On November 5, 1938, some 71 years ago, the Mohawk Theater opened in the small western Massachusetts town of North Adams. These days, the community is anticipating, and actively involved, in its future re-opening.
Once part of the E.M. Loew chain in New England, the Art Deco movie house was the third theater in North Adams, and the only one that remains today. It is a downtown icon there on Main Street, one of the few remaining late Art Deco style movie theaters in the U.S. Originally a single balcony theater with a capacity of 1,200, the Mohawk operated until the mid-1980s.
For a few years after 1987 it was owned by a private investor who occasionally screened films or opened the theater to concerts, but it closed again in 1991.
It would likely have been demolished or transformed into retail space, just as the two other movie theaters in town had by this time, but for the community that decided to step in and save it.
That process, of getting funds and all the construction logistics in place to enable the theater’s restoration is continuing. It is hoped to reopen the Mohawk again to its Saturday afternoon matinee audience, as well as to enable live plays, concerts, and recitals, as well as other community events to be staged here.
For more on the Mowhawk, have a look at this website.
Jacqueline T Lynch is a freelance writer and published playwright currently maintaining three blogs. This piece is from Another Old Movie Blog, about classic film against the backdrop of the culture which produced it