Soon, no more time warp again in Harvard Square

Never saw the Rockey Horror whatever there. I just thought it was a nice theater. I've seen quite a few movies there are much preferred it to the Boston Common theater.

I think there's a tremendous opportunity out there for an author who wants to put together a book about the demise of the 80s multiplex. They're bemoaned for killing off or subdividing the gorgeous, gilded movie houses that came before and breeding the googleplexes that followed, but that seems a lazy oversimplification.

For a generation, these places and their immediate whiff of popcorn and sound of arcade games in the lobby WERE the cinema experience. It's where we saw Friday The 13th, Back To The Future and Goonies for the first time. It's where we saw Batman, Dick Tracy and the blockbusters that begat today's blockbusters. Moreover, they were the last example of a movie as a destination event. The empty halls of Cleveland Circle cinemas and the blank marquees and decaying facilities of abandoned Showcase Cinemas along I-84 and I-90 are sad reminders of a time when suburbanites would go miles out of their way to see a movie without having it couched in a dining or shopping experience.

Like indoor malls, these multiplexes are an ingrained memory for lots of suburban kids of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Those same kids are now members of the Brattle or Coolidge and watch big releases in the city-bound Common or Kendall. The films first shown on their screens still echo in theaters today (I think of The Room or Super 8). When the multiplexes are discussed today, it's never with nostalgia, but with shame and regret. It's revisionist history and it's at least a bit dishonest.

The Brattle (rightfully) gets the accolades because it's what the audience believes a theater should be. Yet its 80s retrospectives and midnight showings owe a great deal to the multiplexes and are, perhaps, a better reflection of the multiplex generation of moviegoers.

Yes lets all talk about corporate greed, destroying landmarks and gentrification, and gloss over the fact that the showings of the RHPS have declined in ticket sales and attendance in the last 5-6 years. Eventually the guy who plays Frankenfurter got old or heavy. This is less about a venue and more about a cast. The people I know who were into about 5-6 years ago were in their mid 30s and eventually had to move on.

There comes a point where certain things aren't fun anymore. As for a 'teen outlet' I think the youngest person in the cast was 23. It may have been a late night rush to attend in high school (which I did a few times) but if you want to blame anyone, blame the vapid youth of today who'd rather text or post on FB during movies.

Sorry folks, save your liberal outrage for something else. We can talk about the 'gentrification' of Harvard Square, etc, but you'll go back to your starbucks, your free wifi, and your truffle fries and just hohum about how things have changed.

Bummer, I've been going to this one a lot for stuff that doesn't come up at Somerville Theatre. How are the theatres at Fresh Pond? I'd heard they're a bit divey, but don't wanna have to drive to Revere or go all the way into the Common.

This is a loss for Harvard Square. But Harvard Square has been transforming into an outdoor mall of national brands for years. If Harvard Square had the physical space to support another absurdo-plex such as the Common and Fenway then perhaps first run cinema would return to the Square. For movies it's about scale: the most screens run by the fewest employees.

I see this as a continuation of scaling retail businesses to mammoth sizes in order to maximize the per employee output as well force manufacturers to sell at the lowest cost possible (regardless of who pays for that low cost). Walmart is the king of that game. Whether this is a winning game for communities or a nation is another question.

Goods are sold at the lowest retail possible. But do we pay a price for low cost? Would more people by employed in smaller and local retail if the Walmarts and Targets did not exist? My guess is that the answer is yes. The profit that is earned by the big box stores also leaves the local economy sooner and so does not circulate as much locally. The result is that less local circulation means fewer tax dollars for maintaining paying for publicly funded goods.

It also means greater homogenization of with an emphasis on uniformity instead of quality. The homogenization also results in loosing identity though that is probably of little importance to most. The negative economic impact is also increased: When a big box store closes a store it means a larger hole in the local economy and a hole in the physical location. If a big box corporation goes belly up (e.g,. Circuit City) the results are that large numbers of people layed off with greater harm to the national economy.

The Irish potato famine is a good analogy. The famine happened in part due to reliance upon a single variety of potato. One disease wiped out the majority of food for the Irish nation. Had there been greater variety and diversity perhaps the famine would not have happened.

Reliance upon too few employers, businesses and suppliers will have the same result. How few near or actual bankruptcies of a small number of financial corporations severely damaged the U.S. and global economies?

"Much needed social outlet for teens?"

Look, I love the movie, but what planet does this guy live on? Teens watch this movie on VH1 every Halloween.

Struedel

Yes, in h.s. took a bunch of german exchange students to RHPS in harvard square (1985 or 86?). One of the students had been so thoughtful and baked a struedel for me as a gift and presented it to me in front of the theater just before the midnight show...
Who the hell wants to carry struedel to RHPS & then lug it home on the train to dorchester?

obviously not me.

so during the "Toast!" I lobbed the strudel.

I seriously have guilt feelings over this and hope that the exchange student never saw what I did.

However, I can't help but laugh every time I think of the poor schlub who ended up wearing my strudel home.

mea culpa

No one has mentioned that this is one of the last old-time theatres in metro Boston -- certainly the last to be operated by a cinema chain. The Coolidge, Somerville, Capitol in Arlington, West Newton, and Lexington theatres are all independents.

It's also one of the last Boston-area cinemas near a subway station. The only others that come to mind are Boston Common, Fenway, Coolidge, and Somerville. No, Kendall and Fresh Pond are NOT convenient to the T, in my opinion.

The theatre opened in 1926 as the University Theatre. I think there's still a faded sign for the University painted high up on a wall, facing Church St.

The entrance was originally through a storefront facing Mass. Ave., I think where the convenience store is now.

An elderly neighbor of mine once told me that her older sister had gone to see a film there on a nice September day in 1938. She came out of the theatre to discover the great hurricane blowing through Harvard Square. My neighbor hadn't gone with her sister, because she wasn't old enough.

It was independently operated well into the 1970s. In the late 1960s or early '70s it changed from first-run to a policy of second run double-bills, a different pair of films every day. It was also used for concerts. In one very famous show, Bruce Springsteen opened for Bonnie Raitt on May 9, 1974; Jon Landau wrote a review for the Real Paper that said "I saw rock 'n' roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen."

It also hosted "Oh! Calcutta!" when that show was banned in Boston (but not banned in Cambridge), and a noted lecture series by Leonard Bernstein.

In the early or mid 1970s it was converted first to a two-screen house if I recall correctly. When USA Cinemas (mentioned by Ron above) bought it, they converted it to a multiplex and moved the entrance to Church St. When multiplexes first came into fashion, of course, many of them were created by dividing up older theatres.

The mural facing Church St. was painted by Josh Winer in 1983.

A big question in my mind is what will happen to the building. Perhaps an independent operator will be interested in buying it? Yes, it's valuable real estate, but Harvard Square is a historic district and city permission will be required to demolish it.

According the Cambridge Assessor's Database, the building is owned by "THEATRE HOLDINGS, INC. , C/O LEASE ADMINISTRATION" at 920 Main St., Kansas City, MO. Google and Wikipedia report that this address is the corporate HQ of American Multi Cinema Inc. a/k/a AMC Entertainment Inc.

was a shitty place to see a movie. Sayonara.

I barely go to the show anymore because the general moviegoing public sucks.