I compared the photo of a “Regent” theater with a (poor) photo which I have of the Regent Th. in the Norfolk Downs section of Quincy MA and it’s the same. The building is still standing as far as I know.
The Colonial is included in the 1906 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. The proscenium opening was 38 feet square, and the stage was 45 feet deep. Seating: Orchestra 618, sofas 39, 1st balcony 552, 2nd balcony 368, 12 boxes 60, 4 loges 16; total: 1,653 seats.
The 1906 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide lists this theater as the “Columbia Music Hall” and says it was “Devoted to Burlesque” (as a schoolboy in the 1950s, I too was “devoted to burlesque”!) Tickets cost 10 cents to 75 cents. The proscenium opening was 38 feet wide X 39 feet high, and the stage was 43 feet deep. It says there were 1,923 seats, but the breakdown does not add up to that: Orchestra 491, 1st balcony 320, 2nd balcony 362, gallery 600; total: 1,773 plus box seats. I believe there were only 2 balconies, so “1st balcony” and “2nd balcony” were probably the same structure divided by a cross-aisle.
The 1906 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide gives the seating capacity of the Howard as 1,650. Tickets cost 10 cents to 50 cents, and there were 5 members of the pit band.
This theater is listed as the “Empire” in the 1906 Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. This was after the heavy reconstruction of Summer, 1900; and further alterations in 1904-05. The seating capacity is listed as 1,844, but the breakdown does not add up to that: Orchestra 845; Balcony 518, Gallery 333; total: 1,696 plus box seats. Tickets cost 25 cents to 75 cents. The proscenium opening was 41 feet wide X 30 feet high, and the stage was 38 feet deep. The listing says that the Empire was occupied at that time by the Empire Stock Company.
Yes, some of them seem not to have very long lives under the “Scenic Temple” name. And another hallmark of the Scenic Temples was that they all seem to have been constructed as a renovation of an existing building, and not as new construction.
In a 1931 atlas map of this section of Washington St. which MarkB has found, the Dudley Theatre and the Roxbury Theatre are shown, but there is no Eagle Theatre. This confirms what Someone Who Was There told me: that the operators of the Eagle built the Dudley across the street, and after it opened, they closed the Eagle and it reverted back to retail store use.
Someone who worked here as an usher said that the Boulevard had two entrances: one on the east side on Revere Beach Boulevard, and the other on the west side, on Ocean Avenue. He said that the latter was the main entrance when he worked there. He couldn’t remember what the theater’s street address was.
This theater in Chelsea is yet another of the early movie theaters in Massachusetts (and at least one in Rhode Island) named “Scenic Temple”. I wonder if these were all affiliated with one another. I always assumed that they were film theaters, but many of them also featured small-time vaudeville acts on stage.
Where was the Waverly Opera House in Hyde Park? I have seen it referenced in the old Julius Cahn theatrical guides. The 1906-07 edition says that it was on the second floor, had 900 seats and a stage 24 feet deep with a proscenium opening 30 feet square. There are no street addresses in the Cahn guides, unfortunately. Was the Waverly the same as French’s Opera House where the Riverside Theatre Works is today??
Ed- You’re our man in Chelsea, so you can add it. I went to Google Books and could not find Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide for 1908 which Joe Vogel references above. But I found the 1906 edition and it says “Chelsea, 40,000 population, No theater at present”. That does not mean there was no theater there, only that there wasn’t one booking road attractions, which is what the Cahn guides were all about. Joe Vogel says that the Scenic Temple in Chelsea had 1,200 seats and booked both motion pictures and vaudeville acts. If you have a street address then you can create a page for it here in CT.
My copy (a Xerox) of the May 1941 photo on the MGM Theatre Report is very poor but it shows a long 2-story building with the Humboldt Theatre entrance at the right end, and at least 5 shops in a row to the left of the entrance. The building next door to the right has only one-story store fronts. It appears that you bought a ticket then went inside and turned left to face the screen.
Regarding the Page 76 photo of the Grand Opera House, I don’t think that the building on its left on the left edge of the photo is the Hub Theatre (too close – Ed, check out the atlas map you linked to above on April 22- there were several buildings seperating the Hub from the Grand O.H.) I think that the Page 82 photo was taken right about the time of the el construction in 1901 because you can see wood forms up on the el structure and there are NO staircases to get up to the Dover St. station. It’s nice that this Arcadia book does have some theater photos, because some of them don’t. On Page 77 of this book there is a neat photo of the Columbia during its final years looking the way I remember it.
Re- movie ads in newspapers. Circulation figures released a couple days ago show continued substantial decline in readership at the Boston Herald, and, especially, the Boston Globe. Younger people don’t seem to read newspapers and, since younger people make up a large segment of the movie-going audience, there seems to be no point in spending money on newspaper movie ads.
Mark-not-Whitey- thanks for posting the map! It explains a lot. Note also the Dudley Street Opera House nearby. If I remember correctly, the former Dudley St. Baptist Church boy scout told me that he could see the Rivoli projectionist hanging out on a fire escape on the upper rear wall of the theater. The rear wall of the theater was right across from the church property. No wonder he could see him so easily!
The map shows very well the blending for one block of Tremont and Columbus. The theater is right where I thought it to be, but now I understand the street numbering scheme much better.
Ed, the one I mentioned is not a photo, but a drawing and showed more of the building than the 2 close-in photos from about 1895 in the Arcadia South End book. Wish I could remember where I saw it (not on line).
There was another Hub Theatre on Washington Street for awhile in the late-1930s. The Park Theatre, later the Trans Lux, and still later, the State, was renamed Hub Theatre after Minsky Burlesque moved out, and before it was taken over by Trans Lux. They could use the name “Hub” because this theater had been closed.
I have a Xerox copy of a 1909 seating chart for the Boston Opera House. I counted the fixed seating, and made an estimate of the number of chairs in the 78 boxes. (Some of the boxes had 4 chairs and some had 2 chairs). My results: Orchestra floor: 634; First Balcony: 842; Second Balcony: 708; Boxes:(estimated) 276. Total, 2,460 seats. This is close to the figure that Ed Burke posted above on 5-14-09. In addition, there were a total of 40-50 standing spaces high up in the 7th tier on each side.
Yes, the building which is there today and can be seen on the Google street view looks “old”. Most of what I know about the Hub Theatre I learned from the Donald King Boston theaters book, plus old King’s Handbook of Boston from 1881 and 1886, plus a little more here and there. Somewhere I saw a drawing of the Hub made from diagonally across the intersection before the “el” was built. It was about 3 to 4 stories high, and pretty plain looking without many windows on the side. There were a few steps up from the sidewalk to the front doors.
I compared the photo of a “Regent” theater with a (poor) photo which I have of the Regent Th. in the Norfolk Downs section of Quincy MA and it’s the same. The building is still standing as far as I know.
The Colonial is included in the 1906 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. The proscenium opening was 38 feet square, and the stage was 45 feet deep. Seating: Orchestra 618, sofas 39, 1st balcony 552, 2nd balcony 368, 12 boxes 60, 4 loges 16; total: 1,653 seats.
The 1906 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide lists this theater as the “Columbia Music Hall” and says it was “Devoted to Burlesque” (as a schoolboy in the 1950s, I too was “devoted to burlesque”!) Tickets cost 10 cents to 75 cents. The proscenium opening was 38 feet wide X 39 feet high, and the stage was 43 feet deep. It says there were 1,923 seats, but the breakdown does not add up to that: Orchestra 491, 1st balcony 320, 2nd balcony 362, gallery 600; total: 1,773 plus box seats. I believe there were only 2 balconies, so “1st balcony” and “2nd balcony” were probably the same structure divided by a cross-aisle.
The 1906 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide gives the seating capacity of the Howard as 1,650. Tickets cost 10 cents to 50 cents, and there were 5 members of the pit band.
This theater is listed as the “Empire” in the 1906 Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. This was after the heavy reconstruction of Summer, 1900; and further alterations in 1904-05. The seating capacity is listed as 1,844, but the breakdown does not add up to that: Orchestra 845; Balcony 518, Gallery 333; total: 1,696 plus box seats. Tickets cost 25 cents to 75 cents. The proscenium opening was 41 feet wide X 30 feet high, and the stage was 38 feet deep. The listing says that the Empire was occupied at that time by the Empire Stock Company.
Yes, some of them seem not to have very long lives under the “Scenic Temple” name. And another hallmark of the Scenic Temples was that they all seem to have been constructed as a renovation of an existing building, and not as new construction.
In a 1931 atlas map of this section of Washington St. which MarkB has found, the Dudley Theatre and the Roxbury Theatre are shown, but there is no Eagle Theatre. This confirms what Someone Who Was There told me: that the operators of the Eagle built the Dudley across the street, and after it opened, they closed the Eagle and it reverted back to retail store use.
Someone who worked here as an usher said that the Boulevard had two entrances: one on the east side on Revere Beach Boulevard, and the other on the west side, on Ocean Avenue. He said that the latter was the main entrance when he worked there. He couldn’t remember what the theater’s street address was.
This theater in Chelsea is yet another of the early movie theaters in Massachusetts (and at least one in Rhode Island) named “Scenic Temple”. I wonder if these were all affiliated with one another. I always assumed that they were film theaters, but many of them also featured small-time vaudeville acts on stage.
Where was the Waverly Opera House in Hyde Park? I have seen it referenced in the old Julius Cahn theatrical guides. The 1906-07 edition says that it was on the second floor, had 900 seats and a stage 24 feet deep with a proscenium opening 30 feet square. There are no street addresses in the Cahn guides, unfortunately. Was the Waverly the same as French’s Opera House where the Riverside Theatre Works is today??
Ed- You’re our man in Chelsea, so you can add it. I went to Google Books and could not find Julius Cahn’s Theatrical Guide for 1908 which Joe Vogel references above. But I found the 1906 edition and it says “Chelsea, 40,000 population, No theater at present”. That does not mean there was no theater there, only that there wasn’t one booking road attractions, which is what the Cahn guides were all about. Joe Vogel says that the Scenic Temple in Chelsea had 1,200 seats and booked both motion pictures and vaudeville acts. If you have a street address then you can create a page for it here in CT.
Ed, in the Julius Cahn guides there are virtually no addresses, so that it would just say “Chelsea – Scenic Temple”.
My copy (a Xerox) of the May 1941 photo on the MGM Theatre Report is very poor but it shows a long 2-story building with the Humboldt Theatre entrance at the right end, and at least 5 shops in a row to the left of the entrance. The building next door to the right has only one-story store fronts. It appears that you bought a ticket then went inside and turned left to face the screen.
Regarding the Page 76 photo of the Grand Opera House, I don’t think that the building on its left on the left edge of the photo is the Hub Theatre (too close – Ed, check out the atlas map you linked to above on April 22- there were several buildings seperating the Hub from the Grand O.H.) I think that the Page 82 photo was taken right about the time of the el construction in 1901 because you can see wood forms up on the el structure and there are NO staircases to get up to the Dover St. station. It’s nice that this Arcadia book does have some theater photos, because some of them don’t. On Page 77 of this book there is a neat photo of the Columbia during its final years looking the way I remember it.
Re- movie ads in newspapers. Circulation figures released a couple days ago show continued substantial decline in readership at the Boston Herald, and, especially, the Boston Globe. Younger people don’t seem to read newspapers and, since younger people make up a large segment of the movie-going audience, there seems to be no point in spending money on newspaper movie ads.
The Dudley Theater was a good deal larger than the nearby Roxbury Theatre which also shows on the 1931 map.
Note that in 1901 it was called “Music Hall”.
Mark- please look on the 1931 map to see if the Niagara Temple Theatre was still around at 320 Blue Hill Ave. I suspect it may have been gone by 1931.
Mark-not-Whitey- thanks for posting the map! It explains a lot. Note also the Dudley Street Opera House nearby. If I remember correctly, the former Dudley St. Baptist Church boy scout told me that he could see the Rivoli projectionist hanging out on a fire escape on the upper rear wall of the theater. The rear wall of the theater was right across from the church property. No wonder he could see him so easily!
The map shows very well the blending for one block of Tremont and Columbus. The theater is right where I thought it to be, but now I understand the street numbering scheme much better.
The facade was a light-grey color.
Ed, the one I mentioned is not a photo, but a drawing and showed more of the building than the 2 close-in photos from about 1895 in the Arcadia South End book. Wish I could remember where I saw it (not on line).
There was another Hub Theatre on Washington Street for awhile in the late-1930s. The Park Theatre, later the Trans Lux, and still later, the State, was renamed Hub Theatre after Minsky Burlesque moved out, and before it was taken over by Trans Lux. They could use the name “Hub” because this theater had been closed.
I have a Xerox copy of a 1909 seating chart for the Boston Opera House. I counted the fixed seating, and made an estimate of the number of chairs in the 78 boxes. (Some of the boxes had 4 chairs and some had 2 chairs). My results: Orchestra floor: 634; First Balcony: 842; Second Balcony: 708; Boxes:(estimated) 276. Total, 2,460 seats. This is close to the figure that Ed Burke posted above on 5-14-09. In addition, there were a total of 40-50 standing spaces high up in the 7th tier on each side.
It’s tough to save buildings like this one when the town government is indifferent.
Yes, the building which is there today and can be seen on the Google street view looks “old”. Most of what I know about the Hub Theatre I learned from the Donald King Boston theaters book, plus old King’s Handbook of Boston from 1881 and 1886, plus a little more here and there. Somewhere I saw a drawing of the Hub made from diagonally across the intersection before the “el” was built. It was about 3 to 4 stories high, and pretty plain looking without many windows on the side. There were a few steps up from the sidewalk to the front doors.