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Disassembly square
By Ron Newman on Thu, 08/21/2014 - 3:07pm
Last Monday, bulldozers finally arrived for the old Loews (née Sack) Assembly Square Cinemas in Somerville. Billy Tauro of The Somerville News Weekly took photos of the demolition.
Once the largest multi-screen complex in New England, the theatre showed its last movie in January 2007. It had been sitting vacant and abandoned ever since. The property owner has not yet announced what it wants to do with the land.
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Comments
Is this the same theater
that was rebranded as SONY Theaters shortly before it closed?
Also, noticed the other day that the platform signs for the new Assembly Square Orange Line station are starting to go in. Interesting that the T is apparently naming the station as only "Assembly" (with no "Square" or "Row" or similar in the name).
Squareless signs
I think that's actually pretty standard. If you look at the signs at Kenmore, Kendall, Central Square, etc. none of them say "Square" either.
Then explain
why Sullivan Square and Jackson Square are fully named istead of being just "Sullivan" and Jackson"
For that matter, and following another poster's lead, why isn't Community College just "Community", or why Malden Center isn't just "Malden", etc..
could be either
could be either
1) it's a reversion to the old naming convention of yore or 2) there's assembly square and also assembly row and other assembly related things that they decided to just amalgamate
For Malden Center instead of Malden, it's good to know where exactly in Malden you're ending up and also provided them with the means to futureproof if they opened another Malden station
Community College is obvious, "community" says nothing about what the point of the stop is about. Calling it Bunker Hill doesn't work either because it's not actually at Bunker Hill and also allows for room if BHCC ever changed its name for some reason
One more: There are no squares on the red line but there are squares on the orange.
There is already another Malden station
which is called Oak Grove. It's almost at the Melrose line, but still in Malden.
Right and that's another
Right and that's another reason why Malden Center makes sense rather than just "Malden"
Sullivan
Well wasn't Sullivan Square the name of the EL station? They just re-used the name when the line to Malden opened.
Unfortunately I can't say the same thing about Jackson Square though since there was no station by that name on the previous EL line.
Malden Center however.. I remember seeing somewhere old maps that did call Malden Center just "Malden" (I know there's a sign at Wellington on the unused track that says "Malden" with an arrow pointing to that spare NB track). An educated guess states that along with the station opening up, Malden also re-configured its downtown area at the same time. Maybe they added center to the name just to make it know that this was in the center of Malden to go along with its reconfiguration.
Community... uh not adding College to the end just wouldn't make sense at all. And like Malden, BHCC opened shortly after Haymarket North opened in the 1971.
I could also argue that Wellington should be named Wellington Circle, if we're keeping up with proper names, since it really was named back when there was a rotary at 28 & 16, which is called (and still called) Wellington Circle.
That's old school station
That's old school station etymology. Where nowadays street name stations are "xxx st" they used to be (and still are) just "xxx." Single named stations are a lot easier to say and remember, thank heaven we don't have "hynes convention center/ica" anymore to think about.
Auditorium
Which everyone I knew called "Auditorium." That's on the Boston Learning Curve, too: learn all the old names for the T stations, and use them.
Old station names lesson
Auditorium was previously named Massachusetts (for Mass. Ave.).
several different chain names over the years
It started as a Sack Theatre, back when Sack was the Boston area's dominant cinema owner.
Sack later merged with another chain, resulting in USACinemas. That chain lasted only a few years before Loews bought them. At some point, Loews rebranded itself as Sony Theatres, but then went back to Loews. Finally, Loews went bankrupt and AMC bought them. AMC kept the Loews branding on many of the theatres it acquired, including this one and Loews Boston Common downtown.
When I visited this theatre on its last day of operation (January 15, 2007), Judy the manager was wearing her old Sack Theatres badge.
Thats almost as bad as
Bank of Boston buying Baybank and becoming BankBoston before becoming FleetBoston before becoming Bank Of America, before becoming the Worst Bank In America.
Or something like that.
The Aristocrats!
The Aristocrats!
Shawmut
ShawmutBayBankBostonFleetofAmerica
We're the one for you, New England
New England Telephone!
Er, NYNEX.
Bell Atlantic.
Verizon.
Whatever.
Thanks Adam
After your post about the path behind Assembly Square a few weeks ago I rode out to take a look myself. It was a fun trip. I hadn't been beyond the Home Depot in Assembly square in a few years now and I didn't realize everything that since been built.
As for the theater, I remember taking the Orange line to whatever stop was closest and then taking that horizontal elevator over to near the theater. That was 15 years ago? To get to the theator you had to walk past the abandoned McDonalds with the collasped ceiling. The Building 19 was still there but closed. The doors had been replaced with plywood and you could peer into the space between the cracks. They kept the lights on but there was nothing but leaves and debris swirling around with the drafts. Fun times with suburban decay.
Horizontal elevator? How did
Horizontal elevator? How did I miss that?
Wellington station "people mover"
He means the little electric shuttle cars that used to run on rails between the Wellington T station and what's now the Station Landing parking garage. It turned out not to work very well in New England weather, and was eventually removed. Now it's just a very long pedestrian bridge.
the Building 19 was originally a Jordan Marsh
which was the mall's main anchor, along with K-Mart (still there). Macy's closed the store a few years after acquiring Jordan Marsh, and Building 19 moved in temporarily after that. Now it's Staples and Christmas Tree Shops.
Well That's a Shame
Well, maybe.
On the one hand, it was kind of an eyesore to have a boarded up theater there. I walk or bike past there to get to the Home Depot.
On the other hand, I was curious why Assembly Row built a new theater right next door when there was this (perfectly good?) disused theater already there. I moved to the area after 2007, so I don't know what the insides looked like when it was nearing the end of its life.
This was a pretty out-of-date theatre when it closed
Little box screening rooms, no stadium seating, no modern sound systems, not even sure it had stereo.
Yes
Last movie I saw there was the Six Sense in 1999. No real reason to go after that, after the Showcase in Revere was remodeled/rebuilt around that time. Far better seating, audio, video... (even that one now is showing its age).
The one in Assembly Square was.. uh. Gross.
Also keep in mind there is a new AMC Theatre in the new buildings at Assmebly Row. I believe AMC was one of the first (next to ikea) that committed to opening up there when this all started almost 10 years ago when the planning first began. It just didnt make sense for Loews to keep an god awful theatre open when there were so many better ones around. (From what I hear the old theatre used to be a teenage hangout in the early 2000s because the prices were so cheap and it was never full)
The main reason is that the
The main reason is that the theater wasn't perfectly good, it was a tremendous dump, and that was 8 years ago before it had actually closed. Imagine another 7 years of vacant decay.
I remember that theater.
I remember that theater. That's where I watched the first movie I ever watch in a theater: Pokemon - the First Movie. Lol. You don't know how much I pleaded my dad to take me. Apparently my brother told me he fell asleep as we watch it.
It's going to be a Partners
It's going to be a Partners Healthcare site.
no, Partners is going on a different parcel of land
the one originally slated for Ikea -- south of Foley Street, east of Assembly Square Drive, across the street from the back of Home Depot.
The old cinema and the office building next to it are not owned by Federal Realty and therefore aren't (yet, anyway) part of Federal's and the city's master plan.