Fox Theater, Springfield, Mass.

Here is the Fox Theatre of Springfield, Massachusetts, from a postcard taken in the late 1920s. Recently on my other blog about theatre in New England, “Tragedy and Comedy in New England”, we took a look at the old vaudeville house in Springfield called the Nelson Theatre. In the waning days of vaudeville, the Nelson became the Fox.

This postcard of the same scene, taken probably 20 years after the Nelson Theatre postcard on my theatre blog shows more than just a marquee with a different name. Some of the buildings in the old scene are replaced with newer ones, and the horses and carriages are replaced by a lot of Model A Fords. The trolley cars are more modern as well. Life moves on, but at a faster pace.  Even for second-run neighborhood movie theaters.

The evolution continued.  Later the Fox became the Art. Then in the late 1950s, the Art was demolished. There were a lot of small neighborhood theaters in downtown Springfield, Mass. back in the day. There are none now.