Publix Theatre
659-65 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02201
659-65 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02201
12 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 203 comments
Ron S.—Thanks for the Herald reference. Such an irony that the Glass Slipper lives on, evidently with an assist from city hall. The demolition of an important theater in a historic district for theaters defies logic. The loss of the Publix/Gaiety still hurts. This is why no demilition ever should take place until a project absolutely, positively is ready to roll.
An article (with site photo) in the Business section of today’s Boton Herald points out that it is now 2 years since demolition began on the Gaiety/Publix Theatre and there is nothing on the site but an empty gravel lot.
The entire city block that contained the Gaiety/Publix has now been demolished. The last two buildings to go were the Glass Slipper on Lagrange Street, and a two-story retail building just south of the theatre on Washington Street, whose most recent tenant was a Vietnamese gift shop.
The Glass Slipper has moved across Lagrange Street, to a building immediately abutting Boston’s other strip club, Centerfolds.
The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report form for the Publix has an exterior photo dated May 1941. The theatre was named “Gayety” then. Movies posted on the fancy, glittering multi-bulbed marquee are Alice Faye and Betty Grable in “Tin Pan Alley”, plus “The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date”. Above the marquee is a sign which reads “All Seats 10 cents & 15 cents”. Some time between the taking of the photo and the completion of the report, the theatre switched to a live Burlesque show policy. I don’t know if they also showed films (probably). The Report states that the theatre is on Burlesque; that it does not show MGM product; that it’s in Poor condition; and has 570 seats on the main floor and 400 balcony seats; total: 970 seats (not including the 2nd balcony and the boxes.)
Yes, the Lyceum Theatre which is on the 1895 map was torn down for the construction of the Gaiety. Note that the Lyceum was smaller and did not extend as far back as the Gaiety did. I believe that the Lyceum presented burlesque and minstrel troupes and vaudeville. It opened in 1892. There were retail stores on either side of the entrance for the Gaiety/Publix. The boxoffice was on the left side, just in from the street. Then you walked uphill to the foyer doors where the ticket-taker was stationed. As for the tracks in the Park Street Station, that’s another hobby altogether! There is a library in the State Transp. Building (Stuart and Charles streets); or you can contact the Boston Street Railway Assoc., an enthusiast group who have published all sorts of interesting books and maps.
It’s interesting: the 1928 map shows the outline of the long, narrow, lobby/corridor that led past the flanking retail stores to the auditorium. Also interesting: the configuration of the tracks in the Park Street station.
This 1928 map shows at least 11 downtown Boston theatres. West is at the top of this map.
The GAIETY THEATRE is on the west side of Washington Street, between Boylston and Lagrange streets. If you look carefully, you’ll see that it had a very narrow entrance onto Washington Street, flanked by two storefronts that took up most of the street frontage.
This 1895 map shows part of downtown Boston. Near the top left of the map, look at the left side of Washington Street, halfway between Boylston and Lagrange streets. You will see the “LYCEUM THEATRE”, which I presume was torn down in order to build the Gaiety.
There is an ad for the New Gayety Theatre in the Boston Post for Wednesday, Feb. 25, 1931 stating that the theatre would reopen on Sat. Feb. 28th. This may have been after E.M. Loew took it over. The ad states that there will be Vaudeville and Talking Pictures, continuous from 9 AM, with new shows on Sunday, Monday and Thursday. Admission: 15 cents and 25 cents.
My grandparents had weekly season tickets to the Gaiety when it first opened. Charlie Waldron was associated with the theatre in its first days. It was part of the Columbia Wheel (circuit). Columbia went out of business gradually from 1928 to 1932, so the large ads for the Columbia shows painted on the Publix and which were in good condition right into the 1980s and still readable in the 1990s are a tribute to the quality of the paint used ! I went to the Publix often in the late 1950s and 1960s. They did not advertise in the newspapers at that time. It was stictly a walk-in audience. They opened at 830AM, a half-hour earlier than the other downtown houses. I believe the admission was 35 or 40 cents in the morning circa 1960.There were 2 recent films and shorts. They got good houses, consisting of students between classes, highschool students skipping school, people on business goofing off, etc. The manager was a no-nonsense woman who patrolled the aisles with a big flashlight as a club. I never saw any trouble in there. The balcony was never open in the mornings. I stopped going after 1968 or so. The house showed “action” movies in the 1970s, but no XXX. It closed for good in the spring of 1983, around April.
Ron: Exellent article. Thanks!! I’m glad to be proven wrong. t
No, this article on the Gaiety, from a year ago, was even longer than the Glass Slipper article.
While I could be wrong, this article on the Glass Slipper seems to run longer than anything the Phoenix did on the Gaiety/Publix.
This week’s Boston Phoenix has a long article about the Glass Slipper, the neighboring strip club that had a prominent role in the Gaiety Theatre saga.
Ron: thanks for the update. The articles on collusion in the Gaiety’s demise make it clear why the theater never had a chance. What a sorry tale.
People on the ArchBoston.com forum (see this thread and this one) say that the Gaiety’s last wall was finally demolished over the last few days. I haven’t had a chance to take my own look yet.
Almost as nice as The Pilgrim!
No. The Washington Street façade has been reduced to two stories, and you can see blue sky through the front windows, but demolition is still not finished. Much of the north wall is also still standing, some of it even taller than two stories.
Has the wrecking ball finished its work on the Publix?
A friend who works in downtown Boston told me he spotted on Wednesday afternoon an environmental services van within the LaGrange Street side of the demolition site, a sighting which might provide, in some terms, a possible reason for the halt/crawl in the work being done. He also mentioned that some demo work has been done on the northwest corner Washington Street portion of the building, a portion which, as the photo accompanying that misbegotten article from today’s Boston Herald discussed on the Modern Theatre page on this site, captured, is shrouded in protective netting.
Since this is a forum for the appreciation and preservation of theaters, the more we study and understand the demise of the Publix, the better equipped we are to save theaters in the future. The irony is that that the theater might well have been saved in conjunction with new development that would generate tax revenue. The sad fact is that this was a building in a district with historic and architectural significance, and one which could have could have lived on, contributing to the cultural life of Boston. You can plop a condominium tower just about anywhere.
Demolition is either at a crawl or a total standstill. There’s nothing left of the interior, but they have yet to even start removing the front (Washington Street) wall.
The sad thing is, that due to pending lawsuits, we won’t even get the benefit of big tax revenue because it is likely that it will be years before anything is built there. So not only is the theater lost, but the thing it was demolished for might never be built!
Gaiety, R.I.P. Let’s get on with life. Old building, served purpose. Property tax revenue from development.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, E.M. Loew changed the Gayety’s name to Victory in September 1946, then to Publix in 1949.
Demolition continues to proceed slowly. The front wall on Washington Street is heavily scaffolded but still standing.