“The Lost Theatres of Somerville” Exhibit Opens Today!

posted by Ross Melnick on March 28, 2003 at 1:18 pm

SOMERVILLE, MA — “The Lost Theatres of Somerville” is a special year long exhibit that opens tomorrow at 5:00 pm at the Somerville Museum.

The exhibit focuses on the the fourteen cinemas “that once thrived in this small working class city near Boston and how these ‘nabes’ — neighborhood cinemas — fostered a sense of place and common culture.”

According to Mimi Graney, “The exhibit includes a wealth of archival photographs, contemporary photos, and all sorts of memorabilia from tickets and posters to a ten foot neon marquee. [We also have] a series of lectures coming up in April and others planned for the rest of the year long run.”

For more information on this amazing exhibit, read the Lost Theaters press release or visit the exhibit’s website. The exhibit is curated by Tufts University Anthropology professor David Guss.

Hopefully this exhaustive study of Somerville’s theaters, which couples other such efforts by theater historians such as Cesar Del Valle, will inspire more of these around the county.

We’ll continue to update you about special events surrounding this terrific exhibit.

Thanks to Mimi Graney for keeping us updated and to David Guss for reminding all of us what we’ve lost.