Bijou Theatre
545 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
545 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02111
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The architect in 1882 was E.P. Treadwell. The old Gaiety Theatre was gutted out, and its walls increased in height. The new Bijou was decorated inside in a Moorish motif. It had one balcony, and it was an “upstairs” house, reached by a staircase within a vestibule located in the center bay of the front building, which survives today. This building was constructed in either the 1830s or 1850s (I’ve heard both dates). The seating capacity was somewhat less than 1100 seats. In 1982, the Boston Edison Co. published a neat booklet, “Bright Lights in Boston: A Theatre Milestone” which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Bijou opening on Dec. 11, 1882, with Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Iolanthe”. Thomas Edison himself supervised the electrical system in the new theatre, powered by a generating plant located some 550 feet to the south. The Spring 1993 issue of Theatre Design & Technology Magazine had a lengthy article about this event which includes some photos of the stage sets. Musical theatre historian Richard Traubner calls the Bijou “a leading regional operetta theatre in the U.S.” B.F. Keith took it over and ran it for awhile; its name was changed to Bijou Opera House in the 1890s, and it was closed for awhile for unknown reasons circa 1900; even its signage was removed. (See the photo on page 148 of the Donald King book— the Bijou’s entrance is being used for displays for the adjacent O'Callaghan’s store.) Later, Keith reopened it and turned it into the Bijou Dream. He placed ads offering a prize of $50 for one-act plays to be presented in between films. The staircase was rebuilt into a clear plate-glass sandwich in between which water flowed, illuminated by color lights. Later, an escalator was installed next to the staircase. There was an organ to play for the movies. Don King went into this house many times as a child. It was one of the last houses in Boston to be wired for sound. At some point, the circular proscenium arch was removed and replaced by a tiny platform stage, no longer suitable for live productions. I knew someone who was a boy in the 1930s living in Dorchester who would go with his friends, pay 10 cents to get into the Bijou, then go thru a fire exit into the Keith Memorial to see first-run movies without paying. In the mens' room on the south wall of the upper level of the Opera House there is a “stairway to nowhere”, a few steps which lead up to a blank in the wall — this is the old exit from the Bijou orchestra. Before the Opera House reconstruction a couple years ago, if you went into the parking lot out back, you could clearly see the outline of the Bijou balcony on both the south sidewall of the Opera House and the north sidewall of the Paramount. For a brief period the theatre was called the Intown, but it is listed as the Bijou in the May 1941 MGM Theatre Photograph and Report. They show it as having 1021 seats. It was closed at the very end of 1943 because it could not comply with new fire safety laws. Sat vacant and then was demolished, along with the Normandie, starting in July 1951.
King says that the Bijou closed on December 31, 1943. The next day, stricter fire codes went into effect, which the Bijou could not have complied with. It sat empty until 1951, when both its auditorium and the neighboring B.F. Keith’s theatre were demolished.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Bijou was the first theatre in the US to use electric lighting on its stage, personally installed and supervised by Thomas Edison. It had 644 electric lights, which got as much public attention on opening day as the actual show, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe.
Today’s Boston Globe has an article about Emerson College’s plans to redevelop the adjacent Paramount Theatre. Their plans include reusing the 545-547 Washington building which once contained both the Bijou and an entrance to the now-demolished B.F. Keith’s Theatre.
See today’s comments on the Paramount Theatre page for more information.
The Boston Athenaeum’s Theatre History Page has several paragraphs about the Bijou, in its days as a live stage.
A huge thank you to Ron for coming up with some excellent reference tools, online. I wonder what other newsletters and newspapers have digital files like MIT that one can browse?
An advertisement from the April 20, 1910 edition of MIT’s student newspaper The Tech:
Bijou Dream Theatre
Motion Pictures at Their Best.
Music, Vocal and Instrumental, Classical Songs and Selections from the Grand Operas.
The One-Act Play a Part of Each Weekly Program.
Although We Show Motion Pictures
We Do Not Run a “Moving Picture Show."
545 Washington Street
Open from 9.30 A. M. to 10.30 P. M.
Sunday, 7.00 to 10.30 P. M.
From the Bostonian Society photo collection, some pictures of the Bijou:
Picture postcard showing (left to right) the Adams House hotel, B.F. Keith’s New Theatre, and the Bijou Dream, sometime between 1907 and 1915 (description here).
Washington Street in winter, 1934 (described here). Four marquees are visible here: the Normandie, the Bijou, the RKO Keith’s, and the Modern.
Here’s Historic Boston’s description of the Adams House Annex building, along with a recent photo (taken when the video arcade was still open).
The left-side storefront at 547 Washington St, which the photo shows as a High Voltage clothing store, used to be an entrance to the old B.F. Keith’s theatre. That theatre was located behind this building, was renamed Normandie and Laffmovie in its later years, and was demolished in the 1950s. Its site became a parking lot for many years. At least part of it is now occupied by the newly expanded stage and loading docks of the Opera House.