W Hotel | 100 Stuart St | Theater District

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Re: W Hotel

That site was a parking lot when I worked at the old Gary Theater across the street. God, that was 40 years ago! I am glad that it has finally been built upon. Now if the last bedraggled remnants of the old Combat Zone could be eliminated, that area would be a prime destination.
 
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Hold the phone ... Gary Theater? Was that the name of the Charles, before?
 
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Ron Newman said:
No. Gary Theatre's entrance was on Stuart Street just west of Tremont. Gary was formerly called the Plymouth before Sack bought it. It was torn down for the State Transportation Buillding. See http://cinematreasures.org/theater/6415/
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Thank you Ron! I am glad that I am not the only one who remembers/looked up the old Gary Theater.

Here is a picture of the theater on flickr. It was once one of Boston's first run theaters:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjf7r/2151633983/
 
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By the late 1970s, Sack usually put its trashiest films in the Gary (and the Saxon around the corner, now the Cutler Majestic)
 
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that second picture is great.. the building looks like a knife!
 
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Shit jesus I want that block back.
 
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TomOfBoston said:
Now if the last bedraggled remnants of the old Combat Zone could be eliminated, that area would be a prime destination.
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Now if the last bedraggled remnants of the old Combat Zone could be brought back, that area would be a prime destination.
 
Re: W Hotel

ablarc said:
Now if the last bedraggled remnants of the old Combat Zone could be brought back, that area would be a prime destination.
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I was referring to the remaining bars and porno shops. I did not mean that those buildings should be demolished.
 
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I think ablarc was referring to the bars and porno shops, too.
 
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Boston's Pigalle -- and no less vibrant in those days.
 
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bdurden said:
Boston's Pigalle -- and no less vibrant in those days.
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If by vibrant you mean open prostitution, including child prostitution, open air drug marts and muggings, then the old Combat Zone was vibrant. I was there in the 60's and 70's. It was a favorite place for neo-yuppies to go slumming, until one Harvard student was murdered there.

I guess some people miss the old Times Square too, which offered the same attractions.
 
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It brought crowds of people downtown. We need to have crowds of people downtown.
 
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TomOfBoston said:
I was referring to the remaining bars and porno shops.
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Me too.

Tom, if you were really there in the Sixties and Seventies, you know it was nowhere near as bad as it's made out to have been. To get into trouble, you had to go looking for it.

(The murdered Harvard student did exactly that.)
 
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ablarc said:
Me too.

Tom, if you were really there in the Sixties and Seventies, you know it was nowhere near as bad as it's made out to have been. To get into trouble, you had to go looking for it.

(The murdered Harvard student did exactly that.)
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Yes, I was really there then.

Trouble sometimes came looking for you though. One night in 1969 I was walking to the Boylston T station after work and ended up in the ER. I was cut by flying glass when a bouncer at a Tremont St. bar decided to eject a rowdy patron through a plate glass window.
 
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Heck, as recently as the 80's/early 90's the Combat Zone was pretty bad. My parents owned a business in the area so I got to experience it in a rather direct fashion. After dark, drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, theives, gang members, and other assorted thugs would roam the area, clearly up to no good. It was so blatant. And I never once saw a police officer on foot after dark, and seldom a squad car for that matter.

It sure was vibrant though, just not the kind of vibrant most people want.
 
Re: W Hotel

TomOfBoston said:
Yes, I was really there then.

Trouble sometimes came looking for you though. One night in 1969 I was walking to the Boylston T station after work and ended up in the ER. I was cut by flying glass when a bouncer at a Tremont St. bar decided to eject a rowdy patron through a plate glass window.
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Well, you weren't singled out. That could have happened at the Black Rose.
 
Re: W Hotel

JSic said:
My parents owned a business in the area so I got to experience it in a rather direct fashion.
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Doubtless they influenced your perceptions.

JSic said:
And I never once saw a police officer on foot after dark, and seldom a squad car for that matter.
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Can't understand how you can say this. The cops were always there, and very visible at that. They sat in their squad cars or atop their Harleys (and undoubtedly they collected protection money). The area was safe.
 
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