Uphams Corner in Dorchester, located at the intersection of Columbia Ave and Dudley Street, was historically a busy commercial area, well-served by a half-dozen trolley lines. For entertainment, it boasted the 1400-seat Strand Theatre, in its early days a vaudeville house and later a movie palace.
The postwar years were not kind to Uphams Corner. The trolleys stopped running, people moved away, and businesses closed. The Strand hung on until 1969. Then it went dark and became one more abandoned building in a neighborhood in decline.
In the mid-1970s, some of the theatre’s Uphams Corner neighbors organized to renovate and reopen the Strand—not as a movie house, but as a performing arts center. Supported almost entirely by government grants, the M. Harriet McCormack Center for the Arts celebrated with a gala opening on November 23, 1979. The Count Basie Orchestra performed at the inaugural concert.
WHDH-AM’s Norm Nathan was emcee on that first night, with what the Globe called a “good, not great, turnout of 900” in the house. Champagne flowed before the show and during intermission. Although there was no curtain to formally raise (it hadn’t been installed yet), the night was a happy one.
As for the concert, Basie’s band, although plagued from the outset by poor sound, turned in a crowd-pleasing show. Ernie Santosuosso’s Globe review praised Danny Turner’s alto on “Easy Living,” Sonny Cohn’s trumpet on “April in Paris,” and Pete Minger’s flugelhorn on “There Will Never Be Another You.” It was a homecoming for Turner, a fixture in Boston from his time with Sabby Lewis in the late 1940s until 1959.
There were high hopes for that first season at the Strand. The McCormack Center had booked an ambitious schedule that ranged from Dizzy Gillespie to the Martha Graham Dance Company to the Tommy Dorsey ghost band. I don’t know how successful they were, but the Center demonstrated enough potential to keep the concerts and shows, from across the spectrum of the performing arts, continuing into the 1990s.
The McCormack Center’s 25-year agreement with the city to manage the Strand ended in 2004. At that time a city task force recommended the theater commit itself to supporting local arts and education, and that is what the theater did. The Strand Theatre is now managed by the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Tourism & Special Events. Results, though, have been mixed and the theater is often dark.
There hasn’t been much, if any, jazz programming at the Strand Theatre for some time, and there’s no telling what the future holds. Well, we’ll always have “April in Paris.”
Speaking of which, here’s Basie’s orchestra playing it in 1979, at the Northsea Festival, a few months before their concert at the Strand.
Good column. Columbia Road.
Thanks, Russell. “Once upon a time, when every square and town center had its own movie house…” But the puzzle for me is, why did my website send out a “new post” email? It wasn’t new, I was just fixing broken links.
Upham’s Corner also had another theater — the Upham’s. My grandmother would take me to both. Next to the theater was a deli and she’d stop there first, buy cervelat, rolls, pickles and cream soda and spread them out on a seat between us in the theater and we’d spend the afternoon watching a double feature, news, cartoons and coming attractions.
Right, newsreels. I can still hear Ed Herlihy’s voice.
It was a great concert, the only time I ever went to the Strand. The last time I saw the Count was at Lynn City Hall Auditorium. He rolled to the piano in a wheelchair, but his playing and the band were terrific!
Alan, you do get around. I think the Strand scheduled quite a few concerts in those first years, and did poorly with a few too many. Thus the shift to a community focus.