Interred in concrete: The censorship of Boston's Old Howard Theatre (Massachusetts)

The Old Howard Theatre stood in Boston's Scollay Square for over a century. Designed by acclaimed architect Isaiah Rogers, the playhouse hosted some of the biggest stars of traditional theatre and variety during its illustrious residence. By the twentieth century, the Old Howard was a famous burlesque house and a significant part of the irreverent entertainment district that held the center of a city known for its conservative leanings.; The shift to burlesque aroused the enmity of the New England Watch and Ward Society, an anti-vice society that modeled itself after the crusader Anthony Comstock. The Society declared war on burlesque, particularly burlesque at the Old Howard. The organization, aided by the Board of Censors, enjoyed victory over the theatre in 1933 when it saw the theatre's license revoked for thirty days, and again in 1953 when the playhouse lost its license permanently.; The theatrical censorship enacted against the Old Howard was the first phase of a grand-scale censorship; the eradication of the theatre from the cityscape was achieved through the workings of urban renewal. In the 1950s and 1960s, city planners capitalized on the federal urban renewal program to revitalize the city center. Despite a claim for preservation, the Boston Redevelopment Authority destroyed the historic playhouse and all but one building in Scollay Square and replaced the dynamic entertainment district with a massive concrete construction called Government Center.; The ultimate fate of Scollay Square and the Old Howard Theatre was the censorship of space. Theatrical censorship emptied the building, and a bulldozer took it down. The center of Boston was too appealing a location for developers to ignore, and too conspicuous a location for "marginal" entertainment.; This work is a consideration of the censorship of Boston's Old Howard Theatre. It explores the way the censoring bodies, both theatrical and urban, operated as well as the legacy of the redevelopment. The destruction of Scollay Square, and its famous theatrical resident, offers an example of cultural control and the deliberate act of pushing marginal enterprises out of the city center and replacing with an "acceptable" image, one of power and function.