Hub Theatre
1140 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02118
1140 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02118
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The Hub Theatre was located at the southeast corner of Washington Street and Dover Street in the South End. It is said to have been the first regular theater in Boston to present only movies, although that policy did not last long. It was located in an old building dating from 1850 which had served as a produce market.
The auditorium in the building operated under several different names and it had even served as a first-run legitimate playhouse at one time.
Contributed by
Ron Salters
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Recent comments (view all 29 comments)
I saw the shot with the steps taken from across the street, that one is in the Arcadia Boston’s South End book…
Ed, the one I mentioned is not a photo, but a drawing and showed more of the building than the 2 close-in photos from about 1895 in the Arcadia South End book. Wish I could remember where I saw it (not on line).
There was another Hub Theatre on Washington Street for awhile in the late-1930s. The Park Theatre, later the Trans Lux, and still later, the State, was renamed Hub Theatre after Minsky Burlesque moved out, and before it was taken over by Trans Lux. They could use the name “Hub” because this theater had been closed.
Arcadia’s may have been later than 1895, it had the El in the way so only the front entrance below the tracks was able to be shown.
Arcadia’s book is online as of this evening Mr. Salters…
Page 76, the Grand Opera House in the flesh…and barely visible two buildings down is the side of the Hub Theatre(no clue what it was at the time).
Page 78 shows the picture Mr. Salters was talking about and I mentioned before, the front stairs to the theatre. I thought it was later but it is clearly pre-1900.
Page 82 bottom picture: I referred to this before but there is a picture of the corner of the theatre when it was called “New Grand”
Regarding the Page 76 photo of the Grand Opera House, I don’t think that the building on its left on the left edge of the photo is the Hub Theatre (too close – Ed, check out the atlas map you linked to above on April 22- there were several buildings seperating the Hub from the Grand O.H.) I think that the Page 82 photo was taken right about the time of the el construction in 1901 because you can see wood forms up on the el structure and there are NO staircases to get up to the Dover St. station. It’s nice that this Arcadia book does have some theater photos, because some of them don’t. On Page 77 of this book there is a neat photo of the Columbia during its final years looking the way I remember it.
I am not sure about anything else in the photo but the lack of a stairway across the street from the theatre is the giveaway that it’s pre-opening…great eye Ron.
Partial view of the building taken roughly 1898/1899: http://billnoonanfirefotos.smugmug.com/Historicphotos/real-old-days/17392592_ZGP4wR#1328322578_NqLmRXP-L-LB
The link didn’t work for me, so I went to the website and found on page 3 of the “Real Old Days” collection a nice shot of the Grand Opera House on Washington St. with a horse-drawn fire engine passing in front of it. This big theater was a few buildings to the south of the Hub Theatre.
cut/paste the link, it’s a direct link to a large view of the photo…the one on page three is another theatre.
It’s definately part of the Hub in the far left, the entrance there leads to one of the first floor stores and just out of view above would be the decorative brickwork
The link worked this time (the first time I just got Bill Noonan’s home page), but the photo (#26 of 209 in the Real Old Days collection) is the same one: a great shot, taken before the el was constructed, of a fire dept. ladder wagon in front of the Grand Opera House. The building to the left is not the Hub Theatre, which was a few buildings up to the north. The two theaters were not side-by-side.