Exeter Street Theatre
26 Exeter Street,
Boston,
MA
02116
26 Exeter Street,
Boston,
MA
02116
12 people
favorited this theater
Once housed in the First Spiritual Temple at the corner of trendy Exeter Street and Newbury Street, this theater opened on May 4, 1914, with 1,376 seats.
The Exeter Street Theatre was a popular movie haunt until it closed in 1984.
The theater later became a two-story Waterstone’s book store which was badly damaged by fire in 1995. The theater reopened in fall of 2005 as a Montessori school.
Contributed by
John Chappell
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 49 comments)
1963 Photo
The August, 1984, issue of Boxoffice Magazine says that the Exeter Theatre was designed by architect Clarence H. Blackall.
simply a wonderful place to see a movie..its intriguing, majestic, ornate charm only added to the movie-goers experience…
“Let’s do the time warp again.”
An overhead view of the Exeter Theatre.
View link
Item in Boxoffice magazine, January 29, 1949:
A flurry of excitement was caused at the Exeter Street during the Sunday evening showing of “Paisan” when Rex Harrison, his wife Lilli Palmer and Maria Montez were spotted watching the film. Lilli is playing the lead currently at the Colonial in “Figure of a Girl.” “Paisan” has been booked for its fifth week at the Exeter, setting a new consecutive run record for the house.
Stumbled across some great quality photos (circa 1984) of the theater (along with various other Boston theaters) on flickr here: View link
The Exeter Street Theatre is listed at “cor. Exeter & Newbury streets” in a 1918 Boston street directory.
Clarence Blackall was the architect for the conversion of the First Spiritualist Church into the Exeter Street Theatre in 1914, but the church itself had been built in 1884 from designs by the Boston firm Hartwell & Richardson. Henry Walker Hartwell and William Cummings Richardson (no relation to Henry Hobson Richardson) designed the church in the popular Romanesque Revival style.
Following the closure of the theater, the auditorium space was filled with two additional floors. The 1995 fire did considerable damage to the upper part of the structure, and the subsequent repairs led to additional interior alterations. I don’t know how much, if any, of Clarence Blackall’s interior work from 1914 remains, but Hartwell & Richardson’s exterior has survived remarkably well for a century and a quarter.
I went into the building after Waterstone’s Books located in it. The theater was an “upstairs house”, with the auditorium on the second floor. I recall that the only trace that was apparent to me was the street-level foyer and staircases.