Park Square Cinema
31 St. James Avenue,
Boston,
MA
31 St. James Avenue,
Boston,
MA
2 people
favorited this theater
This minuscule movie theatre was actually located off a corridor within an office building on Park Square. It was in existence for a number of decades, previously called the Telepix. The proramming included first run art fare and revival programs. In the 1960s it often did day-and-date with the Kenmore Square Cinema. It has been gutted and converted to retail/commercial usage.
Contributed by
Gerald A. DeLuca
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 24 comments)
The name was changed from Telepix to Park Square sometime in the early 1960s. It was across from the old Greyhound bus station in the Park Sq. Bldg. There was a small plain sign outside, rather inconspicuous.
Correction to the above— the Telepix was in the Park Square building, not the Greyhound bus station. The bus station, a typical ‘Hound semi-Deco structure, was directly across St. James Avenue. There was an earlier Park Square Theatre, not related to this one, located a short distance to the east. It was the former Cort Theatre, a legit house.
This is the front page of an eight-page booklet of reviews of Fellini’s 8 ½ distributed to patrons when it day-dated at the Park Square and Kenmore Square cinemas in 1963.
The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report form for the Telepix Theatre has an exterior photo taken in May 1941. There is a rather fancy doorway with a double door set in it. Above is a small rain canopy with “Park Square Building” on it. Above the canopy is a small vertical sign but it’s not readable. There is nothing about this entrance which suggests there’s a cinema inside. The Report states that the Telepix is a Newsreel theatre; that it’s on St. James Avenue, that it has been showing MGM product for 2 years; that it was built in 1939, is in Good condition, and has 500 seats, all on one floor. On the Report is written “Nice little house”.
I saw that building yesterday and that portion is now a U.S. Post Office sub-station.
From the MIT newspaper The Tech, September 26, 1962:
Park Square Cinema: Telepix With New Face
[quote]The old Telepix Theater has received a new look and a new name. Now the Park Square Cinema, it seats 300 people, has a wider screen and new murals.
The abstract murals, done by Norman Ives, are of wood blocks that protrude at different depths from the wall. The outside mural is in white and black, the inside one in red and black.
New Zeis-Ikon projectors, not using carbon arcs, have been added.[/quote]
Next to this article is a review of the movie Divorce – Italian Style, playing at the Park Square. I don’t know whether this was the first movie to play at the theatre under its new name.
I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of this cinema, only that it was near the old Greyhound bus station and the Park Plaza. I loved this theater so much, was there all the time when I was a teenager and college student back in the ‘70s. I saw so many classics there: Tracy/Hepburn, “The Women”, Bette Davis, Deneuve, many great foreign films, too, especially Claude Chabrol (“Le Boucher”!). My friends couldn’t remember the name either and some told me I was imagining that a theater was there. Ty Burr of The Globe finally today confirmed the name for me. I am so happy to reconnect with such warm and wonderful memories of this little, old theater!
Is Ty Burr’s article online? Can you link to it? Thanks.
Hi, Ron,
Thanks for writing…
I emailed Ty at his Globe address, thought maybe he might know the name of the cinema and he did! We are both “of a certain age” ha ha. Did you ever go there? I don’t remember when it went away. I miss a lot of the old theaters, even the ones I wasn’t crazy about, I missed once they shut down, like The Cheri. I do like and go to The Capitol a lot (those owls!) and I love movies so much that I even tolerate the Boston Common Loew’s which I think is garish and belongs in Las Vegas.
I think I have gone “Rear Window” crazy! I watched it again last night for the 4th time in as many months. I can watch it over and over. Fascinating film.
Please keep writing if the spirit moves you. I love to talk about films! Cheers
Leo
How nice to remember the Telepix. I was a film student at BU during the early sixties and got to know the Manager of the theater quite well. She was Inge Loven, a lovely Swedish woman with an artificial leg who was a connoisseur of cinema. I remember spending hours in her tiny office at the theater talking about Kurosawa and the other greats. I believe she eventually returned to Sweden. I left Boston for New York before the name change. I am the new Director of the Visual Arts Theater in NYC (see entry). I hope Inge would be pleased. I think of her often.