Paramount Theatre
299 Washington Street,
Newton,
MA
02458
299 Washington Street,
Newton,
MA
02458
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Growing up in neighboring Watertown, back in the 50’s 60’s, most of my movie experiences were at The Coolidge theatre in East Watertown on Mt. Auburn St. However there were many times when I went to The Paramount. It was a single screen in those days, a really beautiful theatre. Some of the movies I remember seeing there, “Dementia 13” (Francis Ford Coppola first film) “I Saw What You Did” (William Castle classic) “Shaft” (Gordon Parks classic) and “In the Heat of the Night” (Academy Award winner, I’ll never forget it!) GREAT memories at The Paramount in Newton.
1,268 most likely comes from a Film Daily Yearbook listing. The FDY was not always accurate, but sometimes it was. The MGM reports were probably more accurate, but the one Ron cited was from 1941, and during the war many large, old theaters covered over their disused orchestra pits and added a couple more rows of seats because business was booming and it was very difficult for chains to get new theaters built due to restrictions on new construction, so it was a cheap way to add new capacity.
Seating capacities tended to fluctuate over the years, anyway (re-seating with larger seats and maybe wider rows, part or all of a balcony being closed off as business declined, seats from the front rows being removed to replace broken seats farther back in the house in theaters that couldn’t afford new replacements, etc.,) and theater operators, for various reasons (such as the union regulation that once required two projectionists in houses with more than 1,000 seats, leading managers to sometimes undercount,) didn’t always give accurate counts, so the exact number of seats in any given theater at any given time is often moot. For these reasons I look at the seat counts at Cinema Treasures as usually being no more than ballpark figures.
As for the demolition date, Ron Newman’s comment of March 28, 2006, cites a September 6, 1982, newspaper article saying that the entire block was slated for demolition to make way for an office building, and the Paramount was the last business on the block that was still open, so the closing and demolition most likely took place in late 1982 or early 1983. The 3-story brick office block on the site now has a very 1980s look.
Cinema Treasures says the Paramount Theatre seated 1,268. Ron Salters commented (on April 2, 2006 at 8:59 am) that the Paramount seated 1,212 — 760 on the main floor and 452 in the balcony. Does anyone know for sure who is correct? Also, when did the Paramount close and when was it demolished?
The Paramount was most likely this theater project noted in the September 22, 1921, issue of Engineering News-Record
“Beacon” was an obvious typo for Bacon Street. An item in the July 28 issue of the same publication had said that plans for a theater on Washington Street for the Newton Theater Company were begin prepared by the Boston firm of Desmond & Lord. George Henri Desmond was also the architect of the Portland Theatre in Portland, Maine. The firm also drew plans for a large theater in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1922, but I haven’t yet been able to identify it, assuming it was completed.The heading above says that the Paramount had 1,268 seats. There are 2 movie theaters listed under Newton MA in the 1927 Film Daily Yearbook. One of them, the Community Theatre, also has 1,268 seats. It was open 6 days per week. Was the Community a prior name for the Paramount?? The other movie theater was the Newton Opera House, with 1,200 seats, also open 6 days/week.
funnydave—Yes, my remembrance of the Paramount is that it was more opulent than even the Embassy in Waltham, though in my mind either could have been a Broadway-type theater with a little sprucing up. I’ve actually never been to a Broadway theater, only an off-Broadway venue in the Village and the Beacon Theater in NY, but I am basing this perspective on my attendance at theaters in Boston’s theater district—the Colonial, Shubert and Wilbur Theaters, also the Orpheum (for concerts). Also, I think I’ve seen enough films and TV video of NYC theaters to have an awareness of their appearances, at least superficially. Suffice to say the Paramount was a classier venue than any of these cineplexes one will find today, all so generic looking.
jimmo, when you say that the Paramount was “in the tradition of moviehouses that resembled their dramatic-programmed kin,” do you mean that it looked like a performing arts center (opera house or Broadway-type theatre)? If so, Do you think it could conceivably have been converted into one?
The Paramount was part of the M&P chain. When they diversed after the war to American Theatres Corp.(ATC) and New England Theatres Corp. (NETCO) Netco took the Paramount and ATC took the West Newton theatre.
does anyone have any knowledge or information an an event at the Paramount in the early 1950s? At the opening of the movie Cinderella, there was a contest to find a local “Miss Cinderella”. The winner and her date was escorted to a Mercury convertible to be chauffered around for the evening. Ed Sullivan made appearance at the Lincoln-Mercury dealership either that evening or soon after. I’m specifically looking for an article about the event but any info you might have would be appreciated. (Researching it for my father, Rodd Exelbert, who was involved in the event.) Thanks!
This was a great & grand theater, in the tradition of moviehouses that resembled their dramatic-programmed kin; spacious lobby and balcony, elegant and winding staircase, admission & refreshments affordable to children & families, and located in a city center, in the heart of a community—a palace of prodigious projections!
Though I lived in next-door neighbor Waltham, quite often when going to Saturday or Sunday matinees with my sister and aunt(s), we would choose this Newton venue because of its next-best proximity. Also, since my aunts lived in the other-side neighbor of Watertown, which didn’t have as impressive or close-by a theater (and later none at all), but which town’s square was just a few minutes'cab ride to Newton Corner, and because of my father’s family’s roots in Newton (in fact, my Dad’s brother in-law owned Newton Glass Co., a picture-framing store around the corner from this theater), or maybe just because sometimes the films we were choosing weren’t playing at Waltham’s old Embassy, we opted for the Paramount.
Development around the Massachusetts Turnpike resulted in many changes over the years in the retail landscape of the area in which this theater was situated, but it was still a perfect location, right off the Pike and a with bus stop at its front door—so a great spot for children, students & pedestrians dependent upon public transportation! There was also a small-but-adequate municipal parking lot in back of this retail block. And there was a great pizza shop around the corner, on the next block, called Pellegrini’s—one of those real Italian establishments where they threw the pizza dough up in the air, in the window for passers-by to watch. Later, in the early ‘70s came the more atmospheric Boston Seafood Restaurant, and, I believe on the same block as the Paramount was also one of a small chain of donut shops called “Cottage Donuts,†the central products of which had a flavor all their own—somehow crisper and different from the doughy spheres churned out by that Boston-based institution which became the international Dunkin’ Donuts empire, or those produced by the small-but-larger-than-Cottage chain known as “Mister Donut.â€
Across the street from the Paramount, hung out over the Pike like a large, festering concrete sore thumb, loomed a real symbol of corporate and financial growthâ€"a complex that included a branch of a large banking institution, a Howard Johnson’s Hotel & Restaurant, and a Red Coach Grill Restaurant (now a Sheraton Hotel and Applebee’s). The era of chains and expanded office and condo development were pushing the smaller retail shops and independent theaters off the map! The Paramount’s place amidst all this “progress†meant its days were numbered!
Actually, I do have a few fond memories of some warm family meals at that Howard Johnson’s, which surprisingly had a pretty good spaghetti & meat sauce dinner on Wednesdays (which in Boston, as many then knew, was “Prince Spaghetti Dayâ€). I even worked washing dishes at that Red Coach Grill, lasting just one school night before I realized its impracticality, since, with busses no longer running, after each shift’s conclusion would necessitate my father having to retrieve me in his car right around the time he would have been heading off to bed himself!
In any event, while the Paramount prevailed, I do recall seeing “Bambi†there, on a double-bill with the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis comedy, “Pardners.” I also remember having seen “Mary Poppins†at the ‘Mount, one of the couple of times I saw it in a theater. I went to the Paramount much more as a child than in adolescence, just took it for granted that it would always be there, just as I had with my hometown theater, the Embassy. If I had known the fate that awaited the single-screen movie theaters, I certainly would have availed myself more of that great movie palace’s grandeur while I had the chance!
Why on earth didn’t we all start a revolt against the coming age of Cineplex’s?
I think there’s a Bertucci’s Pizza chainstore now, where Pelligrini’s once featured the white-aproned Donatello doughboys putting on their window shows, and probably a Dunkin' Donuts and/or Starbucks in place of the Cottage coffee & donut shop, where townie retirees once spent their mornings reading the “Record American” while getting 10-cent Java refills; on the block where formerly flourished fleeting, flickering moments of majesty at a movie palace called The Paramount!
I’d very much like to read that book — please find out its name and author.
I can’t speak to the Natick or Wellesley Hills theaters, but I grew up in Newton Corner in the 1970s; there’s no comparison between the West Newton and the old Paramount.
I was terribly up in arms when they tore down that whole block. There’s a book about the destruction, in which my father was interviewed, I could try to find out the name of the book. If my memory serves me correctly the block had already been vacated so the building could be torn down (it was replaced by an office building).
The only thing I remember about the Paramount at this point was that I saw “The Empire Strikes Back” there with a friend, the first time I’d gone to the movies without an adult present. My best friend and I formed a “gang” called “The Vikings” in an attempt to combat the destruction of the theater, being about 8 at the time you can imagine how effective that was.
I wonder how they decided such things. West Newton is much closer to Newton Corner than it is to Natick.
The MGM staff did not consider the Newton Th. in West Newton as competition for the Paramount. They issued a seperate Report for the Newton Th. which shows it competing with houses in Natick and Wellesley Hills.
And if the Report stated that, it was wrong. The West Newton Cinema was also open in 1941, though it may have been called just “the Newton” back then.
The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report form for the Paramount in Newton has a facade photo taken in May 1941. The theatre had an impressive entrance which appears to be on a corner. The address is 299 Washington Street in Newton. The Report states that the theatre has been a MGM customer for over 10 years; that it’s over 15 years old; that it’s in Good condition, and has 760 seats on the orchestra floor and 452 in the balcony, total: 1212 seats. The Report states that there were no competing theatres in Newton.
In the Boston Globe archives, I find an article from September 6, 1982:
“A five-alarm fire, with flames that could be seen for miles by motorists on the nearby Massachusetts Turnpike, engulfed a nearly empty row of businesses in Newton Corner last night.
More than 20 companies from Newton and surrounding communities responded to the blaze that tore through the block of Washington street between Bacon and Centre streets.
A few filmgoers at the Paramount Theater, the only business operating in the block of vacant storefronts and apartments, were evacuated as a precautionary measure, but flames did not touch the movie house. Other properties had been vacated last Wednesday, and the block was scheduled for demolition to make way for an office building."
So I’d guess the theatre closed and was demolished soon after this fire. The description would put the theatre on the north side of Newton Corner — not Newton Centre.
Listed in Film Daily Yearbooks, from at least 1941 thru 1950 as being in Newton. Seating capacity given is 1,268. Operated by Paramount Picture Inc. through their subsidairy Mullins & Pinanski.
I remember seeing this theatre advertised up until at least the late 1970s. Is it still standing? What was its address?