The Somerville Theatre, since 1914

[ron_newman]

David Guss's Lost Theatres website has two big Flash photo essays about the history of the Somerville Theatre and its surrounding neighborhood, from 1914 to the current day.

Somerville Theatre: 1914-1925
Somerville Theatre: 1926-2003

and, while you're at it, also look at Day Street Olympia

Comments

[spatch]

Nice pictures. Shame about the clunky Flash UI, though.

The cross-section plan shows a "gallery" underneath the balcony seating. Is that still there? Is it just used as storage today?

it's deceiving...

[julishka.livejournal.com]

the "gallery" is from where you access the balcony. it's the hall that runs behind the upstairs seating. when you walk out into the balcony, there are seats back above you.

Re: it's deceiving...

[ron_newman]

Back when Garen Daly ran the theatre, in the 1980s, I think this area may have contained a secondary concession stand -- though I don't recall it ever being used.

Re: it's deceiving...

[ron_newman]

Yeah, it's the second floor lobby. Here's a Flash-free, direct link to that blueprint.

(Would an architect today use the word "Vomitory" to describe the entrance from that lobby to the balcony?)

[ron_newman]

Probably storage, but I don't know for sure. Stop by the theatre and ask the manager, Ian Judge -- he'll know.

I'm not a big fan of Flash either, but it's easy to get access to the underlying XML, which contains all of the text and links to all of the photos:

Somerville1 album.xml
Somerville2 album.xml
Day Street album.xml

(In most browsers, you'll need to do a "View Source" after clicking any of these links.)

Perhaps I should re-acquaint myself with XSLT and turn these into useful HTML.

[mistergoat.livejournal.com]

Great stuff! Hurrah for local history. Thanks.