Liberty Theatre - Boston, MA

The Liberty Theatre opened in February 1923 in Dorchester, MA. It was operated by New England Theatres and showed primarily Yiddish films. In July 1923, Eddie Boas, an executive with the Goldwyn Film Corporation (MGM), resigned from the company to become the theater manager. By 1941, the 898-seat theater was in poor shape and was sold to ATC Theatres.  

Two ushers were wounded by BB Shot during a screening of “Prince of Thieves” on November 17, 1948. The shooters fired from behind two bushes across the street from the theater in Franklin Park.  On October 3, 1949, after an extensive remodel, the Liberty reopened as an art-house theater called the Elite Theatre. Despite this, it still showed Yiddish films, and on Feb 10, 1950, the premiere of “God, Man, and Devil,” the first Yiddish feature produced since World War II, was held at the theater.

On April 27, 1950, a second-anniversary celebration of the founding of the state of Isreal was held at the theater. Pierre Van Paassaen, author and leader of the Christian Zionist Movement, was the keynote speaker. The Elite closed in the mid-1950s and went through many different uses throughout the next few decades. It was an appliance warehouse, a church, and a storage warehouse. By the early 2000, the building had been foreclosed on and owned by the city of Boston, who put out multiple requests for redevelopment proposals in the Boston Globe. Unfortunately, they went unanswered, and the theater was demolished in early 2013 to make way for an apartment building.