CultureNOW - Washington Street at West Street: Peter Vanderwarker

Washington Street at West Street

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ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"One of the handsomest rows of commercial buildings in Boston’s history is seen in the older of these two photos. Made in 1906, the photo on the left shows the west side of Washington Street between West and Boylston. Sunshine dapples the facades – they are mostly hotels and theaters - as it shines on the awnings and deep-set windows. At the left of the photo the row of buildings bends, holding the curve of Washington Street and giving the street space a firm wall that makes it feel like a richly paneled outdoor room.

Only one building remains in the new photo, made in 1987. It is 545 Washington, just right of the Paramount Theater. Hideously renovated at street level, 545 nevertheless still looks good and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

A short history of the American theater could be written about these buildings. The former Savoy Theater, originally called the Keith Memorial and now the Boston Opera House (at far right in the new photo), was one of the most lavish vaudeville and film palaces ever built. Al Jolson and George M. Cohan opened it in 1928. It was built on the foundations of an earlier theater, the

Boston (barely visible in the old photo), where Edwin Booth appeared on the night his brother shot Abraham Lincoln, where Caruso, Mahler, Paderewski, and Sarah Bernhardt performed, and where Helen Keller read Longfellow at her graduation from the Perkins School for the Blind.

Another famous theater, B. F. Keith’s, was located behind 545 Washington, which was serving as its entrance at the time of the old photo. Keith’s, built in 1894, became known as the birthplace of American vaudeville. In earlier years, 545 had held the Lion Theater (1835), a minstrel hall (1859), the Gaiety Theater (1878), and a ‘Museum of Curiosities.’ Amazingly enough, there were at various times yet two more theaters, the Bijou and the Modem (now Mayflower), flanking the Savoy.

Still another theater is the Paramount of 1932, probably Boston’s most elaborate example of the Art Deco style. It has long been dark, and its gaudy marquee is in disrepair, but its sleek interiors of ebony, walnut, aluminum, and gold remain. A designated Boston landmark, it still awaits a long-promised restoration.

No strip of Boston is more richly endowed with history than this block. As lower Washington Street comes back from recent decades of abandonment and neglect, these buildings may regain the life they once embodied so fully."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Curtain call: Echoes of greatness in the theater district," Boston Globe, 30 August 1987

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Location

Washington Street & West Street
Boston, MA 02111
United States

Nearby Items

Ritz and Paramount		156 feet
Washington Street at Lafayette Place		183 feet
The Paramount Center		319 feet
Paramount Theater		326 feet
Washington Street at Adams House		579 feet
Chauncy Street		781 feet
Chauncy Street at Bedford Street		833 feet