Paris Cinema—from Palace to Porn to Worcester Icon

Beginning on August 1, I’ll be hanging some digitally-enhanced photos of Worcester landmarks in a two-person exhibit called “Welcome to Worcester.”

The exhibit is the brainchild of Elizabeth Hughes who owns the Futon Company shop at 129 Highland Street in Worcester. Elizabeth doesn’t just sell futons—she also encourages local artists by exhibiting their work on the walls of the store.

It was Elizabeth’s idea to call the show “Welcome to Worcester” and to feature some of the city’s iconic landmarks as portrayed by Doug Chapel in his illustrations and in my photographs, which I have digitally enhanced.

The terrific vintage-style postcard advertising the show was designed by Elizabeth’s sister, Victoria Hughes Waters. It demonstrates how Doug Chapel and I differently portray the Coney Island Hotdogs restaurant with its famous neon sign.

The show will also be featured on Sunday, Aug. 8 at “Art in the Parking Lot” across the street from the Futon Company in the Sole Proprietor’s lot--along with local artists, live art and all sorts of surprises.

The reception for “Welcome to Worcester” will be held on Thursday, Sept. 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Futon Company and among the treats will be Coney Island’s famous hot dogs.

While photographing some of the funky Worcester landmarks that Doug has immortalized in his cartoons, I learned a lot about their history.

I already knew about the saga of the Paris Cinema (originally called the Capitol Theatre) which is on Worcester’s Common, behind City Hall. I first researched it for Preservation Worcester back in 2005. By then, what had begun as a palatial movie palace in the 1920’s had deteriorated into a seedy “Adult Cinema” offering gay porn. In January of 2005, according to an article in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, “a series of police raids resulted in the arrests of 22 men for engaging in sexual acts in the theater, some in groups and others by themselves.” City Manager Michael V. O’Brien said that the cinema “painted an ugly picture of downtown at a time he’s pushing for revitalization.”

In January, 2006, the Paris Cinema was closed down by the authorities and has sat empty ever since, awaiting the wrecking ball, but Preservation Worcester has been trying to save it from this fate. The theater was once the pride of Worcester. Inside, much of the original architectural splendor is still there, although in a dilapidated condition.



As I wrote in my summary for Preservation Worcester’s “Most Endangered” list, the Capitol Theatre (now Paris Cinema) is a rare surviving example of the “atmospheric” theaters that were popular across the United States during the movie palace era of the early 20th century. Architect John Eberson developed the atmospheric style of theater design in 1923. He wanted to distract Americans from life’s problems by creating an atmosphere of rest and beauty, “a magnificent amphitheatre under a glorious moonlit sky in an Italian garden, in a Persian court, in a Spanish patio or in a mystic Egyptian templeyard, all canopied by a soft moonlit sky” as he put it.

Eberson had his own alliterative slogan for what he was doing: “Prepare Practical Plans for Pretty Playhouses—Please Patrons—Pay Profits.”

(Don’t you love the alliteration and the optimism of the era—it’s a far cry from being raided by the police for encouraging public group sex.)

Originally seating 2,500, the 1926 Capitol Theatre was the first of three atmospheric palace theaters built in Worcester in the late 1920’s. It allowed its patrons to live the fantasy of attending a show in an outdoor amphitheater in Spain.



Not only was its interior elaborately detailed with decorative plaster and wrought iron in the Spanish style, but the impression was enhanced by projectors that created the effect of twinkling stars and moving clouds on the arched ceiling of its auditorium and second floor mezzanine lobby. Although the building was converted to a multiplex cinema in the 1960’s, much of the interior and ornamental detailing still survives. But no one knows in what condition….

When photographing the Paris Cinema, I made one photo which shows the place in the rather grim (yet graphically sophisticated) condition it’s in today, incorporating an empty storefront and an African hair braiding shop, but in the other photo I’m submitting to the show, I used color to suggest the fantasy palace that it was at the beginning—a place designed to distract the citizens of Worcester from the harsh realities of the Depression by providing them a fantasy for a few hours that they were viewing the glamorous world of 1930’s Hollywood from a seat in a Spanish amphitheater, under the twinkling stars and moving clouds.