Is this the same Sylvester Cooper whose story was told in the pages of the globe two year's ago?

If so, he lives in Roxbury and went to Charlestown High for a while. He was an excellent student in grade school. Since, a lot of adults have refused to accept his truancy and general neglect for his own future.

eeka, it's in large part due to the fact that I teach at Suffolk Law just down the street and am aware of the growing college presence on Tremont over the years. Both Suffolk and Emerson, to their credit, have staked a lot of their futures in that area, and they began doing so before the luxury condo developers got all excited about it. So yes, I do tend to look at goings on in the downtown through that lens.

But more to the point: Both schools now house a lot of undergraduates in that area; I'm sure they make up a big share of the residential population in that part of the city. If heaven forbid something happens to one/more of those students, and parents and prospective students start to question whether the area (and hence the city) is a safe place to go to school, then a major piece of the city's economic base takes a hit. And college students have a lot more freedom to pick up and go to another school than condo owners.

"A good start would be spending a couple weeks in the schools, putting up some TV adverts, posters, etc and making it clear that if they're found with a gun/knife or stab/shoot someone, they'll be in juvie lockup until they're 18. Then, follow through on the promise. After kids start watching their friends go into prison, watch them take things seriously.

Yea that will work! Im sure no one has ever thought or tried that stuff!

We need to address both the immediate crime and some of the underlying causes. Yes, let's send a message that violent crime will not be tolerated, regardless of age.

But let's also recognize that this problem is likely to get worse as the economy weakens, unless we start addressing it at its root level.

A lot of the kids who go down this path were headed there by the time they were five or six. Talk to kindergarten teachers who teach in poor neighborhoods and they'll tell you.

A few weeks ago I was in line at the Dunkin' Donuts in the Downtown Crossing food court, and this young mother in back of me shrieks at her little boy, who couldn't have been more than five, "WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU DOING!?!?" What kind of chance does a kid like that have? What behavior for resolving situations is being modeled for him by his own parent?

The spin-off effect, of course, is that when these kids act out at the Loew's Theatre, other folks decide to go to other movie theatres or wait until they can rent it. And with each individual decision like that, the Downtown district loses more of its vitality.

Back in the day, Sack Theatres had many cinemas in and near downtown Boston, each with its own programming policy. Slasher pics might get booked into the Gary, Saxon, or 57, while something like Star Wars would go to the Charles, a Woody Allen film would go to the Paris, and foreign films would end up at the Nickelodeon.

I was around before the Loews Boston Commons opened. I used to go there for a while as my regular theater just after it opened because while it was a touch more expensive than the Fenway, it also seemed to care more about the theater experience back in the early 2000's. Crowds were pretty big when it was new but they respected the movie going experience. The lobby was clean and orderly (all the front glass doors functioned correctly...which hasn't been the case for the past few years it seems). It was a lot better than what it has become. It seems like just because they're making money like crazy now that a few of the other closest theaters closed, they don't care what goes on there so long as the lowest common denominators pay to see a movie at least every other time they show up there.

And sorry, Brett, but boiling my comment down to a one line crybaby whine doesn't respect what I actually said. If you're not going to address what is actually said, then whatever rant you have in response is meaningless (see also: STRAWMAN).

its about wanting people to come to your movie theater.

What do you think happened to the Dedham Mall? There were too many kids hanging around with nothing to do and the place started to become unsafe and other people stopped going there. Hell, they made sure there is no where to hang out there anymore and designed it that way for that purpose. The same can be said for the Dedham movie theater.

These aren't simply places where "kids hang out" in a good way. Especially when most of these kids aren't there to watch movies anyway.

I never buy the "kids need a place to go" argument. I mean, I agree that its good to keep them busy, but "hanging out" for the sake of not doing anything else is not productive.

...until it leads to two stabbings in a month.

This isn't Eddie Haskell getting the Beav' to lie to his mom about sleeping over.

Sorry, but "healthy adolescence" happens just fine without theft of service, loitering, assault with a deadly weapon, and just plain ignorant and rude behavior in a movie theater. Plenty of kids are raised correctly.

[jedi hand wave] These are not the poster children that you were looking for.

with one huuuuge screen upstairs and two small ones downstairs. It didn't get closed down for any reason having to do with violence. Sack (later USACinemas, later Loews) just systematically started shutting down all of its older 1, 2, and 3-screen cinemas during the 1990s.

CinemaTreasures has a page on the Charles Cinema.

Those days are gone, and with it the experience of movie going is disappearing.

I was a VCR holdout, not buying my first until the early 90s. I especially enjoyed the revival houses. Five bucks to see a Hitchcock double feature on the big screen ("Vertigo" and "Rear Window" back to back -- whoa).

Not sure what my comment has to do with stabbings at the Loews, other than the fact that it's not as much fun to go to a movie theatre these days!

Astor -- torn down, now Ritz-Carlton complex including Loews Boston Common
Publix (aka Gaiety) - torn down amid much public controversy; now a vacant lot
Stuart - now a McDonalds
Center/Pagoda - now Empire Garden Chinese restaurant
Paramount - now being renovated by Emerson College
Art Cinemas - now Limelight Stage and Studios, a karaoke place
West End - torn down, now a vacant lot

Pi Alley - various restaurant and retail uses
Gary - torn down for State Transportation Building
Cheri - now Kings bowling alley and nightclub and Summer Shack restaurant
Paris - now a Walgreen's
Beacon Hill - has been a Copy Cop, then a restaurant, but I think it's currently vacant
Charles - conference center, office space
57 - one cinema is now the Stuart Street Playhouse, a live stage. The other one is a golf school.
Copley Place - now Barneys New York store

Exeter - now a Montessori school (has also been Conran's furniture, Waterstone's bookstore, and idealab! office space)
Cinema 733 - now (part of?) Uno Chicago Grill restaurant
Park Square - some retail use in the Park Square Building (was it where the bank is now?)
Kenmore Square - now Barnes & Noble bookstore at BU
Abbey/Nickelodeon - first one is now a BU building, and the second one was torn down for another BU building

Modern (Mayflower) - now being renovated by Suffolk University
RKO Boston (Boston Cinerama, Essex, Star Cinema) - vacant, after spending some time as a grindhouse, porn house, and Chinese cinema

In Cambridge:

Central Square Cinemas - now Quest Diagnostics lab
Off The Wall Cinema - now a senior center
Orson Welles Cinema - burned down, now CVS and other retail
Janus Cinema, in the Crimson Galeria basement - now retail and/or restaurant

The Orpheum in downtown Boston showed movies for many years as a Loew's house, but I think that had ended before the 1970s.

The Somerville Theater attracts a multi-everything group of folks for movies, best popcorn around ... even a beer and MOBA in the basement!

It might be worth the 20 minute hike, and the prices are great too.

BTW, how is the cinema at Landmark Center (aka Old Sears Bldg.) doing these days? Similar problems?

By the 1970s, these were porn houses, but so were some of the others mentioned earlier, so I'm including them for completeness:

State -- demolished, replaced by Ritz-Carlton complex
Pilgrim -- demolished, replaced by Archstone apartment building

If you walked up Washington Street from Stuart Street to West Street, you'd pass nine movie theatre marquees. You wouldn't necessarily want to visit most of them, but they were there and open.

but right. This is really the only solution.
As for me, I saw the writing on the wall as soon as that place opened. I haven't been there for years, and am less likely to ever go back now. Since nobody else seems to be willing to say it, let an anon breach it: it's a ghetto movie theater.

And yeah, it's gotta be doing wonders for the property values at the Ritz to have back-to-back ghetto stabbings in the same building.

I'd stop short of going after this anon, who is probably anon for a good reason. They gave us a perspective that we didn't have - a perspective from someone who was there, and of somebody who works in the prevailing conditions.

HOWEVER, working there is NOT the same as having ANY control over staffing, staff placement, or systematic security procedure. You may have a lot of latitude over your job tasks and performance, but your typical ticket seller or usher or popcorn vendor has nothing to say about how many people are around or where they are posted or what they do.

This person sounds somewhat frustrated by the same things that are being discussed on this thread: theaters are too big, staff is cut to the bone, and there is no attempt by management to change the operating parameters to keep patrons and staff safe. I think it is more constructive to make a note of what they have to say, and then move on to the people who do have control: the theater chains, the management, etc.