In this 1947 photo (described here), you can’t really see the theatre, but you can certainly see its huge vertical sign that read OLYMPIA.
The foreground of the photo shows a row of furniture stores. I think this block has been entirely demolished and replaced by expansion of the Tufts-New England Medical Center.
By “multiplex” do you mean “more than two screens”?
If a two-screen theatre counts as a multiplex, then I nominate this one, which opened way back in 1935. There might be a few older, but I doubt there are many. Sadly, it has been demolished.
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.
Since this image comes from the Google cache of an auction site, I don’t know how long it will stay around. Here’s a another copy of it.
The Adams House Restaurant at 533 Washington St. lingered into the late 1980s, but was eventually replaced by a nightclub called the Hub Club. The current occupant is another nightclub called Felt.
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.
A picture postcard of Huntington and Massachusetts Avenues, showing Symphony Hall, Horticultural Hall, the Christian Science Church dome, and a tall red vertical sign for the Uptown Theatre. The postcard is described here. Unfortunately the date given is non-specific: “ca. 1930-1947”.
Bank to rename theater
Opera House pact to enhance Citizens' image
Citizens Bank has signed a deal to rename Boston’s Opera House.
The bank has agreed to a seven-year pact involving the Washington Street landmark, which is expected to be called The Citizens Bank Theatre. The accord will give Citizens broad reach across Boston’s theater scene, including mentions in all advertising for Broadway in Boston shows, tickets, and the ability to sponsor community events.
…
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Clear Channel Entertainment, the division of media giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. that owns the Opera House, first approached Citizens and other Massachusetts companies in December 2003, asking for about $8.5 million over 10 years. At the time, no companies agreed. The deal is likely to be at a lower price because it spans seven years, not 10, and because the bank did not accept Clear Channel’s first pitch in 2003.
Smyth said the bank plans to use the sponsorship to host customers and to give away tickets to community groups. It is planning a special event for nonprofits, which will include an open house, performances and theater classes. The bank also plans to sponsor a concierge booth to loan theater guests opera glasses.
At every performance, Citizens plans to pick two guests at random to receive free tickets and drink coupons. Down the road, it wants to create an exhibit of the theater’s history.
…
As the theater’s name changes, Clear Channel will switch its advertisements for shows and fix some theater posters to reflect the new name, said Drew Murphy, the president of Broadway in Boston. He said much of the money raised from the naming rights sale will go to restoring the theater.
Somewhere I’ve read that after this theatre began showing porn films, the stockholders of the Trans-Lux Corporation (which I guess still owned it) demanded that the theatre change its name.
The following is quoted from “A Historical Survey of the Theatres of Boston” by Donald C. King, published in the Third Quarter 1974 issue of Marquee, the journal of the Theatre Historical Society:
“In 1901 the famed piano makers opened Chickering Hall in Back Bay. By 1912 it had become the St. James Theatre with vaudeville and film. In the 1920s it became one of Boston’s then popular stock company stages like the Copley (1921-1962), the Repertory Theatre (now Boston University Theatre) and the Castle Square theatre (1894-1920’s). The St. James became a movie theatre in the 1930’s, the Uptown, and was wrecked in 1968.”
The Bostonian Society Library photo collection has several photographs and picture postcards showing Chickering Hall, the St. James, or the Uptown — sometimes alongside its next-door neighbor Horticultural Hall. I’ll try to post some links to these in the next few days.
GAIETY THEATRE
Still fighting for the Gaiety’s life
BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN
As the wrecking ball literally approaches the 96-year-old Gaiety Theatre on Washington Street â€" an adjacent building is being knocked down first â€" the historic structure’s supporters are trying yet again to prevent its destruction, which will soon take place to clear the way for the 30-story Kensington Place condominiums (see “Curtain Call,” News and Features, October 15, 2004). After trying to win over the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the Inspectional Services Division, Land Court, and the Supreme Judicial Court, the Save-the-Gaiety activists, led by several city councilors, secured a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) on Tuesday. Close to 50 people showed up. Though the odds of the ZBA rescuing the theater appeared slim at best, at least the seven board members would hear the argument.
Which is why the supporters caused a fine ruckus in City Hall when ZBA chair Robert Shortsleeve abruptly announced, “I’m dismissing it,” before anyone got to speak. The ZBA’s lawyer in these matters, the city’s corporation counsel, had advised him that the issue had no standing in this venue, he said. So go home.
As Shortsleeve tried to move on to the next agenda item, the stunned supporters refused to let it drop. “Shame on you!” one called. “You’re the servants of the BRA, aren’t you?” another heckled, to great applause. Security was called. Eventually word got to the councilors, who had returned to their offices, and they made their way back to the eighth-floor hearing room. Chuck Turner arrived first, followed by Maura Hennigan, Felix Arroyo, and Charles Yancey. They demanded an explanation of the jurisdiction question. Shortsleeve refused to give it. So they decided to get it directly from the city’s corporation counsel, Merita Hopkins. The councilors led a parade of citizens to her office (once they figured out where it was), including members of the Back Bay Neighborhood Association, the Chinese Progressive Association, and residents of the Ritz-Carlton condominiums that abut the future Kensington. They were met there by a locked door, with security guards on both sides. Turner, true to form, was ready to start a sit-in.
Hopkins herself was not actually inside, and when she did arrive, she denied having advised the ZBA at all. “You are the corporate counsel,” Yancey said. “Presumably someone in the corporate counsel’s office has been advising them,” Hopkins replied. She went to confer with Shortsleeve, who was minutes away from ending the board’s business for the day and getting off clean. After a 10-minute closed-door discussion, he agreed to allow testimony, and decide on jurisdiction later.
So Gaiety Friends leader Lee Eiseman, Ching-In Chen of the Asian American Resource Workshop, and the four city councilors got to make their pitch. In a nutshell, they claim that Boston’s zoning laws expressly forbid destruction of a theater â€" which the Gaiety clearly is â€" in the designated Midtown Cultural District. So, the ZBA should revoke the demolition permit.
Incurring the wrath of the crowd, Councilor Jim Kelly spoke against that idea, as did Matthew Kiefer, a legal representative of Kensington. Not that it matters much â€" even die-hards among the Gaiety supporters don’t expect the ZBA to step in. But at least they got heard on Tuesday
After the hearing, I received the following e-mail from Lee Eiseman. His comments are in plain text, with additional comments in bold from Shirley Kressel:
ZBA Shoots Self in Foot
Yesterday The Gaiety might or might not have been a theater, but a Boston City Hall hearing room certainly was. At 1:15 the Zoning Board of Appeal convened what was expected to be a hearing appealing the issuance of a demolition permit for The Gaiety. In the room were the appellants, City Councilors Chuck Turner, Felix Arroyo and The Asian American Resource Workshop’s director Chin-In. In addition, prepared to speak in support were City Councilors Hennigan, and Yancey (Stephen Murphy reportedly having sent a letter in support) as well as close to over 50 supporters of various stripes.
Imagine our surprise when ZBA chairman, Robert Shortsleeve announced that on the orders of the City Corporation Counsel, they were refusing to hear the case. Bedlam broke out and City Hall security officers were called. The appellants and their supporters refused to leave and demanded to be heard.  They asked to be shown an official document from the Corporation Counsel stating the leagal grounds for denying a hearing. Mr. Shortsleeve refused to budge from he repeated assertion that ZBA  did not have juristiction to hear the case, and that it had already been decided by courts of law. Members of the public pointed out that the case was on the agenda, had been noticed, and needed to be heard People pointed out that it could not have been decided in any court because courts won’t take cases until all administrative avenues have been exhausted â€" and a challenge to an ISD permit must be taken first to ZBA before it can be appealed in court.  When the police were about to drag Shirley Kressel, director of Association of Boston Neighborhoods from the room, Chuck Turner stepped between her and the security officer.  He and the other City Counselors had agreed to walk to corporation Counsel’s office and find out directly where this order to deny a hearing originated, and on what legal grounds.
We then walked en-masse to the Law department to ask Merita Hopkins, the Corporation Council to explain her opinion. The door to the Law department was bolted and a policeman was standing guard. Trembling officials inside the door refused to open it for Councilors, Hennigan, Turner and Arroyo. Three minutes later, Ms Hopkins, who happens also to be the mayor’s chief of staff â€" a direct and serious conflict of interest, as Corporation Counsel works for the entire City,  and not just for the executive branch, (This might be just what city council needed to get the courts to allow them to hire their own lawyer!) arrived on the scene and claimed to have no knowledge of her department’s supposed decision in the case. She asked for a moment to be closeted with Shirtsleeve from ZBA and emerged with the decision that a hearing would be held after all, although only two other speakers would be allowed to testify in addition to the three appellants.
At 2:15 the hearing took place. Lee Eiseman, clerk of Gaiety Theatre Friends, Ching-In of AARW, a representative of the Chinese Residents Association and City Councilors Turner, Â Hennigan, Yancey and Arroyo spoke in behalf of our position that The Gaiety remains a theater and that the ZBA needs to deny demolition. Hennigan asked unsuccessfully, that ZBA put a stay on the demolition to prevent destruction during ZBA deliberations.
Councilor Kelly stood up to speak against the appeals. Â He told the board that he had not been in any theatre called the Gaiety in all his years here (he later was informed by the Gaiety Friends that it was called the Publix Theatre in his day, and he reluctantly realized that they were one and the same theatre, and that he had been there). Â He told the councilors of color that they have plenty of problems in their own district and suggested that they take care of those first (illustrating one reason they still have so many problems in their own district…) Â He parroted the Kensington line that a change of use permit had been issued for the theater in 1988 so it wasn’t even legally a theatre since then (Shirley interrupted to notify the room that this was a three-year temporary permit, which she later showed a disbelieving Kelly, adding that the developer had put him up to saying things that are wrong without telling him the truth.) Â He professed his profound concern for the affordable housing units Kensington would provide to this desperately needy Chinatown community (which burst into audible giggling, evoking a threat of “no more hearing for you” from ZBA chairman Shortsleeve). Â He talked about the need for the jobs and economic development (Shirley later suggested he speak to Joe Nigro, who had only last week agreed with her that Kensington was not going to build anything on that site any time soon). Â Shirley also revealed to him the two floors adding 12 large condo units Kensington had secretly drawn on their half-completed schematic drawings. Â The lawlessness of adding two stories didn’t seem to sink in, but he did seem to rejoice that the building would now produce twelve more “housing units.” Â Desperately needed by those desperate Chinatown folks. Â Even at three million dollars each.
Mathew Kiefer, the lawyer for Kensington Investments the Gaiety’s owner spoke in opposition, repeating all the misleading statements and half-truths (i.e., half-lies) that he knows no one on the board will be able to, or care to, challenge.
The ZBA will send the issue to the city law department (yes, Merita Hopkins) for recommendation. Â We don’t know when the decision will be issued. Â We can expect no reversal of the permit; all that we’ll learn is the cooked-up legal basis, whereupon a lawsuit should be filed. Â We need a pro-bono lawyer. Â Please help us find one!
Clearly, the ZBA would have preferred not to make a decision, because decision’s can be appealed. Their refusal to hear the case would have needed to have been met with a writ of mandamus which might not have succeeded in forcing them to act.
We expect a denial. Then we will come to our friends for help in an appeal which may or may not save The Gaiety, but might very likely send a message about lawlessness at City Hall. It might also result in saving another theater or neighborhood.
The Bostonian Society Library has this photo of Huntington Avenue, looking northeast, with the Prudential Tower under construction in the background. Near the right side of the photo, a sign on the side of a building says “SACK’S CAPRI”. Below it and further to the right, you can barely make out a theatre marquee.
Given the location, this must be the second Capri (formerly Strand), not the first Capri (formerly Copley).
The accompanying description says that the marquee advertises Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina, but you certainly can’t see this from the online version of the photo. The description dates the photo to “ca. 1960”.
A 1953 photo, described here. In this photo, the marquee says “Beacon Hill” and advertises a “New England premiere” of Noel Coward’s “Tonight at 8:30”.
This 1925 photo (described here) shows the Palace’s marquee (at far left), but unfortunately not much else of the building. Across the street you can also see a vertical sign for the Star Theatre (later renamed Rialto).
In the left foreground is the vertical sign and marquee for the RKO Keith-Boston theatre. Further down the left side of the street you can see vertical signs for the Olympia (later renamed to Pilgrim) and the Globe (later renamed to Center).
On the right side of the street is the marquee for the Park (later renamed to Trans-Lux and finally to State) and, further down, a vertical sign for the Gayety (later renamed to Victory and finally to Publix).
In this 1947 photo (described here), you can’t really see the theatre, but you can certainly see its huge vertical sign that read OLYMPIA.
The foreground of the photo shows a row of furniture stores. I think this block has been entirely demolished and replaced by expansion of the Tufts-New England Medical Center.
And if three screens is a multiplex, the Sack Cheri in Boston predates the Quad by several years.
By “multiplex” do you mean “more than two screens”?
If a two-screen theatre counts as a multiplex, then I nominate this one, which opened way back in 1935. There might be a few older, but I doubt there are many. Sadly, it has been demolished.
Patriot Cinemas is a small New England chain, and this theatre should properly be listed with that affiliation.
This is the largest of their theatres, but isn’t really typical of their operation.
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.
A picture postcard of the RKO Keith’s and the ‘New Adams House Restaurant’ next door. Sorry, I don’t know the date, but the marquee advertises the movie State Fair with Jeanne Crain, which was released in 1945.
Since this image comes from the Google cache of an auction site, I don’t know how long it will stay around. Here’s a another copy of it.
The Adams House Restaurant at 533 Washington St. lingered into the late 1980s, but was eventually replaced by a nightclub called the Hub Club. The current occupant is another nightclub called Felt.
If this is still a television studio, the “Function” should be changed to reflect that.
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.
Thanks for posting that ! You’re right, I should expand my microfilm research to more papers than just the Globe.
A picture postcard of Huntington and Massachusetts Avenues, showing Symphony Hall, Horticultural Hall, the Christian Science Church dome, and a tall red vertical sign for the Uptown Theatre. The postcard is described here. Unfortunately the date given is non-specific: “ca. 1930-1947”.
Picture postcard of Horticultural Hall, with the St. James Theatre beside it (description), some time between 1916 and 1919.
Note that the sign reads “LOEW’S ST. JAMES THEATRE”. This was several years before they built the Loew’s State a few blocks away.
Some early pictures of this building:
Symphony, Horticultural, and Chickering Halls, side by side (description)
Chickering Hall – photo (description)
Chickering Hall – picture postcard #1 (description)
Chickering Hall – picture postcard #2 (description)
Today’s Boston Globe reports:
Bank to rename theater
Opera House pact to enhance Citizens' image
Citizens Bank has signed a deal to rename Boston’s Opera House.
The bank has agreed to a seven-year pact involving the Washington Street landmark, which is expected to be called The Citizens Bank Theatre. The accord will give Citizens broad reach across Boston’s theater scene, including mentions in all advertising for Broadway in Boston shows, tickets, and the ability to sponsor community events.
…
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Clear Channel Entertainment, the division of media giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. that owns the Opera House, first approached Citizens and other Massachusetts companies in December 2003, asking for about $8.5 million over 10 years. At the time, no companies agreed. The deal is likely to be at a lower price because it spans seven years, not 10, and because the bank did not accept Clear Channel’s first pitch in 2003.
Smyth said the bank plans to use the sponsorship to host customers and to give away tickets to community groups. It is planning a special event for nonprofits, which will include an open house, performances and theater classes. The bank also plans to sponsor a concierge booth to loan theater guests opera glasses.
At every performance, Citizens plans to pick two guests at random to receive free tickets and drink coupons. Down the road, it wants to create an exhibit of the theater’s history.
…
As the theater’s name changes, Clear Channel will switch its advertisements for shows and fix some theater posters to reflect the new name, said Drew Murphy, the president of Broadway in Boston. He said much of the money raised from the naming rights sale will go to restoring the theater.
Somewhere I’ve read that after this theatre began showing porn films, the stockholders of the Trans-Lux Corporation (which I guess still owned it) demanded that the theatre change its name.
The following is quoted from “A Historical Survey of the Theatres of Boston” by Donald C. King, published in the Third Quarter 1974 issue of Marquee, the journal of the Theatre Historical Society:
“In 1901 the famed piano makers opened Chickering Hall in Back Bay. By 1912 it had become the St. James Theatre with vaudeville and film. In the 1920s it became one of Boston’s then popular stock company stages like the Copley (1921-1962), the Repertory Theatre (now Boston University Theatre) and the Castle Square theatre (1894-1920’s). The St. James became a movie theatre in the 1930’s, the Uptown, and was wrecked in 1968.”
The Bostonian Society Library photo collection has several photographs and picture postcards showing Chickering Hall, the St. James, or the Uptown — sometimes alongside its next-door neighbor Horticultural Hall. I’ll try to post some links to these in the next few days.
The “Opera House” sign on top of the marquee has been covered over. This makes me wonder if a renaming is imminent. (See my March 19 post above.)
What replaced this theatre?
From today’s Boston Phoenix:
GAIETY THEATRE
Still fighting for the Gaiety’s life
BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN
As the wrecking ball literally approaches the 96-year-old Gaiety Theatre on Washington Street â€" an adjacent building is being knocked down first â€" the historic structure’s supporters are trying yet again to prevent its destruction, which will soon take place to clear the way for the 30-story Kensington Place condominiums (see “Curtain Call,” News and Features, October 15, 2004). After trying to win over the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the Inspectional Services Division, Land Court, and the Supreme Judicial Court, the Save-the-Gaiety activists, led by several city councilors, secured a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) on Tuesday. Close to 50 people showed up. Though the odds of the ZBA rescuing the theater appeared slim at best, at least the seven board members would hear the argument.
Which is why the supporters caused a fine ruckus in City Hall when ZBA chair Robert Shortsleeve abruptly announced, “I’m dismissing it,” before anyone got to speak. The ZBA’s lawyer in these matters, the city’s corporation counsel, had advised him that the issue had no standing in this venue, he said. So go home.
As Shortsleeve tried to move on to the next agenda item, the stunned supporters refused to let it drop. “Shame on you!” one called. “You’re the servants of the BRA, aren’t you?” another heckled, to great applause. Security was called. Eventually word got to the councilors, who had returned to their offices, and they made their way back to the eighth-floor hearing room. Chuck Turner arrived first, followed by Maura Hennigan, Felix Arroyo, and Charles Yancey. They demanded an explanation of the jurisdiction question. Shortsleeve refused to give it. So they decided to get it directly from the city’s corporation counsel, Merita Hopkins. The councilors led a parade of citizens to her office (once they figured out where it was), including members of the Back Bay Neighborhood Association, the Chinese Progressive Association, and residents of the Ritz-Carlton condominiums that abut the future Kensington. They were met there by a locked door, with security guards on both sides. Turner, true to form, was ready to start a sit-in.
Hopkins herself was not actually inside, and when she did arrive, she denied having advised the ZBA at all. “You are the corporate counsel,” Yancey said. “Presumably someone in the corporate counsel’s office has been advising them,” Hopkins replied. She went to confer with Shortsleeve, who was minutes away from ending the board’s business for the day and getting off clean. After a 10-minute closed-door discussion, he agreed to allow testimony, and decide on jurisdiction later.
So Gaiety Friends leader Lee Eiseman, Ching-In Chen of the Asian American Resource Workshop, and the four city councilors got to make their pitch. In a nutshell, they claim that Boston’s zoning laws expressly forbid destruction of a theater â€" which the Gaiety clearly is â€" in the designated Midtown Cultural District. So, the ZBA should revoke the demolition permit.
Incurring the wrath of the crowd, Councilor Jim Kelly spoke against that idea, as did Matthew Kiefer, a legal representative of Kensington. Not that it matters much â€" even die-hards among the Gaiety supporters don’t expect the ZBA to step in. But at least they got heard on Tuesday
Articles about the zoning hearing, and first-person accounts of it, are being posted as comments on this thread.
After the hearing, I received the following e-mail from Lee Eiseman. His comments are in plain text, with additional comments in bold from Shirley Kressel:
ZBA Shoots Self in Foot
Yesterday The Gaiety might or might not have been a theater, but a Boston City Hall hearing room certainly was. At 1:15 the Zoning Board of Appeal convened what was expected to be a hearing appealing the issuance of a demolition permit for The Gaiety. In the room were the appellants, City Councilors Chuck Turner, Felix Arroyo and The Asian American Resource Workshop’s director Chin-In. In addition, prepared to speak in support were City Councilors Hennigan, and Yancey (Stephen Murphy reportedly having sent a letter in support) as well as close to over 50 supporters of various stripes.
Imagine our surprise when ZBA chairman, Robert Shortsleeve announced that on the orders of the City Corporation Counsel, they were refusing to hear the case. Bedlam broke out and City Hall security officers were called. The appellants and their supporters refused to leave and demanded to be heard.  They asked to be shown an official document from the Corporation Counsel stating the leagal grounds for denying a hearing. Mr. Shortsleeve refused to budge from he repeated assertion that ZBA  did not have juristiction to hear the case, and that it had already been decided by courts of law. Members of the public pointed out that the case was on the agenda, had been noticed, and needed to be heard People pointed out that it could not have been decided in any court because courts won’t take cases until all administrative avenues have been exhausted â€" and a challenge to an ISD permit must be taken first to ZBA before it can be appealed in court.  When the police were about to drag Shirley Kressel, director of Association of Boston Neighborhoods from the room, Chuck Turner stepped between her and the security officer.  He and the other City Counselors had agreed to walk to corporation Counsel’s office and find out directly where this order to deny a hearing originated, and on what legal grounds.
We then walked en-masse to the Law department to ask Merita Hopkins, the Corporation Council to explain her opinion. The door to the Law department was bolted and a policeman was standing guard. Trembling officials inside the door refused to open it for Councilors, Hennigan, Turner and Arroyo. Three minutes later, Ms Hopkins, who happens also to be the mayor’s chief of staff â€" a direct and serious conflict of interest, as Corporation Counsel works for the entire City,  and not just for the executive branch, (This might be just what city council needed to get the courts to allow them to hire their own lawyer!) arrived on the scene and claimed to have no knowledge of her department’s supposed decision in the case. She asked for a moment to be closeted with Shirtsleeve from ZBA and emerged with the decision that a hearing would be held after all, although only two other speakers would be allowed to testify in addition to the three appellants.
At 2:15 the hearing took place. Lee Eiseman, clerk of Gaiety Theatre Friends, Ching-In of AARW, a representative of the Chinese Residents Association and City Councilors Turner, Â Hennigan, Yancey and Arroyo spoke in behalf of our position that The Gaiety remains a theater and that the ZBA needs to deny demolition. Hennigan asked unsuccessfully, that ZBA put a stay on the demolition to prevent destruction during ZBA deliberations.
Councilor Kelly stood up to speak against the appeals. Â He told the board that he had not been in any theatre called the Gaiety in all his years here (he later was informed by the Gaiety Friends that it was called the Publix Theatre in his day, and he reluctantly realized that they were one and the same theatre, and that he had been there). Â He told the councilors of color that they have plenty of problems in their own district and suggested that they take care of those first (illustrating one reason they still have so many problems in their own district…) Â He parroted the Kensington line that a change of use permit had been issued for the theater in 1988 so it wasn’t even legally a theatre since then (Shirley interrupted to notify the room that this was a three-year temporary permit, which she later showed a disbelieving Kelly, adding that the developer had put him up to saying things that are wrong without telling him the truth.) Â He professed his profound concern for the affordable housing units Kensington would provide to this desperately needy Chinatown community (which burst into audible giggling, evoking a threat of “no more hearing for you” from ZBA chairman Shortsleeve). Â He talked about the need for the jobs and economic development (Shirley later suggested he speak to Joe Nigro, who had only last week agreed with her that Kensington was not going to build anything on that site any time soon). Â Shirley also revealed to him the two floors adding 12 large condo units Kensington had secretly drawn on their half-completed schematic drawings. Â The lawlessness of adding two stories didn’t seem to sink in, but he did seem to rejoice that the building would now produce twelve more “housing units.” Â Desperately needed by those desperate Chinatown folks. Â Even at three million dollars each.
Mathew Kiefer, the lawyer for Kensington Investments the Gaiety’s owner spoke in opposition, repeating all the misleading statements and half-truths (i.e., half-lies) that he knows no one on the board will be able to, or care to, challenge.
The ZBA will send the issue to the city law department (yes, Merita Hopkins) for recommendation. Â We don’t know when the decision will be issued. Â We can expect no reversal of the permit; all that we’ll learn is the cooked-up legal basis, whereupon a lawsuit should be filed. Â We need a pro-bono lawyer. Â Please help us find one!
Clearly, the ZBA would have preferred not to make a decision, because decision’s can be appealed. Their refusal to hear the case would have needed to have been met with a writ of mandamus which might not have succeeded in forcing them to act.
We expect a denial. Then we will come to our friends for help in an appeal which may or may not save The Gaiety, but might very likely send a message about lawlessness at City Hall. It might also result in saving another theater or neighborhood.
The Bostonian Society Library has this photo of Huntington Avenue, looking northeast, with the Prudential Tower under construction in the background. Near the right side of the photo, a sign on the side of a building says “SACK’S CAPRI”. Below it and further to the right, you can barely make out a theatre marquee.
Given the location, this must be the second Capri (formerly Strand), not the first Capri (formerly Copley).
The accompanying description says that the marquee advertises Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina, but you certainly can’t see this from the online version of the photo. The description dates the photo to “ca. 1960”.
A 1953 photo, described here. In this photo, the marquee says “Beacon Hill” and advertises a “New England premiere” of Noel Coward’s “Tonight at 8:30”.
This 1925 photo (described here) shows the Palace’s marquee (at far left), but unfortunately not much else of the building. Across the street you can also see a vertical sign for the Star Theatre (later renamed Rialto).
A picture postcard of Washington Street, from sometime between 1930 and 1945, described here.
In the left foreground is the vertical sign and marquee for the RKO Keith-Boston theatre. Further down the left side of the street you can see vertical signs for the Olympia (later renamed to Pilgrim) and the Globe (later renamed to Center).
On the right side of the street is the marquee for the Park (later renamed to Trans-Lux and finally to State) and, further down, a vertical sign for the Gayety (later renamed to Victory and finally to Publix).