We had a pass to the Strand in the 1960s when it was on its last legs as a first run movie theatre and so I saw quite a few movies there with my Dad. It was a beautiful theatre with an amazing interior, much larger and more interesting than the smaller Majestic Theatre up the street. As a young child I remember going to a gala re-opening after it been rennovated in the early 60s after a fire had shut it down for a while. There’s a story that one of the original owners, Archibald Silverman, placed three portraits in the lobby: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and himself.
During the time that the Strand devolved a porn theatre, and eventually closed as a movie theatre altogether, with just offfice rental space remaining for quite a while. The Majestic Theatre was taken over by Trinity Repertory Company and the Loew’s State Theatre, now the Providence Center for the Performing Arts, was declared a national landmark. I always wondered why the Strand’s fate had to be so different.
We had a pass to the Strand in the 1960s when it was on its last legs as a first run movie theatre and so I saw quite a few movies there with my Dad. It was a beautiful theatre with an amazing interior, much larger and more interesting than the smaller Majestic Theatre up the street. As a young child I remember going to a gala re-opening after it been rennovated in the early 60s after a fire had shut it down for a while. There’s a story that one of the original owners, Archibald Silverman, placed three portraits in the lobby: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and himself.
During the time that the Strand devolved a porn theatre, and eventually closed as a movie theatre altogether, with just offfice rental space remaining for quite a while. The Majestic Theatre was taken over by Trinity Repertory Company and the Loew’s State Theatre, now the Providence Center for the Performing Arts, was declared a national landmark. I always wondered why the Strand’s fate had to be so different.