One Photo and a Few Words: Part 5
Boston’s theater district keeps the lights burning
One of my favorite places to capture images is Boston. The diversity of faces, statues, and businesses offers many opportunities to find something special.
The theater district, which encompasses Washington, Tremont, and Boylston streets, as well as Huntington Avenue, offers a variety of performances, from annual holiday shows to Broadway shows gracing the city with road companies.
Washington Street is my favorite street to capture in the theater district, home to the Boston Opera House and Emerson Paramount Center. I hoped to capture the colors of the street, but once again, Medium has muted the colors. I decided to brighten the photo to show off the colorful facades.
The lights of the Paramount and Boston Opera House are always lit, even during the day. It’s usually a busy street, and the roads were crowded the day I shot this photo. The fact that Hamilton was playing at the Opera House was a likely contributor to that.
The Boston Opera House sprang to life as the B.F. Keith Memorial Theatre, a movie palace in the Keith-Albee chain. The chain became part of RKO before the theater opened on October 29, 1928.
Fifty years after opening as a movie theater, the building was rededicated in 1980. It became home to the Opera Company of Boston, which performed there until the opera company closed in 1990.
It reopened in 2004 after the building was restored and is now home to the Boston Ballet and hosts touring Broadway shows as well.
The Paramount opened in 1932 as a 1,700-seat movie theatre. It was one of the first movie houses in Boston to play talking motion pictures. The theatre was named after Paramount Pictures. It closed in 1976. In 1984, the building was designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission.
In 2002, Millennium Partners agreed to restore the Paramount’s facade, marquee, and vertical sign in exchange for city approval of their adjacent Ritz-Carlton Towers project.
In April 2005, Emerson College announced plans to renovate the Paramount Theatre and build a performing arts facility in and around the original building. The project was completed in 2010.
If you’ve read this far, thank you for stopping by.
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