Old Howard, The
32 Howard Street,
Scollay Square,
Boston,
MA
32 Howard Street,
Scollay Square,
Boston,
MA
3 people
favorited this theater
Boston’s most famous (some would say notorious) theatre, the Old Howard opened in 1846 and evolved from legitimate theatre to vaudeville to burlesque and finally to striptease.
A movie screen was installed around 1912, to provide entertainment during hours when the performers were not on stage — probably before noon, and between 5 and 8 pm.
City censors closed the Old Howard in November 1953, and it never reopened. The city made plans to tear it down, along with the rest of Scollay Square, to make way for a new Government Center. A committee formed with the aim of saving the Old Howard and turning it into a national theatre museum, but a mysterious fire gutted it on June 20, 1961. It was torn down that same day.
Contributed by
Ron Newman
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Recent comments (view all 33 comments)
The year given for this photo is 1870.
The Billboard trade paper has an article in its Sept 8, 1906 edition reporting on the opening of the Fall season in Boston theaters. For the first week in September, the Old Howard had a vaudeville show with no less than 15 acts headed by The Albas, a high-wire circus act. There were singers, dancers, and comedy sketches. Closing the show was the “Howardscope” – movie short subjects on screen.
The Boston Sunday Herald of Sept 19 has a book review for a new book called “Banned in Boston: the Watch and Ward Society’s Crusade against Books, Burlesque and the Social Evil” by Neil Miller of Tufts University. The review includes a nighttime facade photo of a very busy Old Howard in the 1950-era, plus a backstage photo of chorous girls. The book tells the story of the old fuddy-duddy, Yankee society of prune-faced prudes and bluenoses who constantly fought against the Old Howard and other “evils”.
There is mention of the Old Howard Theatre in the bio “Tony Pastor- Father of Vaudeville” by Armond Fields (McFarland, 2007). Tony Pastor (1838- 1908) was a New Yorker who performed as a child acrobat in traveling circuses. These troupes played in both circus tents and in variety theaters. In early-1849 he and his circus troupe performed at the old Federal Street Theatre in Boston (Federal & Franklin streets, downtown). Later, he became a circus clown, and by 1860 he was a popular singer of comedy songs at variety (vaudeville) theaters. In mid-1863, he and a variety troupe played 6 weeks at the Boston Museum (east side of Tremont Street, north of School St.) In mid-1865, Pastor played at the Morris Brothers Opera House in Boston for 4 weeks. It was the old Horticultural Hall on School Street across from today’s Old City Hall. He played there again in 1866 and 1868.
The Morris Brothers also ran shows at the Melodeon, which later became the Gaiety, site of the Bijou on Washington Street. Pastor may have performed there, too. In Jan 1869, he and his troupe played at the Howard in Boston and then returned there each year, sometimes twice a year (late-spring and early-fall). Tony Pastor was so straight and square that he would never have performed at the Old Howard if there was anything disreputable about it. He presented “family-style” entertainment. During the summer of 1883, his troupe appeared at the Oakland Garden summer theater in Roxbury. It was located somewhere near the rail line which today runs from South Station to Readville via Uphams Corner. His troupe’s last appearance at the Old Howard was in March 1891, after performing there once or twice a year for many seasons.
Pastor was the m.c. and producer at Tony Pastor’s 14th Street Theater in New York (Union Square, Tammany Hall building). He was a famous theatrical personality in the USA in the second-half of the 19th Century. Here in Cinema Treasures there is some info about him on the page for the Metropolitan Theater on E. 14th St in NY, CT # 7628.
The Howard Anthenaeum is listed at 34 Howard St. in the 1918 Boston Register and Business Directory. On the ground floor at the time was a restaurant run by Andrew MacArthur. I believe that when the theater first opened there was a brewery located in the ground floor space.
ATTENTION ALL OLD HOWARD DEVOTEES:
Help solve the Mystery of Buddy Wade
On page 240 of Stripper (Oxford University Press, 2004) Rachel Shteir wrote “Buddy Wade’s tap shoes caught fire, the sparks igniting her costume, and she burned to death one night at the Old Howard in Boston.”
Now Ms. Shteir is unable to recall the source of the story of this tragedy, nor can she remember the date it is alleged to have occurred, and she is unable to find the notes for this book, so I am asking for your help. If you remember when this incident took place, or if you knew Buddy Wade and can confirm (or deny) the facts of this story, I very much want to hear from you. Please email me today.
I never heard this anecdote. It would have caused a minor sensation in the Boston Record-American; the Midtown Journal; the Police Gazette. In order to create sparks while tap-dancing Buddy Wade would have had to have been hoofing on a metal surface. Backstage at live theaters in those days there were stand-pipes and fire hoses, fire extinguishers, buckets of sand, brooms, etc. It seems rather far-fetched, although anything is possible.
The 1906 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide gives the seating capacity of the Howard as 1,650. Tickets cost 10 cents to 50 cents, and there were 5 members of the pit band.
This theatre is mapped in the wrong place – on Howard Street in Roxbury, instead of the no-longer-existing Howard Street that was in Scollay Square.
Ron is correct. How can we fix this?