[Worcester Theatre, Exchange St. opposite Waldo St., and Franklin Square Theatre, Worcester, Massachusetts] / AFD 1925.

Share

Here the Worcester theater on Exchange Street, seen across from Waldo Street, shares a single ink sheet with the Franklin Square theater, so the drawing documents two neighboring downtown houses at once. Dated 1925, it belongs to a decade when many American cities, Worcester among them, were filling their centers with movie houses and stage theaters. Drawings like this were working documents used to plan construction and guide builders, so their linework records street frontages and layouts that shaped how audiences approached and moved through these buildings. Held in the Library of Congress's architectural and engineering collection, it offers a useful view of how a Massachusetts downtown was remade in the 1920s.

More from the Theater Posters collection

Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.