Blanchard's Theatre

The Strand was up the block to the left. The Strand vertical sign was put on the Blanchard’s building to attract people passing along Main Street. If you look closely you’ll see a small arrow pointing up Elm Street at the bottom of the sign. The entrance to Blanchard’s Theatre was near the center of the Main Street side of the building, with the word “THEATRE” above it.

Blanchard’s Theatre and the Strand were two different houses, and the Strand’s predecessor, the Hippodrome, was not a theater but a multi-use public hall. Blanchard’s Theatre was a 1,100 seat house built behind the 1860 Edwards Block and opened on November 28, 1911. Its entrance was on Main Street, and can be seen in the 1927 post-fire photo on the photo page. Like the later Strand, Blanchard’s was designed by architect Louis Destremps, and though built primarily for stage productions it was equipped to show movies from the time of its opening.

The Blanchard Brothers built the Hippodrome on a large lot behind the Blanchard Theatre in 1916, and for about a decade it was used as a dance hall, skating rink, and exhibition space. In late 1925 the Blanchards decided to convert the Hippodrome building into a regular theater, and it opened as the Strand on January 14, 1926. A long entrance hall led from the entrance on Elm Street to the auditorium, which seated nearly 2,000. A commodious stage with a proscenium forty feet wide was provided for vaudeville and other theatrical productions.

The Blanchard brothers operated the Strand until their retirement, after which it became part of the Interstate Theatres chain (the one based in New England, not to be confused with the Interstate Theatres chain based in Texas.) The last show at the Strand was on February 28, 1965. Historic aerial views show that the theater’s entrance building had been demolished by 1966, but the auditorium building was still standing as late as 1977. By 1992 it too was gone, replaced by a parking lot.

Blanchard’s Theatre operated at least until the fire of January 13th, 1927. I don’t know if it reopened after that, but the building was rebuilt and the likely address of the theater, 293 Main Street, is today the home of a Spanish language Evangelical church, but it’s impossible to tell from the street views whether the church is in the old auditorium or merely in the storefronts where (and adjacent to) the theater’s entrance was.

The vanished Strand Theatre is still recalled in Southbridge’s street nomenclature. The alley that runs between the rebuilt Blanchard building and the site of the Strand appears on maps as Strand Place.

This web page has a description of the Strand from a Southbridge Evening News article published at the time if its opening. This page has a few photos and some ads and flyers published by the theater in its heyday.

Of the 3 old photos posted, only the second one which shows a small 2-story building matches the photo on the 1941 MGM Theatre Report for the Strand on Elm St. in Southbridge. The big color photo appears to have 1960-era cars in it, with a Strand Theatre at the far left end of the business block. That photo isn’t anything like the 1941 MGM photo.

I lived in Southbridge on Mechanic Street till 1961 and use to walk to a movie theatre. It might have been this one.

The 2 photos, from 1920 and 1927, posted by Ken Mc on Nov 17 2007 are of the same building, from 2 different vantage points. The theatre entrance bears no resemblance at all to the Strand’s entrance in the 1941 MGM photo and Lost’s photo of Oct 28 2005. The newer entrance is a small 2-story building with a store on the left and the theatre lobby on the right. After the 1927 fire, were they able to salvage the auditorium, or was the entire theatre complex of new construction ? Was the Strand which opened in 1926 a reworking of the Blanchard Theatre; then it was burned out in 1927? Then the Strand was rebuilt with a new entrance, or was the entire post-fire Strand Theatre a new building ??

I agree. I’ve made the same assertion based on newspaper accounts of fires only to find out later that the theater was rebuilt and demolished years later.

I’ve been down that path before. A lot of these theaters that are “destroyed” are rehabbed and put back to work.

Here is an interior photo:
http://tinyurl.com/3c49ys

Found a photo on a library website which shows the damage by fire to the Strand Theatre on the corner of Main and Elm Streets on 13 Jan 1927.http://dlib.cwmars.org

The MGM Theatre and Photograph Report for the Strand Theatre on Elm St. in Southbridge has an exterior photo taken in May 1941. The entrance was on the right side of a 2-story building with a shop to the left. There was a glittering marquee with the movies posted in black letters on a white background: Lucille Ball in “A Girl, A Guy and a Gob”, plus “Border Vigilantes” . The Report states that the Strand has been showing MGM product for over 10 years; that it’s over 15 years old, is in Good condition, and has 1,586 seats. There were no other competing theatres in Southbridge and the 1940 population was 16,800.