The RKO Boston Theatre was a movie theatre in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
, located at 616
Washington Street, near Essex Street in the
Boston Theater District
The Boston Theater District is the center of Boston's theater scene. Many of its theaters are on Washington Street, Tremont Street, Boylston Street, and Huntington Avenue.
History
Plays were banned in Boston by the Puritans until 1792. Bos ...
.
It opened as the Keith-Albee Boston Theatre on October 5, 1925.
[
]
History
The building had originally housed the Henry Siegel Co. department store. The theater section was designed by Thomas W. Lamb[Anthony J. Yudis. "Lafayette Place inspires revitalization; 5 old buildings in lower Washington Street marked for rehabilitation." Boston Globe, November 28, 1982] as part the Keith-Albee-Orpheum
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit.
Hist ...
chain of vaudeville theatres.big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s ...
concerts, and variety theatre performances. Musicians Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" because of his smooth-toned trombo ...
, Glenn Miller and others frequently played the theater. A typical show would be preceded by a Class B movie, newsreel
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...
and coming attractions. Later, it was used for major event pictures using the latest technologies, such as Cinerama
Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporati ...
.[After the RKO-Boston closed, "Cinerama came in Christmas week of 1953 and stayed until around 1969." (CinemaTreasures.org]
RKO Boston Theatre
614 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111. Retrieved March 6, 2012) By the 1970s the theatre was multiplexed, and was called "The Essex", an exploitation movie house.[()]
References
Further reading
* Andrea Shea and David Boeri. "Reclaiming The Glory Of Washington Street’s Past." WBUR, December 21, 2010 (interview with Fred Taylor, who frequented the RKO Theatre in the 1940s)
External links
* Flickr
Milton Berle, Jolly Gillette (Eileen Barton), Al Frazzini, Nat Madison, RKO-Boston Theatre
September 23, 1937.
* Library of Congress
Drawing of Keith Albee New Bijou Theatre
Washington and Essex Streets, Boston, Massachusetts, 1927 (later the RKO-Boston)
* Flickr
RKO Keith-Boston Theatre
Boston, MA - 1933
* Flickr
RKO Keith-Boston Theatre
Boston, MA - 1935
* Flickr
RKO Keith Boston
614 Washington Street, Boston, MA, 1944
* Flickr
Cinerama matchbook
ca.1950s (formerly the RKO-Boston)
* Bostonian Society:
*
Postcard of Washington Street
ca. 1930-1945, showing sign "RKO Keith Boston"
*
Photo of 580-594 Washington Street
ca. 1958 (Cinerama at right; formerly the RKO-Boston)
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1925 establishments in Massachusetts
1970s disestablishments
Cultural history of Boston
20th century in Boston
Boston Theater District
Former theatres in Boston
Former cinemas in the United States
Music venues in Boston