Harvard Crimson is reporting that AMC Theatres will close their Harvard Square theater next month; the final shows will be on Sunday, July 8.
The theater is the only first-run theater near the Harvard campus, and leaves only the two local rep houses, The Brattle Theatre and Harvard Film Archive, within walking distance. Students who wish to take in a blockbuster film will now have to head to the Red Line, going north to Fresh Pond at Alewife or the Somerville Theatre at Davis Square, or south to Kendall Square, five blocks from Kendall/MIT, or AMC Boston Common 19, a short walk from Park Street.
AMC has also been rumored to be shuttering their location in Chestnut Hill sometime this year to make way for new construction at the Chestnut Hill Mall, so a total of 10 screens will be lost after both have been closed.
AMC will make up for part of it, however, with the construction of a new nine-screen multiplex as part of Somerville’s Assembly Hill complex; that cinema will start construction this fall and will be open in the fall of 2013 according to press releases.
Ipic Theatres is also eyeing a move into the Boston market with their upscale-style theaters; it is expected that they will become a tenant in Chestnut Hill Mall once AMC closes that location.
Most importantly, AMC Harvard Square’s closing will leave the devoted fans of the weekly showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show without a venue for the time being; the theater has shown RHPS every Saturday at midnight for over two decades. Perhaps Fresh Pond or Somerville could step up and fill in for now? Just an idea…:-)
Although I’ve only been to the Harvard Square a few times over the past two decades, they were fun times. Attending the world premiere of With Honors was a blast, and taking part in the Boston Underground Film Festival here when the biopic about William Castle showed. And we also visited the theater on our Summer Tour a few years ago and caught the delightful Once, which I think made Kim finally believe I had some taste in films…heh heh heh…
AMC is expected to sell (or has already sold; reports vary) to a developer who has no intention of keeping the venue as a theatre, so Harvard Square will soon be no more…but it survived since 1926 as a venue of some kind, and although it wasn’t always the best theater to see a film in, it was always fun…we’ll miss ya, Harvard Square…
