We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
GEORGE SCHUTZ, Editor
THESE THEATRES HAVE BEEN
THE STRAND IN FALL RIVER, MASS.
MODERNI
THE BEACON IN BOSTON
THE STRAND IN THOMPSONVILLE, CONN.
Presenting three remodeling projects recently completed by William Riseman Associates, Boston
when modernization of theatres effects the salvaging of those houses which, though still in potentially productive locations, have lingered on substantially unchanged through a quarter of a century and more, it contributes to the solution of one of the industry's major problems. Obsolescence has overtaken a large portion of the nation's motion picture establishment — not merely superficially, but fundamentally, in function and styling, and often in structure. This is the kind of obsolescence that is dealt with in this presentation.
Three such theatres were the Beacon Hill in Boston, the Strand in Fall River, Mass., and the Strand in Thompsonville, Conn. Each is pictured as it was, and as it has been modernized, in directly comparative photographs. Each presented a different problem but they had general features of obsolescence in common, and they are features that are fairly typical of the problem of obsolescence generally.
In the textual description, therefore, details of both the problem and the treatment are given principally for the Beacon Hill. All three houses have been modernized by William Riseman Associates, Boston architects. The Beacon Hill exemplifies the basic task which the architects encountered also in the other two.
BEACON HILL IN BOSTON
The old Beacon theatre was located in downtown Boston, ore a borderline site between two separate social districts. On oneside a chain of pin-ball palaces and hot-dog establishments extended for two or three blocks until it graduated into a city square of national reputation for low-cost and frivolous entertainment. This district of ill-kept properties, embellished with gaudy displays and a myriad of multi-colored signs, was the habitat of loafers.
On the other side the area spread out into a prosperous, if not elite, shopping district, thickly settled, with such landmarks as the Parker House Hotel, historic King's Chapel, and the gold
19