Washington Street Theatre District

Seven buildings along the west side of Washington Street in downtown Boston, erected between 1870 and 1935, form a block tied to the city's theater history. They range from four to seven stories and mix brick, granite, limestone and tile, with Italianate, Gothic, Beaux Arts and Art Deco designs. Among them are Arthur Bowditch's 1932 Paramount Theater, with its large neon sign, and Thomas Lamb's 1928 Savoy Theater, the only surviving Lamb theater in the city. The Adams House Annex was where B.F. Keith introduced continuous vaudeville and moving pictures to Boston, and the Savoy site had held the city's earliest theaters, beginning with Charles Bulfinch's Boston Theatre of 1794. The Mayflower/Dobson Building was converted to a theater in 1913 by Clarence Blackall with acoustician Wallace Sabine. The White Building and Bigelow-Kennard Building add commercial architecture of similar scale and period. Together they illustrate musical comedy, opera, vaudeville and film presented on a single block.