Star Theatre
155 Willard Avenue,
Providence,
RI
155 Willard Avenue,
Providence,
RI
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This picture from the early 20th Century shows Bazar’s Hall (entrance right). According to the Images of America volume South Providence, the hall was a center of Jewish social life for the neighborhood. Weddings, dances, lectures, plays took place here. On Friday nights the hall became the neighborhood’s silent movie house, listed in the city directory as the Star. It seems to have been on the second floor.
In fact the buildings in the area all seem to be ancillary medical facilities associated with the hospital. The residential character of the neighborhood has all but vanished, although the theatre itself had to have disappeared eons ago. This may have been South Providence’s only movie theatre ever. The Liberty Theatre/Art Cinema sits in the Elmwood district, on the fringes of South Providence. South Providence, incidentally, is a neighborhood of Providence, not a separate entity as with North Providence or East Providence. There is no such place known as West Providence. South Providence was home to lower working class rsidents, often Irish immigrants in the early decades of the 20th Century. Afro-Americans and Latinos predominate in the area now.