Copley Place Cinemas
100 Huntington Avenue,
Boston,
MA
02116
100 Huntington Avenue,
Boston,
MA
02116
8 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 134 comments
Say what you will about Copley Place, but my wife and I miss it. It was nice to be able to pop down from our jobs upstairs in the Copley Office towers and see a movie on one or two occasions before heading home. We saw movies that no one else in Boston was running – even the Kendall Square, where all the small and eclectic movies usually go – and the theaters weren’t great, but they were intimate and enjoyable. We saw Zatoichi there, and Kim saw Die Mommie Die there…where else could you see those in Boston?
The staff was also the friendliest of all the theaters in Boston that we’ve been to. You could even just drop into the Snack Bar when they were open and buy stuff – they didn’t mind you weren’t there to see a movie. A colleague of mine was always buying a huge bag of popcorn to have at her desk at work…
To replace it with a Barneys….YUCK!
Simon Malls and Loews made a big mistake when they canned the Copley theater…
Early in this discussion I mentioned the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA), which initially used one of the Copley Place Cinema screens.
Tomorrow, the ICA officially reopens to the public at its new home on Fan Pier. The new ICA includes a 325-seat ‘Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater’ that will present both films and live performances.
ICA Film Programs
ICA Performance series, which includes several silent films accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra
Once it’s open for a while, we should create a new CinemaTreasures page for this new theatre.
The above comments about A. Alan Friedberg and the failure to maintain the Sack theaters remind me of the screening of “Dances With Wolves” that I attended in the large auditorium of the increasingly rundown Charles complex. A. Alan was seated a few seats in front of me at that screening, and I came close to telling him how disappointed I was to see the best auditorium in the city in such shoddy shape.
According to today’s Boston Globe, Barneys New York will open on March 12 in the former location of the Copley Place cinemas.
Actually the 61" big screen TV “DOES” replace most of the screens at the Copley Place Theaters. Kind of my whole rant that is turning into a novel on this page…. sorry about that. But someone has to recognize and point out the cancer that is eating away a great heritage.
Yea, Thanks for confirming everything I stated… For one, Alan"baby" didn’t book the Back Bay, he hired someone to do that for him… and Anyway, it really looks like most of the venue “assassinations” took place after Freidberg was in retirement. It doesn’t matter who booked the theaters, especially if the theaters weren’t there to be booked in the first place. The whole process of “multiplexing” the Back Bay of Boston is what took away the whole purpose and meaning of this website… large scale single screen venues, that served the neighborhoods their movies. These Large Venues that created an “experience” of attending a movie on Opening Day. There is a “buzz” created in a lobby during an opening, when “hundreds” of people (not a couple dozen) anticipates screening a movie.
When you replace these venues with shoeboxes and poorly designed theaters (Copley Place)… your killing the lifeblood of your purpose in the movie business. ALL of these theaters The Cheri, The Paris, The Charles, The 57, should have been attended to. It certainly would have been cheaper to “Refurbish” the theaters then to buy premium downtown footage to stack a bunch of shoe boxes together. Maybe not, Maybe it wasn’t “cost effective”. All of these theaters were neglected for many years… the screens and sound looked great thanks to the expert tooling of Boston Light and Sound. But the actual venues were pretty boned out. Its just shows how the WHOLE exhibition biz just doesn’t get it anymore. There are no more “Fox Theaters” or “Paramount Theater”, I used to walk by the “Paramount Theater” everyday, FOR YEARS!!!! Just wondering what happened to such a grand place in the MIDDLE of the Center of downtown Boston. Abandoned, Boarded up, Left for dead…. (BRAVO EMERSON COLLEGE!!!)
They can “bitch and moan” about how the grosses aren’t what they used to be… well, the movie experience they are providing, isn’t what it used to be either. Its been cheapened and the experience of presenting a movie HAS to be re-evaluated if they still want to make a buck in the marketplace. Peoples nice big comfy couch with their surround sound Mega Screen home theater set ups is a really cool thing, but it will never replace attending a movie with several hundred of your closest strangers. “61 inch” Big screen TV’s don’t replace the “40 foot” silverscreen. Never have… never will.
Freidberg, upon the merger of USA and Loews, became the chairman of Loews and Bernie Meyerson was pushed into retirement. As chairman, Friedberg got the grosses every morning, and saw the bookings every Monday. Since he came out of the Boston theatres you would think he would have paid special attention to them. He could have ‘educated’ the Loews film department as far as what type of audience each of those theatres had, what types of films work where, etc., if he chose to. From what I’ve heard from people who worked for Loews during his tenure, and his ‘leadership’ led the home office across the river to Secaucus NJ because he didn’t like New York City, and that’s about it, no other memorable decisions came from his office.
Lost control in 1974… but when was he shown the door? I was working for the company, (thru the union), during that Sack to USA to Loews conversion. A very short time between the metamorphoses. What was it ‘86 to '91 from USA to Loews? When in '86 USA went on a buying spree through out the New England Territory? Ripe pickings for the Conglomerate. But over all though.. they sure messed up viewing movies in the downtown Back Bay area of Boston. I don’t fault the Sack/USA people…Like I said, Capitalism is a wonderful thing, Build a wonderful chain of theaters.. sell it off to someone who really wants it… I fault the Loews Conglomerate that failed to “know” the area that they were exhibitors in. How do you “book” an area you don’t know anything about. Numbers are easy to try and base an audience. But I definitely feel that the “Movie Patrons Soul” was raped when Loews took over the Boston area. Sack/USA theaters sure had a huge strangle hold on the area at the time.
BTW…Sack had the best company intro trailer… when the graphic “patron” sat in the seat and thus turned into the “S” of Sack Theaters… music, short and sweet… too cool.
Ben Sack actually lost control of Sack’s Theatres in 1974, long before the consolidation of the industry began. His former right-hand man, A. Alan Friedberg (who had started as an usher at the old Beacon Hill Theatre) was the primary mover-and-shaker, if you will. Friedberg eventually built the chain up into USA Theatres and merged it with Loews in the late 80’s, and he became chairman of Loews. He retired in the early 90’s and that is when the new generation of Loews management stepped in and began closing so many Boston theaters.
This Last Comment of Ron’s is kind of going towards the point that kind of revealed itself during the preceding comments… The beginning of the end of one of the Biggest Movie Cities I have ever seen, is when the ownership of the theaters went into the hands of the big Conglomerate “LOEWS”. After BUYING and BUYING and BUYING all of its “competition”. Probably leveraging itself into debt in a big way… becoming “too big for its own britches”. When USA theaters bought out Mr. Sack (if I remember right, I am pretty sure it was an underhanded dirty trick too, if I remember right he came back from a vacation and didn’t have a company anymore) It (USA cinemas) started the trend of creating the “monster” that ate itself.
It changed a “movie presenting” company (Sack theaters) into a “making money” company (USA theaters). And before all you capitalist jump down my throat… I think that “making money” is a good thing. Making money at doing something your good at is even a better thing. The Back Bay of Boston is/was a very savvy movie crowd. And Sack Theaters knew its patrons very well. Each Theater had a certain style of movie presented on its screens.
The Nickalodeon was the “Art house” that USA acquired to round out its theater chain… Copley was always the “upscale” movie house, in the hooty tooty marbled lobbied mall on the edge of Roxbury. (Its sad to hear that those “race problems” of the past still haven’t really gone away.) The “Nick” used to have Premium Ice Cream from one of the local makers “Steves” or something off of Newberry street (Emack & Bolio’s). Certainly something special that most theaters didn’t offer. It was a unique experience, of course the movies were off beat as well. But there was an appreciation offered to its patrons. Then it got bought out… Movies became main stream, gone were the cool extras…
When I worked as a projectionist for the 57, the Cheri, Beacon Hill, and The Charles… all of the theaters were pretty worn out… none of them had “stadium seating” or much in the way of luxury. ALL of them were strung out as long as the dollars kept streaming in…keep the cattle rolling… absolutely NO reinvestment was ever done to any of these theaters. They were all PITS. Slowly they were dropped, torn down? Hell they should have been burnt down… they were all “worn out”!!
As times change and as the public grows into having “Home Cinema” set ups in their homes… the Theater Industry is going to have to drag their patrons out of their comfy couches and digital surround sound home screens. Dirty stinky rats infested movie houses aren’t going to cut it. And that is just what those houses were at the end of their runs.
The movie industry can “milk” their businesses for all they can with out re-investing, updating, or thinking about their patrons. Gone are the “FOX THEATERS” the “MAJESTIC THEATERS”, gone are the chandeliers and the customer service that comes with the price of the ticket. Now a days you get an empty cup thrown at you and are told to “Go fill it up at the Soda Station”. That is if you can get waited on in the first place. Movies are given about as much attention…. sure you have your 4 or 5 huge budgeted special effects movies And of those, maybe those aren’t copied formula from some other movie that made a bundle last year, or it doesnt have a number on the end of it… haha… (those were the days, that goddamn Stallone) There just is no mystique to the movie theater anymore.
Theaters are converted from Parking garages, or built like sheet metal polebarns. Its all about the greed. Lets see how little we can spend to make as much as we can… There is no work ethic or class in the movie business anymore. There is a line that has been crossed when you become “all about the money” and not about “the craft”.
For Boston, that line was crossed when Mr. Sack came back from his vacation and didn’t have a theater company anymore. His company was “built up” for the sole purpose of being “liquidated”. USA theater executives favorite movie MUST have been “Wall Street”. If I am not mistaken it was very close to that period in time (1987). To “part off” a company or a shell of a company anyway to “over-value” a company to “Take the money and RUN!!!”. I really feel sorry for Boston, to be shown the carrot and have it snatched away by people who really don’t have any business calling themselves “Movie Exhibiters”.
BTW… I love this website… its reminds me that there was a time when movie exhibitors took pride in presenting a movie. I wish that the movie “The Majestic” had come out instead of “Wall Street”. It showed us that there was once a “sense of pride” in doing ones job. That there was a joy in entertaining people. A joy that fills the soul like money can’t. To be in a theater on an opening day of a big movie and “FEEL” the electricity in the anticipation of the patrons. We need a changing of the guard my friends, Its the Gordon Gekkos of this industry that have almost KILLED this industry. Bitch and moan about the lack of patronage in movie theaters and the decreasing numbers who visit the cinema… do you really wonder why?
Earlier in this discussion, some people asked what would happen to the Boston Film Festival, which in past years has taken place primarily at the Copley Place.
Last week’s Somerville Journal has an article on this year’s festival. It will be split between Loews Boston Common and Loews Harvard Square theatres. It will also be shorter this year — just seven days, September 9-15, instead of ten.
This link to the article will probably be good for only a few weeks: Diamond’s not forever: Robin Dawson takes over the Boston Film Festival
Loews has hosted and supported the festival for many years, as did its predecessors Sack Theatres and USACinemas. I hope AMC will continue to keep it going after it takes over Loews.
I always wondered if they had reverse slope seating because they thought it was cool, or because they had to do it for structural reasons. T.
I had a chance, while in Boston last week, to peer in through a small crack to the right of the former entrance to the Copley Place Cinemas and, surprisingly and for what it’s worth, there is one sign of what formerly occupied the space – where the ‘sloping’ floors of the auditoriums once were have been filled in with cement of a slightly different shade than that of the remainder of the floor.
Ron: Hmmm. Not sure. But it’s most likely “ultraupscale.”
I visited the mall one more time tonight. The temporary walls around the construction zone have been painted bright red, with this lettering on them in white:
[b]BARNEYS
NEW YORK
SPRING 2006
TASTE LUXURY HUMOR[/b]
Anyone know what Luxury Humor tastes like?
I’m relieved to know that Copley Place has moved from being merely upscale to “ultraupscale,” and that Boston has let its conservative, provincial past slip into the wake of history.
Today’s Boston Globe and Herald both have official announcements that Barneys New York is coming to Copley Place. The store will be 46,000 square feet, two stories, opening in the spring of 2006.
Globe article
Herald article
(these links will probably work only for the next week or two)
As the Globe puts it, “Barneys cements the Back Bay mall’s transformation into an ultraupscale destination.”
I’ll second that ‘thanks’ to Ron – you have provided so many great links and comments, and are a big part of why this website is so fun and thorough, especially in the Boston area theaters. Where do you get the energy? Good work!
Ron: <<I assume the new Barneys store will have a flat floor!>> LOL! It just may seem to tilt when you see their prices. On a personal note, thanks for all the postings on this and other theaters. It’s a real chronicle of the devastating changes in the Boston cinema scene in the last decade or so. Who’d’ve ever guessed so much would happen.
Not really, I didn’t stay long enough. I was somewhere that I obviously didn’t belong, and it didn’t feel very safe to wander around, with rubble and vent pipes and the like all over the place.
I assume the new Barneys store will have a flat floor!
Ron: Interesting comments. Did you get a sense of the structure of the building there? I often wondered if there was a structural reason for the seating sloping up (rather than down)toward the screen in at least one of the auditoriums.
I walked into the mall again this evening. Someone had left a door to the construction area unlocked, so I wandered around a bit. The whole interior of the cinema complex has been demolished. There are big piles of rubble where the cinemas and lobby were.
Growing up in the Boston area, I do recall Lauriats. The owners lived in my neighborhood and also owned a good deal of land in town which is now dotted—shoe-horned is a better term—with McMansions I guess Brentano’s has changed from the one I knew. It’s sure a sign of the times that a movie theater is turning into a Barney’s.
Brentano’s is really Waldenbooks with a different sign out front. They replaced Lauriat’s Books, a century-old local chain that went bankrupt and out of business a few years ago.
It’s not clear to me that the bookstore will survive the construction period and the lack of cinema traffic, especially now that there’s a huge Barnes & Noble next door in the Prudential Center. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see this Legal Sea Foods location close, at least for a while. (They’ve got another one in the Pru.)
Ron: Really interesting comments. I imagine they’ll eventually sell the seats. The projectors and audio equipment will be sold or moved, for sure. General Cinema used to move their equipment around. So Boston is getting a Barneys. I’m glad Brentano’s is still around. I thought they’d gone.