Abbey Cinema

By 1975 when I arrived in the neighborhood, this had been first converted to a twin-screen, and then closed. It reopened a couple years later as the Nickelodeon.

The Abbey was actually located on Brandford Street, at the corner of Cummington Street. "600 Commonwealth Avenue" was the address given in newspapers so that people could more easily find where it was. The Green Line stop was at the corner of Brandford St. and Commonwealth Ave. The theatre building and entrance were on that side street. There was a parking lot between the theatre and Commonwealth Avenue along Brandford Street. In time the theatre became the (first) Nickelodeon, then was closed a few years later. The second Nickelodeon, replacing the Abbey/ first Nickelodeon, was constructed about a hundred feet away on Cummington Street and is listed as a separate theatre on Cinema Treasures.

On May 29, 1981 I brought a group of Italian students to the (first) Nickelodeon (formerly Abbey) by bus from Providence to see Federico Fellini's CITY OF WOMEN with Marcello Mastroianni. Anyone have an idea exactly when this theatre closed and was replaced by the newer Nickelodeon?

Blandford Street, not Brandford. The Abbey (first Nickelodeon) has been converted to office or lab space in a BU science building. The second Nickelodeon was torn down within the past year to make way for another BU science building.

One memorable bit of programming at this theatre in 1981, after it became the first Nickelodeon, was Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's "Our Hitler," which had a running time of over seven hours! (The film posits that Hitler was the answer to the Germans' most profound dreams.) It was shown in two parts, with a long dinner break between the parts. It started out as a Sunday matinée. My two friends and I then had dinner at the Dolphin Restaurant in Cambridge and afterwards returned for the evening portion.

I just noticed that Gerald asked his question in two listings but I only answered it in the other one.

The Nickelodeon moved from this old location to the new one on July 15, 1983, according to the Boston Globe archives.

When I arrived in Boston in 1975, this (then-closed) theatre had signs that said Loew's Abbey. I don't know if it started out as part of the Loews chain. If anyone knows when it first opened, when it closed as the Abbey, and when it reopened as the first Nickelodeon, that would be useful information to add here.

From an interview with former BU president John Silber, published in the BU student newspaper Daily Free Press on October 27, 2003:

"the Metcalf [Science] Center was a comprehensive renovation of three industrial buildings owned by Sonny Monosson. One of them had the former Nickelodeon Theatre in it, and we had to build a new building for the theater, which was also used as a classroom building, in order to persuade Monosson to sell us the building he had because he had a lease with the Nickelodeon. We did that, and then we — and that enabled us to build the Metcalf Center. Now, after two decades of dual use, [the second Nickelodeon has] been demolished in order to provide the ground space for the new Life Science Building which is going up on that site."

I looked through some early 1975 microfilm of the weekly Boston Phoenix, and saw the Loew's Abbey 1&2 advertised there. At that time, they were a $1 house. By the time I arrived in the neighborhood in September 1975, the Abbey had closed.

The next thing I want to find out is when the first Nickelodeon opened in its place -- I think it was in 1978.

According to a Boston Globe article published on April 26, 1981, the Abbey Cinema opened in 1968 in part of what had been a warehouse. Abbey II opened the following year.

I think the building was originally called the Psychedelic Supermarket, where I saw the Moody Blues in 1967 or '68. It was a large hall at the time.

Here's a story that is NOT characteristic of the audience that the (first) Nickelodeon normally attracted. From the Boston Globe, December 25, 1981:

PUNK FILM CLOSES AFTER VANDALISM

Theater seats were slashed, fabric was torn off walls, a window was smashed, and so "D.O.A," a documentary film featuring the Sex Pistols and other 1977-78 era punk rock bands, closed at the Nickelodeon Theater.

The highly regarded film, based on the English band's brief 1978 US tour, opened Dec. 16 and played for just six days.

"It was too much aggravation," said Nickelodeon manager Bruce Bartoo, in a telephone interview. "It's unfortunate. The classic line is a few people spoil it for everybody, but it's getting to be standard."

The theater suffered vandalism every day.

Bartoo said the film had been selling "all right, not great."

The Nickelodeon previously booked "The Decline of Western Civilisation," a documentary on the Los Angeles hardcore punk rock scene.

"There were a few problems during Decline'," Bartoo said, "and it escalated with ( D.O.A.')

By the time it closed and moved down the street, the first Nickelodeon had three screens.

I worked here for 2 weeks before it closed. It was playing "Blazing Saddles" the day I first met the man who became my husband. "B.S." always seems romantic to me now.

Cool. I assume you mean closed as the Abbey, rather than as the first Nick. When did it close?

Late June, 1975. I remember there was a party for the employees at a nearly Kenmore Square bar.

Do you remember why it closed? I'm curious why a cinema in the heart of a student district did not succeed and remained dark for over three years.

No idea. Just went out of business, I guess.

Keep in perspective, the era of the late sixties and early seventies when students were protesting the establishment, and first-run hollywood film wasn't a cool way to occupy your leisure time. Especially at first run admission prices. The students were going to the Orson Welles midnight shows on the weekends in that era too. Of course, there were also dozens of clubs around Kenmore Square and Brighton as the time, competing for the student entertainment dollar.

The 1971 annual report of Loews Corporation says:

"In the Back Bay area of Boston, Loews acquired the Abbey I and Abbey II Twin Cinemas, two highly successful theatres adjoining the Charles River Campus of Boston University, in a prime growth area. As the neighborhood changes from brownstones townhouses [sic] to upper-income, high rise apartments, so the opportunities for modernization and for quality film exhibition increase."

Sometimes Corporate Annual Reports paint an optimistic picture. I recall the era and location. BU students were more often found dancing at Lucifer's in Kenmore Square, a block away.

I have memories of servicing the projection booth equipment at the Abbey Twin in the early 70's while working for RCA Service Co. What stays with me most to this day is the intermission music that was played on a 33 rpm record player. James Taylor's Fire and Rain.

I distinctly remember trying to see "Romeo and Juliet" here in the autumn of 1968, yet it was sold out and we decided to go to another movie downtown. However, in the early winter of 1969 I did manage to get into a matinee showing of "Romeo and Juliet" here and even then the seats were difficult to obtain. It was not a very big theater at all. It also had a strange design for an auditorium, with sections heading off to the left and right of the screen. If you sat in one of the side sections, I think the view would have been warped. The sound quality in the cinema and the screen size were not the best, either. Yet, "Romeo and Juliet" was such a blockbuster that it continued here for ages. I was later a student at B.U. from 1970 on and I saw a few other showings here.

I didn't see this mentioned on either this page or the Nickelodeon page, so I'm proud to be the one to bring up this little bit of history.

Right after I graduated from college in 1978, I was looking around for work, and came across an ad to be the manager of the Nickelodeon Theatre in Kenmore Square, which was the old Loew's Abbey. I had an interview with the owner who introduced himself as Joel, I think, which research reveals would have been Joel Tranum. He told me he owned the Nickelodeon on the Cape, which showed independent and revival films, and he was going to play the same in Boston. He had applied a fresh coat of paint to the theater, and things were pretty tidy, although I remember that the main theater had columns that blocked some views of the screen, and that some seats were too far on the left and the right to be able to see anything but a distorted view. We talked for a while, but I got the impression I was too young for him, and he tried to scare me off by saying that he could only pay me $3 or $4 an hour and I would have to open the theater at 11 am, close it at midnight, or 2 am on the weekends and work 6 days a week, which sounded great to me at the time. But he eventually hired a slightly older woman as manager.

At first, the theater only played "classic" movies. I remember seeing a washed out print of Forbidden Planet at a matinee with only one other customer in the place. What had happened was movie distributors considered Boston/Brookline/Cambridge one market, and any theater that won a film had an exclusive engagement in the area. But I think in six months, Joel had convinced the distributors to consider the cities as separate markets and business really took off at the Nick with first-run indie movies. The place would be packed most nights and weekends.

USA Cinemas took instant notice of this new competitor in its midst, and where it had ignored indie films before, it suddenly took a great interest in the theater, and I think, in about a year's time, it bought the Nick and embraced indie programming, eventually moving to more mainstream specialty films from the studios and larger independent distributors.

According to an article I found from the Burlington (VT) Free Press in 2003, Tranum opened Nickelodeons in Portland, Maine and Burlington, Vermont, in addition to the one on Cape Cod, and he eventually sold them out to bigger theater chains. The article identified him as a Boston-based developer.

As far as I know, the Nick was the only challenger to USA Cinemas' monopoly in Boston in 25 years, and it was quickly bought out to keep a lock on the market.

USACinemas did eventually buy the Nickelodeon, but not until 1986. By that time, the Nick had moved out of this location and into a new building a block away. See the Nickelodeon page for more information.

Thanks, Ron, I stand corrected. I thought it was quicker than that. I might have had a job for 8 years there if they had hired me.

I came across a quote from Ty Barr in the October 16, 2005 Boston Globe where he said the Nickelodeon "...became the first art house to outgross a mainstream chain."