Until last Friday I had never seen a movie display ad for the Plimoth Cinema in the Patriot Ledger entertainment section. They ran a very nice ad for the Woody Allen movie “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”; the ad was shared with Loring Hall in Hingham.
Why do these photographers apologize for their work? His photos look great. The vertical sign is very nice, and wasn’t there when I went by not long ago. Notice how the arch is open. This is how it looked originally. But from the time I first knew this facade circa- late-1940s, the arch was all covered and plastered over.
There is a front-page story in the Quincy Patriot Ledger today: “The Deal to Save ‘Wolly’ Theater Crumbles – City, Developer Back Away from Project”. The city’s planning developer, Street-Works, has dropped the Wollaston Theatre project. Too expensive, estimated cost of renovations: $7M. No return or profit possible in this undertaking. The deed for the building is still held by Mrs. Chandler. Street-Works has paid her a total of $145K toward the price of $1.14M and has skipped further payments and will not make any more. There are currently 4 retail tenants in the front of the building. The Mayor now feels that preserving this theater is pretty much a lost cause, unless someone with deep pockets steps in.
This cinema is located in a free-standing building (actually 2 buildings) overlooking the retail parking lot which is just to the north of the immense parking lot for the ferry docks. There is a rectangular building which contains the auditoriums; it has a row of pilasters along the west wall, with small poster frames. To its left is a seperate smaller building which contains the entrance and lobby. It has a nautical/ maritime look about it. There is an attraction board above with space for 2 or 3 movie titles, and more poster frames. It’s all new construction, not an adaptation of an existing older shipyard building. Down in back there is a very nice walkway along the waterfront. There are many historic information panels about the WW2 shipyard, including a complete list of ships built there. I never realized that they built so many ships for the British Royal Navy there. Depending on the ferry schedules, it might be possible to travel from downtown Boston by ferry to attend movies at this cinema.
Their announcement was sent in their weekly news recap to their mailing list. I know someone who lives downtown and is on the Downtown Crossing Association e-mail list.
The Downtown Crossing Assoc. office sent out a release which says that the new Modern Th. Open House on Fri. Nov. 5 STARTS at 6PM, when it appears that it ends at 6PM !
I don’t know when “seg” ended in N.O. but I recall being there in August 1964 for a day or two while traveling. In the New Orleans Union Terminal waiting room, one could see where the letters spelling out “Whites Only” and “Colored Only” had been removed from the walls. So that big rail station had been desegregated by then, and maybe the Orpheum Theatre as well.
As mentioned above, this old theater should not be confused with today’s Lynn Auditorium at 3 City Hall Square in Lynn. According to the entertainment pages of yesterday’s Boston Herald, there are at least 4 concerts upcoming there, featuring Kenny Rogers, Julio Iglesias, the Rat Pack, and others. All one-night stands.
There is a brief item in the business news in today’s Boston Herald which says that Suffolk Univ. will open the new 185-seat Modern Theatre on Thurs Nov. 4th. No details about what will take place, or the time.
“What’s in a Name?” Whether they call it the Newman Theater, the Salters Theatre, or the Modern Theatre, it doesn’t alter the fact that it’s a brand new building, and that the predecessor has been demolished !
The figure of 1,100 seats came from the Donald King Boston theaters book. It probably did have more than 399 seats prior to the renovation project a couple years ago, but maybe not as many as 1,100. Suffolk University’s new Modern Theatre on Washington Street will supposedly have about 185 seats which makes it even smaller than the C. Walsh Th.
A current college publication mentions the “hoots” (folk music concerts) presented at this theater by the Mama Bird Recording Co., but they give the seating capacity as “220” seats. It’s a fairly busy venue.
Ron Newman- for a discussion of this issue, see the CT page for the Henry Miller’s Theatre in NY (2629), especially the posting made by “cwalczak” on Sept 15, 2010. When the new Modern opens, if it has any movie-showing capability, a new “page” can be created for it in CT. The new page can indicate that the new theater is on the site of the original, contains a few artifacts, and has the original reconstructed facade. It simply is not accurate or realistic to say that the new Modern is the same as the old one, which is gone.
The City of Quincy’s development planning company has a cinema in their plans. It’s located to the rear of the Flagship site, one block to the south of Granite Street and next to the Burgin Parkway. The building will have 4 or 5 levels of parking, with the cinema located above. It’s in a rather obscure corner of the area. Of course, the cinema is just a suggested activity and would require some entity to commit to it.
I recently heard an interesting story about the Mayflower Th. in the 1950s. Two burlesque/movie houses in Scollay Square, the Old Howard Theatre and the Casino Theatre, were under the same management. When the Old Howard was closed due to police action in Nov. 1953 (it remained closed until it was demolished in 1962), the owners looked into operating burlesque/2nd-run movies at the Mayflower. They either purchased or leased it. However, nothing came of this plan. Since it was small and had no real stage or backstage space, their plan would have been difficult to implement. And there would have been resistance to this plan by area businesses and the City.
I was surprised to see this ad as late as Oct. 1959. There were a few ads which read “Old Howard Casino” in the mid-1950s. But the tiny ads which I used to look at in the Record-American just said “Casino”. And no one called it by that clumsy moniker. It was just plain “Casino Theatre” to its regular fans. The Casino and the Old Howard were under the same management in the early 1950s. When the Old Howard closed for the summer due to lack of a.c., its poster boards were full of ads for the Casino down the street, which remained open.
Yes, even the marquee said “Keith’s” at least for a time. But none of the Boston newspaper ad pages which I clipped starting in the late-1940s used any other name but “Keith Memorial”. And my point was that the name as “Keith’s” was not in common spoken usage. It was called the “Keith Memorial”, definitely not the “Keith’s Memorial”. In other cities which had Keith theaters, I believe that the houses were probably called “Keith’s Theater”.
Another item of interest in the new Paramount “Mainstage” (Theatre) is the faux box office/ticket booth out on the sidewalk, centered underneath the marquee. It’s slightly larger than the original ticket booth out there. I didn’t examine it closely, but I believe that it’s totally fake and cannot be used. Inside, on the right side of the lobby there is a spacious box office with 2 ticket windows. Nearby, at the point where one’s tickets are taken there is a large ancient steel safe on display. It was found in the basement of the Arcade Building next door.
One of the Emerson students at the Open House asked me where one purchased movie tickets in the original Paramount and was quite surprised to hear that they were purchased from the booth on the sidewalk and not inside. This was a common practice in the old movie theaters.
Upstairs in the lower balcony foyer there is a sofa in the center of the floor and this supposedly came from the Paramount’s balcony foyer. Someone who got into the building around 2005 told me that he saw it up there.
Yes, this could easily have been the case. Sometimes in these busy arch. firms, one person designed the basic structure while another was responsible for the interior design. George Page might well have done substanial work on the Colonial project, under Blackall’s supervision.
Further to Joe Vogel’s comments, the musical show “The Merry Widow” was a huge international mega-hit. It played in London at Daly’s Theatre (site of the West End Vue cinema) and in New York at the New Amsterdam Theater on W. 42nd Street when that house was still new. It’s still performed today by various opera companies and is available on CD and on DVD.
Until last Friday I had never seen a movie display ad for the Plimoth Cinema in the Patriot Ledger entertainment section. They ran a very nice ad for the Woody Allen movie “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”; the ad was shared with Loring Hall in Hingham.
Why do these photographers apologize for their work? His photos look great. The vertical sign is very nice, and wasn’t there when I went by not long ago. Notice how the arch is open. This is how it looked originally. But from the time I first knew this facade circa- late-1940s, the arch was all covered and plastered over.
There is a front-page story in the Quincy Patriot Ledger today: “The Deal to Save ‘Wolly’ Theater Crumbles – City, Developer Back Away from Project”. The city’s planning developer, Street-Works, has dropped the Wollaston Theatre project. Too expensive, estimated cost of renovations: $7M. No return or profit possible in this undertaking. The deed for the building is still held by Mrs. Chandler. Street-Works has paid her a total of $145K toward the price of $1.14M and has skipped further payments and will not make any more. There are currently 4 retail tenants in the front of the building. The Mayor now feels that preserving this theater is pretty much a lost cause, unless someone with deep pockets steps in.
This cinema is located in a free-standing building (actually 2 buildings) overlooking the retail parking lot which is just to the north of the immense parking lot for the ferry docks. There is a rectangular building which contains the auditoriums; it has a row of pilasters along the west wall, with small poster frames. To its left is a seperate smaller building which contains the entrance and lobby. It has a nautical/ maritime look about it. There is an attraction board above with space for 2 or 3 movie titles, and more poster frames. It’s all new construction, not an adaptation of an existing older shipyard building. Down in back there is a very nice walkway along the waterfront. There are many historic information panels about the WW2 shipyard, including a complete list of ships built there. I never realized that they built so many ships for the British Royal Navy there. Depending on the ferry schedules, it might be possible to travel from downtown Boston by ferry to attend movies at this cinema.
Their announcement was sent in their weekly news recap to their mailing list. I know someone who lives downtown and is on the Downtown Crossing Association e-mail list.
The Downtown Crossing Assoc. office sent out a release which says that the new Modern Th. Open House on Fri. Nov. 5 STARTS at 6PM, when it appears that it ends at 6PM !
I don’t know when “seg” ended in N.O. but I recall being there in August 1964 for a day or two while traveling. In the New Orleans Union Terminal waiting room, one could see where the letters spelling out “Whites Only” and “Colored Only” had been removed from the walls. So that big rail station had been desegregated by then, and maybe the Orpheum Theatre as well.
I agree with Ian. Why are movie theaters like this one listed under these stupid barroom names instead of the original cinema name?
As mentioned above, this old theater should not be confused with today’s Lynn Auditorium at 3 City Hall Square in Lynn. According to the entertainment pages of yesterday’s Boston Herald, there are at least 4 concerts upcoming there, featuring Kenny Rogers, Julio Iglesias, the Rat Pack, and others. All one-night stands.
Movies, with live organ background, were shown here 3,4,5 times per season, and always listed in advance on the website. Until now, ominously.
There will be an Open House at the Hall on Friday Dec. 3rd, 7Pm.
There is a brief item in the business news in today’s Boston Herald which says that Suffolk Univ. will open the new 185-seat Modern Theatre on Thurs Nov. 4th. No details about what will take place, or the time.
“What’s in a Name?” Whether they call it the Newman Theater, the Salters Theatre, or the Modern Theatre, it doesn’t alter the fact that it’s a brand new building, and that the predecessor has been demolished !
The figure of 1,100 seats came from the Donald King Boston theaters book. It probably did have more than 399 seats prior to the renovation project a couple years ago, but maybe not as many as 1,100. Suffolk University’s new Modern Theatre on Washington Street will supposedly have about 185 seats which makes it even smaller than the C. Walsh Th.
A current college publication mentions the “hoots” (folk music concerts) presented at this theater by the Mama Bird Recording Co., but they give the seating capacity as “220” seats. It’s a fairly busy venue.
Ron Newman- for a discussion of this issue, see the CT page for the Henry Miller’s Theatre in NY (2629), especially the posting made by “cwalczak” on Sept 15, 2010. When the new Modern opens, if it has any movie-showing capability, a new “page” can be created for it in CT. The new page can indicate that the new theater is on the site of the original, contains a few artifacts, and has the original reconstructed facade. It simply is not accurate or realistic to say that the new Modern is the same as the old one, which is gone.
I, too, wonder what the future of this theater is, if the property is sold.
The City of Quincy’s development planning company has a cinema in their plans. It’s located to the rear of the Flagship site, one block to the south of Granite Street and next to the Burgin Parkway. The building will have 4 or 5 levels of parking, with the cinema located above. It’s in a rather obscure corner of the area. Of course, the cinema is just a suggested activity and would require some entity to commit to it.
I’ve been told that there is a display of old theater photos in the lobby. I don’t know if this is a temporary display, or semi-permanent.
I recently heard an interesting story about the Mayflower Th. in the 1950s. Two burlesque/movie houses in Scollay Square, the Old Howard Theatre and the Casino Theatre, were under the same management. When the Old Howard was closed due to police action in Nov. 1953 (it remained closed until it was demolished in 1962), the owners looked into operating burlesque/2nd-run movies at the Mayflower. They either purchased or leased it. However, nothing came of this plan. Since it was small and had no real stage or backstage space, their plan would have been difficult to implement. And there would have been resistance to this plan by area businesses and the City.
I was surprised to see this ad as late as Oct. 1959. There were a few ads which read “Old Howard Casino” in the mid-1950s. But the tiny ads which I used to look at in the Record-American just said “Casino”. And no one called it by that clumsy moniker. It was just plain “Casino Theatre” to its regular fans. The Casino and the Old Howard were under the same management in the early 1950s. When the Old Howard closed for the summer due to lack of a.c., its poster boards were full of ads for the Casino down the street, which remained open.
Yes, even the marquee said “Keith’s” at least for a time. But none of the Boston newspaper ad pages which I clipped starting in the late-1940s used any other name but “Keith Memorial”. And my point was that the name as “Keith’s” was not in common spoken usage. It was called the “Keith Memorial”, definitely not the “Keith’s Memorial”. In other cities which had Keith theaters, I believe that the houses were probably called “Keith’s Theater”.
Another item of interest in the new Paramount “Mainstage” (Theatre) is the faux box office/ticket booth out on the sidewalk, centered underneath the marquee. It’s slightly larger than the original ticket booth out there. I didn’t examine it closely, but I believe that it’s totally fake and cannot be used. Inside, on the right side of the lobby there is a spacious box office with 2 ticket windows. Nearby, at the point where one’s tickets are taken there is a large ancient steel safe on display. It was found in the basement of the Arcade Building next door.
One of the Emerson students at the Open House asked me where one purchased movie tickets in the original Paramount and was quite surprised to hear that they were purchased from the booth on the sidewalk and not inside. This was a common practice in the old movie theaters.
Upstairs in the lower balcony foyer there is a sofa in the center of the floor and this supposedly came from the Paramount’s balcony foyer. Someone who got into the building around 2005 told me that he saw it up there.
Yes, this could easily have been the case. Sometimes in these busy arch. firms, one person designed the basic structure while another was responsible for the interior design. George Page might well have done substanial work on the Colonial project, under Blackall’s supervision.
Further to Joe Vogel’s comments, the musical show “The Merry Widow” was a huge international mega-hit. It played in London at Daly’s Theatre (site of the West End Vue cinema) and in New York at the New Amsterdam Theater on W. 42nd Street when that house was still new. It’s still performed today by various opera companies and is available on CD and on DVD.