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Boylston Street's secret theater

WECB reports on the theater built under the M. Steinert & Sons piano store on Boylston Street in 1896 - and still in existence, although:

The curious hall now serves as a mausoleum for dusty, crippled and out-of-use pianos.

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... some Emerson students did a video piece on the hall. It's on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/W254Z7cD1pM

I believe CHRONICLE did a piece on it too,

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Cool video, glad you linked it. And, thanks to Adam for posting this story. Wouldn't have known about this otherwise. These 'hidden Boston' posts are a real gem, along with the 'when/where' photos from the Boston City Archives people.

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It was my understanding that the fire department closed the theater due to insufficient egress and the cost of making it legal was prohibitively impossible.

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Can't we just shoot people out of cannons and into the safety of the outdoors? I've seen it done in circus acts.

Seriously. Do you have a link or anything which has more info? I'm wondering how it is possible to have a safe way out of T stations, but not the theater. I'm interested in learning much more about this.

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After the Cocoanut Grove fire the theater was closed, or at least that's what I was told by an elderly employee some time in the 1980s. I don't think the space has the right number of exits, stair width, and door width to meet the occupancy.

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Tell me this wouldn't be an awesome nightclub or piano/cocktail bar space?

(Providing that you could get the Steinert folks to agree, and deal with the code/egress/construction issues, and get a liquor license)

Gosh if I ever win the lottery....

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What happened to the nightclub planned for the penthouse of the Tower Records building?... corner of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue.

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Kind of. There was a space called Tennis Up in the 80s; they would have impromptu concerts events. One that comes to mind was Ground Zero, Mission of Burma and some reggae band. Rough space then, but a great location.

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I think it's a residence now. I can see in there from my building and there's always the same people watching tv.

During the Breaking Bad finale they were high fiving each other.

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One of the piano salesmen took me downstairs to see if many years ago. It's a ruin, but an elegant, atmospheric one. While it probably would never meet fire codes for a club or performance venue, it would be an ideal recording studio — no ambient noise when you're underground. Along with its good acoustics, the lack of street noise was an another advantage when it was a classical concert hall.

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I would have thought some Green Line noise and vibration would seep into that space.

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