its block, preceded by a group of vestibules containing stairways, restrooms, and one of the first theatre escalators that ran through a former carpet store, which fronted on Washington Street. The theatre held 2500 people in an orchestra, two balconies, and fourteen brass-railed boxes. The Olympia offered vaudeville and films. In 1996, the theatre, considered the oldest in continual use in Boston, was slated for demolition.

>>Its auditorium was in the very rear of its block, preceded by a group of vestibules containing stairways, restrooms, and one of the first theatre escalators that ran through a former carpet store, which fronted on Washington Street. The theatre held 2500 people in an orchestra, two balconies, and fourteen brass-railed boxes...

That's just the way I remember it from the mid-1980's!

In the Boston Globe and Herald archives, I find several references to this incident:

"No. 658 Washington St. in the Combat Zone, now a parking lot, was once the site of the Pilgrim Theater. On a December night in 1974, a tipsy US Representative Wilbur Mills, an Arkansas Democrat, pursued on stage the notorious Annabella Batistella -- a.k.a. burlesque dancer Fanne Foxe. She had already stripped; it would take only a few weeks for Mills to be stripped of his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee."

This web site shows the high-rise residential tower that is being built where the Pilgrim Theatre was:

http://www.ParkEssex.com

The Pilgrim Theater, in happier days (1961). From the Maureen O'Hara fan club site.

The closure of the balcony was caused by the untimely death of a Monsignor from Quincy some time in the '70s, I do believe. Can't imagine what state he was in when the body was discovered.

From the Bostonian Society Library, here's a 1958 photo of the Pilgrim Theatre, as well as the accompanying description.

The Pilgrim's marquee advertises INDISCREET, with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. A sign painted high on the theatre's side wall says AMERICAN THEATRES CORPORATION.

Further down the street is the marquee of the Center Theatre, but it's too small and dark to read. Across the street you can barely see part of the Publix Theatre's vertical sign.

In this 1947 photo (described here), you can't really see the theatre, but you can certainly see its huge vertical sign that read OLYMPIA.

The foreground of the photo shows a row of furniture stores. I think this block has been entirely demolished and replaced by expansion of the Tufts-New England Medical Center.

According to Donald C. King's new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, Gordon's Olympia opened on May 6, 1912, offering vaudeville and films. It had 2500 seats.

Among the films featured at the Olympia during its first two years were Queen Elizabeth; The Money Kings, or Wall Street Outwitted; The Prisoner of Zenda; and A Tale of Two Cities.

After being remodeled with new seats, the Olympia became the Pilgrim on January 5, 1949. On December 11, 1952, the Pilgrim used RCA's black-and-white TV projection system to present the opera Carmen live from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

The Pilgrim was the first theatre in Boston to present 3-D movies, offering a series of five short subjects in 1953.

In 1965, the Pilgrim began showing sex films. Later it became Boston's last burlesque theatre, best known for the day in 1974 that stripper Fanne Foxe appeared on stage with Congressman Wilbur Mills.

I'm not sure when live burlesque ended here, but by the end of its life, the Pilgrim was strictly an X-rated movie house, the last in Boston. Its Chinatown neighbors considered it a detriment to the area, and seemed mostly happy to have it torn down in 1996. A new residential tower, Park Essex, is still under construction on its site.

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.

Ah, more innocent times.

The article mentions that there were ten movie theatres on downtown Washington Street between the Old South Meeting House and "Michael Breen Square" (which I've never heard of). Besides the three sex-film houses, the others were, from north to south:

Loew's Orpheum, a first-run house
Savoy, a Sack first-run house
Paramount, a General Cinema first-run house
Boston Cinerama, which needs no further explanation
Publix, probably showing second- or third-run double features
Center, whose booking policy I'm not sure of
Stuart, probably showing second- or third-run double-features

The "Pilgrim Theatre" was one of the last porn palcaes in Boston! It was a shame to see this once beautiful theatre so scarred and defaced! Its also a shame that the City of Boston never tried to save many of the relics on Wsahington Street! Thankfully the Paramount that is basically non-descript compared to The Pilgrim and Gary is being saved!

Does anyone have any pictures of the interior of The Pilgrim?

Was the Pilgrim ever a first run house?

Does anyone know what really happenned in the death that occurred in the balcony in the 70's?

The Pilgrim Theatre was a premiere Boston X rated theatre!

Titles such as "Behind You All the Way"' and "Streetgirl named Desire" were commom here!

Also playing was "Hot Pants Hoilday" and "Juranal Park"

I was told by someone who snuck a look during the final months when the Pilgrim was still open for business that the balcony had become decripit from neglect and unsafe for physical occupation.

Make that 'decrepit' from my comment yesterday...

lol Actually thats a kind word for it!

A great theatre that never should have been demolished!

The classiest thaetre in Boston!

OK, OK, we get your point, you don't have to keep saying it.

lol

Was The Pilgrim ever just a Burlesque House?

Yes; please read all of the comments above.

I have! lol

This week's Boston Phoenix, on page 20, has a 1985 photo of the Pilgrim Theatre and two neighboring strip clubs -- all of which have been demolished. The photo is also online here, but the online version is much too small.

Bring back the PILGRIM! lol

Did this theatre ever show 7omm films?

Anyone have any interior photos of this theatre?

I went into the Pilgrim a number of times in the 1950s and 60s. It was an ATC house for years. It had 2 balconies and numerous big boxes on the sidewalls. But the stage wasn't very big. The rear of the stage was one building in from Harrison Ave. The scene door and the stage door were in an alley back there, at stage-left. It did show first-run films years ago. I never saw the escalator operating; it was always stopped every time I went in. I never went up into the balconies. Just to the southeast of the theatre there is a big parking garage with entrances on Beach St. Someone told me that he had read that an entrance passageway was built circa 1948 between the northwest corner of the groundfloor of the garage and some point on the south wall of the Pilgrim lobby. I have no memory of this at all. The burlesque shows started circa 1971 and ended circa-1975. This was the last gasp of traditional Burley in Boston, following closure of the Casino in Spring 1962. Then, the Pilgrim went on triple-feature XXX films; the message on the marquee remained the same for many years afterward. It closed October 1995, and was razed summer 1996. It was originally a Nathan Gordon house and was "sister" to the Scollay Sq. Olympia, although not physically identical. It probably did have over 2000 seats, although not maybe the 2500 often attributed to it.

What was the message on the marquee?

The message on the marquee was one they didn't have to change weekly.It read something like "XXX Three Big XXX Features" or something like that. Possibly, if you go thru the various photo links above, you might find it. In December 1992, the distinctive facade of the Pilgrim received a paint job, and the marquee was repaired or renovated. But I think they put the same message back on it as before.

A great theatre that is missed by many! lol

Just to illustrate how fickle things can be in the lives of old theatres: In Dec.1992, as mentioned above, just after the facade was painted and the marquee renovated, the newspapers reported that the Pilgrim was to be demolished ! The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report card for this theatre has a photo taken in April 1941. It was still the Washington Street Olympia then. The attractions on the bulb-studded marquee are: James Stewart and Hedy LaMarr in "Come Live with Me" and Jane Withers in "Golden Hoofs". The Report states that the theatre has been showing MGM product for over 10 years; that it is in Fair condition; with the following seating: main floor, 818; balcony, 990; boxes, 104; Total: 1912 (but no mention of the 2nd balcony.) Clarence Blackall was the architect, and it opened on May 6, 1912.

very interesting! Too bad all those Washinton Street theatres are gone!

I was in the theatre in the early 80's and I remember 2 escalators (no longer operational) as you entered the lobby. These were the old wood-tread escalators that went clackity-clack.

The MBTA had similar ancient escalators, which also clackity-clacked, at Downtown Crossing and at South Station right into the 1980s and maybe 1990s. You had to be careful getting on them ! The only other downtown Boston theater which had an escalator was the little Bijou (1882-1951) between the Paramount and the Opera House.

I remember those at Downtown Crossing. One went from the southbound Red Line platform up to Chauncey Street; the other, from the northbound Red Line platform up to Arch Street. Both have been replaced by conventional escalators.

Did the escalators in the Pilgrim ever work? I never recall seeing them on.

They did not work in recent years. I don't know when the installation took place, but it surely was in working order at first. I first went in there around 1955 and a number of times afterward, and never saw the escalator running. It was on the right side of the lobby as you walked in from the street.

This 1928 map shows at least 11 downtown Boston theatres. West is at the top of this map.

The OLYMPIA THEATRE is on the east side of Washington Street, between Beach and Essex streets, near the left side of the map.

As a Houstonian, I used to thoroughly enjoy my business trips to Boston during the 80s and early 90s, for one reason and one reason only: the venerable Pilgrim Theater. I'd stay at a nearby Swissôtel, which cost me a fortune, but it was just a few blocks' walk to/from the theater, which was all that mattered. When I got off work, I couldn't wait to go to the Pilgrim and get off many times again. It was like heaven all evening long, right up until they turned on the house lights at 2:45 AM and made everyone leave. I did that every night for as long as I could make my business trip last. I even wanted to get a job in Boston, just so I could go to the Pilgrim every single night. Man, I loved that old theater ... and all the patrons who joined me there.

Glad you joined just so you could share those memories of times gone by! If I had lived in Boston then, I probably would have called the Pilgrim a home-away-from-home, too.

The Pilgrim was the best for everything!

The memory I have of the Pilgrim involves someone trying to sell me reefer under the marquee during the early 90's. The theatre was showing porn that day and looked somewhat run down.

ummm you should have stepped inside!

Yeah right. Let's just say it didn't look too inviting!!!

The best PORNO Theatre ever around!

The new Archstone Boston Common apartment building now stands on the former site of the Pilgrim Theatre. The apartment building is already being occupied, though construction is not quite finished. The building was originally to be called Liberty Place, then Park Essex, but now it's Archstone Boston Common -- even though it's a block away from the Common.

I rember going there with my father about 1948 or so. years later my wife and I went there. not the same as it was back in 1948.

this was a nice place for a long time we went there a lot from the 70s on, tobad it is gone I will miss it a lot. had a lot of good times there. we came home with some real nice people from there.
loveit94@yahoo.com

Here are some demolition dates for the Pilgrim. I went there on May 10, 1996 and found that demo was almost complete on the entrance and lobby. On June 17, 1996, the entire theatre was gone except for the stage house, which came down a little later.

Wow, it was really nice to read all of this. Just found this site, but The Pilgrim has long been a special place to me. Firstly, it was enormous and I believe I read somewhere that it was also referred to as "The Matterhorn" for the steep grade of its balconies! Just the distance from the under the marquee, through the front doors, across the lobby and to the theater doors, was a walk! I was a teen in the 80's and I would often walk by it but never had the courage to go in until right before it was demolished in '95 or 6. I DID buy a fake ID from a guy in some ramshackle hut built between The Pilgrim and another adult business! It was kind of jammed in between the buildings right out on Washington Street for the cops to see. I guess they were busy with bigger fish or they were still letting the Combat Zone fester at that time.

In its final months, they began selling off some of the hand painted advertisements for the "adults only" exploitation films they showed in the mid to late '60's, before the arrival of hardcore. I bought a few of these, as well as a painted poster with a glossy photo of one of the dancers from their burlesque revival in the early 70's. But the best thing that happened was when I asked if there were any more of these posters around and the manager gave my friend and I a flash light and sent us upstairs to a room above the marquee! It was crammed with billboards and old posters. When we were through there we decided to explore and began heading up and up into the theater. Every time I thought we were at the top there was another staircase. A network of dark Burgundy wallpapered hallways lead to sets of french doors that let out onto the balconies. Never figured out how to get to the opera boxes, but I did find the old projection booth (the Pilgrim, just like most porn theaters, had converted to video projection during the 80's, and you can imagine the quality of a VHS tape shown on a giant screen!). The hallways were also covered in ancient graffiti, mostly sexual stream of consciousness-like rants! The manager wasn't too happy with us, until we started buying stuff, then he calmed right down.

On another trip I also found a sub level bathroom at the bottom of a cavernous staircase. Because of that sign on the marquee promising three XXX features, I wasn't totally sure if the Pilgrim was a single screen theater or not. I thought I was on to finding another screen until I heard the sounds of sloshing water. When I turned the corner there was an ancient tiled bathroom, two men to a stall (all the doors had been removed) going at it, and everyone standing in about an inch of water on the floor! It was like a location out of "Se7en". I happen to be "straight" (a ridiculous term!) and the Pilgrim only ever showed straight porn. I hadn't realized, until then, that any porn theater was prime turf for gay cruising, which now seems obvious. I had an older gay friend who had frequented the theater in its wild days and told me a few stories about groping around in total darkness in the stairways under the opera boxes.

For me, though, The Pilgrim was special because it was a beautiful tarnished gem of a theater that had fallen under the stigma, and disrepair, of its days as a porno palace. The lure of seeing something "dirty" was certainly part of my interest in it as a teenager but I also seem to have a love for the buildings no one cares about. Supposedly, The Boston Preservation Society was given a choice over which theater they would like to save; The Pilgrim or The Paramount, and it wasn't too surprising that they went for the younger deco theater over the urine drenched Pilgrim. But the Pilgrim was special and had some real history. When it opened, it was advertised as "The theater with the moving stairs", as it was the first, and maybe only, Boston theater with escalators.

What's kind of amazing is that it outlasted all of its brothers and sisters on 42nd Street. I watched as it was demolished and those rugs and chairs saw the light of day for the first time in 80 years. I would visit it everyday on my way home to Jamaica Plain as that familiar smell of sweet musty bricks filled the street. One night, I was standing at the fence they had erected around it, and an older, possibly homeless, prostitute passed by, saw me looking at what was left, and said "no more whore house, honey, no more..." and walked on.

I live in LosAngeles now, a lot of the places I cared for in Boston are gone, but I'm glad I got to experience them. Lower Washington street is now almost as unrecognizable as 42nd is in New York City. This happens everywhere, all the time, but it's somehow more poignant with older theaters because they had so much life in them, whether they were first run or "For Adults Only".

Boston will never be like it was in the days of the Pilgrim Theatre ans a few others like the State theater the good old days.

loveit94@yahoo.com

there was nothing like it!

wife and I loved the place a lot

i bet you did! lol the wife?

we made a lot of good friends there.
loveit94@yahoo.com

Lets bring back theatres like the Pilgrim!

I would love to have them all back.

The Pilgrim had a large cinemascope screen, one tof the largest in Boston!

That was a lovely post, Alistair Schneider; your wistful reminiscenses brought a little lump to my throat. I think you have summed up the appeal of this Cinema Treasures website: for most of us, we appreciate that "older theaters [have} so much life in them, whether they were first run or 'For Adults Only.'"

In the 1950's and early 1960's the Pilgrim was still in good shape and very beautiful. What I most remember were the large, steeply sloping balconies. Sitting in the second balcony, a dizzying experience, you could not lean back and cross your legs without blocking your view of the movie screen!

I went into the theater several times in the 1950s and 60s but never sat in the balconies. When the Pilgrim was being demolished in mid-1996, I stood down at the corner of Washington & Beach streets and looked at the building from a distance. I was astonished at how high the top row of the second balcony was above the street level, and how steep that balcony was. The theatre was indeed in good shape in the 1950-60's period, but "beautiful" would be in the eye of the beholder, I guess !

It's the steepest balcony I have ever been in. There is no way you would want to watch a movie from it, but, for a kid, going up there held a similar thrill to climbing to the top of a tall tree. It would have been a good place to watch the June Taylor Dancers!

During its days as a porno house, that steep balcony had a certain facilitating benefit.

The marquee of the Pilgrim is prominently featured in the new hit documentary feature "Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story" which won Best Documentary at the AFI Fest in LA yesterday. Does anybody remember attending one of Castle's famous gimmick events there? "The Tingler" (1959) was the one with the famous butt-buzzing wired seats.

The Pilgrim Theatre was the main office for American Theatres Corp.
as in some of the post above if you were looking at the theatre from the front, the store on the left(under the marquee) between the theatre and the former 'Down Town" lounge was the original entry to the offices,(you could also access the offices from inside the theatre) after converted to a "junk store" that had knifes, pot pipes, and other bizare things for sale in the front, as you walked to the dirty book store part in the back the floor had a sloping angle as this was the screening room that the ATC brass viewed previews and you could see the projection ports on the wall. I regret I was in Fla. when they tore the place down because at the entrance way to the offices out side was black granite tile with American Theatres Corporation embedded in silver deco letters would have made a nice souveneir!

Wow, The Pilgrim Theater. Good times. My friends and I used to go there on Monday afternoons. It took nearly ten minutes for our eyes to adjust so that we could move into the theater to choose our "seat". Even still it was so dark in there that you couldn't tell which moving spector was your comrade. So, if one of us was to depart before the next, then you would walk to the very back of the theater and call out "swoolie". This meant that you shouldn't waste any time trying to find your friend in the dark. This is all before you could just send a text on your mobile. Then, we would go to Filene's.

I think we all went together for one last whorah the week before it was to close. It was the end of some really great times. I was in my very early 20's. I still walk past that stretch of Washington Street often and it doesn't look at all like what I can recall in my memory. It looks more now like 8th Avenue near to 59th Street with its tall doorman towers. Things change kids...

For Christmas week of 1921, the Pilgrim presented the movie "Tol'able David", plus a show on stage which included "Not Yet, Marie", a "miniature musical comedy" plus vaudeville acts. The theatre is listed in its Boston Globe ad as "Gordon's Olympia Washington Street", and not the usual "Washington Street Olympia". Their motto was "The Theatre You Go To First". The ad has a Christmas greeting from Nathan Gordon, plus the note that on Sundays there is a concert running from 3PM to 1030PM. (This was a way to present vaudeville and circumvent "blue laws" by calling it a "concert".)

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.

The most notorious incident involving Fanne Foxe at the Pilgrim happened at a Saturday evening performance when she enticed her admirer, Congressman Wilbur Mills, to come up onto the stage and dance with her. He was a short, late-middle-age, dorky-looking doofus in a business suit who had had too much to drink. During their performance, he somehow managed to stumble off the apron of the stage into the orchestra pit. This caused a scandal back in his home state of Arkansas. I have a vague memory that he and Ms. Foxe also waded together one night in a decorative fountain somewhere in downtown Washington. Fanne Foxe's dressing room backstage at the Pilgrim where Bill O'Reilly interviewed her was probably located down in the basement.

i used to go the the pilgrim in the 80ies, i was in my late teens and twenties then, what great memories i have, i miss the big screen xxx theaters. i also remember the art cinema in tremont , and the pussycat theater in the west end , and didnt the place become a chinese restaurant for a short time ,

The Pilgrim didn't become a Chinese restaurant. The nearby Center did, and remains one today.

Here is a 1980 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/c2lh7e

Here is a 1981 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cltmtz

Does anyone remember the wallpaper in the lobby? For some odd reason I remember it vividly - at least as vividly as the lighting allowed.
It was a lurid green/silver Art Deco design, obviously a relic of modernization long, long ago.
And yes, I also remember that famous wooden escalator that never worked.
I can't say I miss the place too much; it literally stank. You could smell the lobby as you approached, like a vast rotten mouth exhaling halitosis at you.


And what about that horror toilet in the cellar...?

George F. Will, the noted opinion piece writer at the Washington Post, has a piece "COLA's Just Keep on Coming" in today's Boston Herald. He writes that the automatic cost-of-living increase for Social Security recepients was originated by Rep. Wilbur Mills, Democrat of Arkansas, as a means to buy elderly votes when he was seeking the Democrat's 1972 party nomination for President. Three years later, writes Will, Mills "had his fling with a stripper named Fanne Foxe, aka 'The Argentine Firecracker'. (Mills joined her on stage at Boston's exquisitely named Pilgrim Theatre, which specialized in what Time Magazine primly called 'ecdysiast exhibitions'.)"

I remember going to the Pilgrim in the 1970's to see Chesty Morgan perform live. So crowded that me and a friend (in our late 20's at the time) had to go up to the balcony! Had to use the mens room way down in the basement on the way out. Biggest mens room I'd ever seen but man, it was GROSS and dirty and dimly lit. It stank so bad of urine that you practically had to hold your nose. The whole theater smelled a bit musty too. Only time in there but remember it well.