Durrell Hall
820 Massachusetts Avenue,
Cambridge,
MA
02139
820 Massachusetts Avenue,
Cambridge,
MA
02139
3 people
favorited this theater
Durrell Hall opened in 1897, located in the YMCA Building on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. It was operating in 1927 and still open in 1941. It had a very imposing entrance in the middle of a large building block.
The theatre was restored and reopened for live theater in December 2002.
Contributed by
Ron Salters
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Recent comments (view all 16 comments)
Ron Newman- the drawing in your report appears to be a somewhat modernized version of the same building. There was a ornate and rather shallow canopy over the doors (just under the vertical YMCA sign in your drawing). A little of the detail just above and around the doors has been removed in the drawing. Compare your drawing with the 1910 photo posted by Lost Memory. It’s almost certainly the same building.
Ron & Ron…In this 2004 article, it claims that “The recently renovated, historic Cambridge Family YMCA Theater (formerly the Durrell Hall Theater), has been reenvisioned by YMCA officials hoping to develop the Cambridge Y into a theatrical and cultural mecca in the mold of New York City’s 92nd Street Y. SAVIOR is an ideal show to help this lesser-known gem of a venue continue to grow”.
The theater listed here (Main St) is most likely the theater/YMCA that is listed at 820 Mass Ave. It probably had 600 seats before the renovation of the YMCA.
This is from another Boston Phoenix article:
“Adding yet another time dimension to Grace will be the rather funky venue, the YMCA’s newly restored Durrell Hall (1897), which I’m happy to say still has a whiff of the original 19th-century lecture-circuit "athenæum” clinging to it. (Molly Ivins spoke there recently.) Eventually, athenæums and lectures-as-entertainment disappeared, and it was converted into “The Durrell,” a 600-seat neighborhood movie theater remembered by only a very few locals well on in years. Then it disappeared. Now it’s back".
All you need to do is change the address above to 820 Massachusetts Ave. This theater was a good find.
I’ve sent in a Correction; hopefully one of the site owners will get to it shortly.
The corrections at the top of the page look great. Thank you, Ron Newman and Lost Memory. When I noticed this antique cinema in the 1941 MGM Reports I had no idea it was still around.
I’ll have to give Ron Newman most of the credit for this one, Ron. He made the connection between the YMCA theater and your Durrell Hall entry. I just verified what he had already figured out. It was good team work though and it all worked out for the best.
In a short clip recently posted on Youtube by the Univ. of Arizona, one Frank Cullen, who grew up in Cambridge, says that there was a movie theater called the Durrell which was upstairs in the Cambridge YMCA which he frequently patronized at a cost of 6 cents per ticket. He learned that many of the film performers had backgrounds in Vaudeville. This started a life-long interest in the Vaudeville era and the amassing of a huge collection which he has now donated to the Univ. of Arizona.
A current college publication mentions the “hoots” (folk music concerts) presented at this theater by the Mama Bird Recording Co., but they give the seating capacity as “220” seats. It’s a fairly busy venue.
In the entertainment pages of today’s Boston Herald there is an ad for a play “Glass House” at this theater Feb.18-26. The theater name is listed as “Durrell Theatre (YMCA Cambridge) 820 Massachusetts Avenue”. So the Durrell name is still being used.
Durrell Hall in Cambridge is on a long list of theaters and halls receiving licenses in Massachusetts for the year ending Oct. 31, 1914. Carroll Chase was the Mgr. and the condition was Good. The link to the list was posted by Ed Findlay on the page for the Boulevard Theatre in Revere.