RKO Boston Theatre

The RKO Boston Theatre was a movie theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, located at 616 Washington Street, near Essex Street in the Boston Theater District.[1][2] It opened as the Keith-Albee Boston Theatre on October 5, 1925.[2][3]

Not to be confused with The Boston Opera House, formerly known as the RKO Keith Theatre.

History

The building had originally housed the Henry Siegel Co. department store. The theater section was designed by Thomas W. Lamb[4] as part the Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain of vaudeville theatres.[5] Keith-Albee-Orpheum became part of RKO Pictures in 1928, leading to the theater's renaming.

During this time, it featured film, big band concerts, and variety theatre performances. Musicians Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and others frequently played the theater. A typical show would be preceded by a Class B movie, newsreel and coming attractions.[6] Later, it was used for major event pictures using the latest technologies, such as Cinerama.[3] By the 1970s the theatre was multiplexed, and was called "The Essex", an exploitation movie house.[7]

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References
  1. Elliot Norton (1978), Broadway Down East: an informal account of the plays, players, and playhouses of Boston from Puritan times to the present : lectures delivered for the National Endowment for the Humanities, Boston Public Library Learning Library Program, Boston: Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, ISBN 0-89073-055-5, OCLC 3843437, OL 4720054M, 0890730555
  2. Donald C. King (2005), The Theatres of Boston: a Stage and Screen History, Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co., ISBN 0-7864-1910-5, OL 3392044M, 0786419105
  3. 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)
  4. Anthony J. Yudis. "Lafayette Place inspires revitalization; 5 old buildings in lower Washington Street marked for rehabilitation." Boston Globe, November 28, 1982
  5. Frank Cullen; Florence Hackman; Donald McNeilly (2004). Vaudeville old & new: an encyclopedia of variety performances in America. Psychology Press. pp. 17–. ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2.
  6. Ernie Santosuosso. "Big bands then and now fans danced in the aisles." Boston Globe, November 22, 1987: 117
  7. (Additional environmental data: construction of new federal office building, Boston, Suffolk county, Massachusetts, 1979, OL 24162180M)

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)

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