The Paramount Theater at 549-563 Washington St. was built in 1932 and designed by architect Arthur Bowditch in the Art Deco style, which is a relatively rare form for Boston architecture.
After decades of decay, neglect and outright vandalism which had made them long-standing targets for demolition, a cadre of shuttered theaters along Boston’s Lower Washington Street finally appear to be turning the corner towards salvation. Private and public investment is infusing badly needed repairs and new business plans that should have some of the properties entertaining audiences again as early as next year.
The latest structure spared the wrecking ball – at least temporarily – is the Modern Theater at 523 Washington St. In a move that surprised even some preservationists, Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced earlier this month that the Boston Redevelopment Authority will take the building by eminent domain, with a goal of finding a partner to redevelop the structure and put it back into circulation. The seven-story building has been owned for several years by the Levin Family Trust, but has fallen into grave disrepair.
“The building is useless,” maintained renowned Boston architect Robert G. Neiley, an historic restoration specialist who said the worst damage is to the upper floors. While in favor of keeping the building if it could be done, as some preservationists insist it can, Neiley said he is most interested in ensuring that the Modern’s unique marble and sandstone facade be preserved for the streetscape.
While there has been talk of dismantling the facade and returning it when the property is rehabbed or replaced, Neiley was skeptical.
“Once it’s removed, that’s it,” he said. “It will never come back.”
The facade is critical to support the historic elements of Lower Washington Street, Neiley said, particularly with the more tangible plans already in place to revitalize the adjacent Paramount Theater and Opera House. A group known as Clear Channel has stepped into to renovate the Opera House as a commercial theater by 2004, while Millennium Partners is investing millions of dollars in partnership with several performing arts organizations to reopen the Paramount.
Millennium is best known locally for its massive mixed-use complex just steps away from the Paramount, Opera House and Modern, a development which features a Ritz Carlton Hotel, movie complex and luxury condominiums.
Indeed, one of the ongoing sagas of the city’s efforts to bring back the theaters along Lower Washington Street is the clash between preserving the old and luring in the new in downtown development. Despite his ardor for Boston’s historic fabric, Neiley said he has no qualms about seeing the Lower Washington Street area move into the 21st century with such projects as the Millennium undertaking and Liberty Place, a luxury high-rise apartment building in the once-thriving Combat Zone which appears to have won community support after months of debate.
“I welcome the new development,” Neiley said. “It is going to help Washington Street be lively and healthy into the future.” At the same time, Neiley said the city must remain vigilant to do whatever can be done to preserve the historic aspects of the district, which in its day pioneered some of the country’s most important entertainment advances and programming. The Modern, for example, was the first theater in the country with an electric projector, while the Opera House was considered one of the country’s greatest vaudeville stages. Just down the street at 659 Washington St., the Gaiety Theatre once featured an eight-year-old Sammy Davis Jr. after opening in 1908, and was known for numerous other theatrical milestones.
Efforts are even underway to save the Gaiety, with the Boston Landmarks Commission voting last month to determine whether the abandoned structure should be given a landmark designation. Not everyone is on board with that drive, however, with even Neiley questioning the property’s historic value. Unlike the grand facade of the Modern, Neiley said the Gaiety has nothing of note to offer the street. John Connolly, development advisor to former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, concurred with that outlook.
Under Flynn’s administration, the city rewrote the zoning to promote salvation of old theaters along Lower Washington Street in an area dubbed the Midtown Cultural District. But while Connolly said he believes it is an admirable initiative, and one that has had its successes, he added there is a limit to what can be done to salvage such properties. “There is an enormous cost to bring decrepit properties like that back to conditional use,” said Connolly, who is currently helping Sawyer Enterprises develop a new hotel just up the street.
Even the Modern Theater taking by the city has some questioning just how that building will be saved and used as a theater, considering the competition of nearby facilities and the pending opening of the Paramount and Opera House. “You can’t save them all,” said Neiley. “We’re not the big vaudeville town we once were.”
The Gaiety is already standing in the face of perceived progress, with Kensington Investments aiming to develop a 30-story residential building on the site, which is also known as the Hinge Block. Officials for the developers testified at the recent Boston Landmarks Commission hearing and argued that the building does not meet the special aspects of a property needed to be deemed a landmark.
