image description

Tyler Picture Palace Was A Morningside Icon

By Joe DurwiniBerkshires Columnist
Print Story | Email Story
Part of the lobby of the Tyler Picture Palace is all that's left of the Morningside icon.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — "Popular Pictures Properly Projected," read the big sign on the back of the building, a landmark in Pittsfield's Morningside neighborhood for nearly 50 years. 
 
"If you could say them fast, it was considered in Morningside that you were cold sober," Pittsfield resident Jane Krook said of the slogan in 1950.
 
Indeed, Krook said, these were the first words her daughter ever learned to speak as a child, offering up but one anecdote of a place that for many was steeped in the special memories of formative years. 
 
This was the Tyler Picture Palace, which operated as the only major early movie theater in Pittsfield outside of downtown for more than four decades.
 
Boasting more than 500 seats, the Tyler Picture Palace opened on the southeast corner of Tyler and Brown Street in 1915, amidst the peak of the silent film era, offering entertainment at 10 cents a film.
 
It was in the new theater that the nearby St. Mary of the Morningstar Church held its first ever Mass, on Easter Sunday of that year, long before the construction of its later worship house in the early 1940s.
 
In it's heyday, the popular Tyler Street movie house was run by co-owner and "virtual dictator" Martha Briggs, known as "Ma Briggs" to a generation of neighborhood youth. A Dalton resident, she and her husband, George, began leasing the theater at the time of its opening.
 
Ma Briggs was known as a strict disciplinarian by virtually every neighborhood kid, many of whom would later recall with amusement the times they'd been ejected from the premises for a behavioral infraction. Briggs was ruthless on noise in the theater even during the silent era, and with the advent of sound became even more vigilant, prone to stalk the aisles at the sound of talking and abruptly level her trusty flashlight in the face of the guilty party.
 
"Ejection from the Tyler was quick and quiet, because Mrs. Briggs would have it no other way," recalled Berkshire Eagle journalist Roger O'Gara upon her death.  "This reporter was several times among those who were waved out."
 
Ma Briggs would report only the more severe offenses to parents, and if parental discipline failed to curb the problem, repeat offenders were put on a black list. Some rowdy teens were banned from the theater for weeks, which was considered the most feared punishment, because the Tyler was where all their friends would be found each Monday and Friday night.
 
Public displays of affection were also verboten, and when young couples became overly friendly, the boy was promptly thrown out and the girl summoned to her office for a motherly lecture.
 
Many also fondly recalled the annual Christmas parties Briggs would throw for all the neighborhood youth, during which her strict rule enforcement would be a bit more relaxed than usual.
 

 
Ejection from the Tyler was quick and quiet, because Mrs. Briggs would have it no other way.
                                                     — Roger O'Gara
Ma Briggs envisioned something of a small theater empire, and in addition to acquiring ownership of the Tyler Picture Palace in 1922, she also presented motion pictures for a number of years at the Dalton Opera House. In 1926, she announced plans for a new $50,000 theater in North Adams, though the project never got off the ground.
 
In 1936, Martha and George Briggs, then in their 60s, sold the theater, relocating to Florida at first for the winters, and then permanently in 1941. George passed away in 1943, and Martha followed in 1950.
 
The theater was purchased from them by William Shea, who came to Pittsfield from Holyoke, and kept the screens alight over the next couple of decades with the faces of Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Grace Kelly and Errol Flynn among so many others.
 
By then known as Tyler Theater, the place had clearly passed its peak after the Briggs' departure. An MGM Theatre Report from 1941, complete with thumbnail photo of the building at that time, lists its condition as "poor."
 
In the late '40s, it was the site of some problematic incidents, which seemed to many as being unthinkable during the tenure of Ma Briggs. In April of 1946, a showing had to be evacuated because of a chimney fire, which left many skittish as to the theater's safety. This was further compounded by an assault in the bathroom the following year, when Edward Davis brutally attacked paralyzed war veteran Raymond Pellerin.  
 
Nonetheless, the movie house chugged along through the 1950s, offering films for 50 cents with free admission for children under 12. Catering primarily to neighborhood families, it struggled to compete with half a dozen theaters in a then more well-trafficked downtown, including the Capitol, Union Square, Showplace and Palace Theatre, along with the emerging culture of drive-in movies.
 
Following temporary closures in the late 1950s, the Tyler Theater finally closed in the early '60s, becoming Edwards Upholstery Shop for a number of years, then the "Tyler Theater Warehouse" of Tiretown Inc.
 
Like so many Pittsfield theaters of yesteryear, the majority of the former Tyler Picture Palace was demolished to make way for parking space, in 2002. A shell of what was the former lobby remains, as part of a block of current retail and restaurant space.
 
Morningside's once beloved theater was one of several casualties of the much changed film viewing landscape in that city, with moviegoers eventually shifting to the larger Pittsfield Cinema Center, then to more modern facilities at Berkshire Mall and more recently North Street's Beacon Cinema. Today, the sites of some of its competitors have survived, however, with the restoration of the Colonial Theatre, the former Union Square now the main stage for Barrington Stage Company, and the Capitol — and its surviving marquee — now home to the Ralph Froio Senior Center.
 
This column is born out of an attempt to break new ground, or at least break out of a certain habitual mold of local history storytelling. While the Berkshires have enjoyed many great historians and much outstanding historical writing, it is my belief that there is a great deal that may have fallen by the wayside in its attempt to hammer out a unified narrative in its vision (and marketing) of itself. 

 


Tags: historical building,   movie theater,   

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Central Berkshire School Officials OK $35M Budget

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
DALTON, Mass. — The Central Berkshire Regional School Committee approved a $35 million budget for fiscal 2025 during its meeting on Thursday.
 
Much of the proposed spending plan is similar to what was predicted in the initial and tentative budget presentations, however, the district did work with the Finance subcommittee to further offset the assessments to the towns, Superintendent Leslie Blake-Davis said. 
 
"What you're going see in this budget is a lower average assessment to the towns than what you saw in the other in the tentative budget that was approved," she said. 
 
The fiscal 2025 budget is $35,428,892, a 5.56 percent or $1,867,649, over this year's $33,561,243.
 
"This is using our operating funds, revolving revenue or grant revenue. So what made up the budget for the tentative budget is pretty much the same," Director of Finance and Operations Gregory Boino said.
 
"We're just moving around funds … so, we're using more of the FY25 rural aid funds instead of operating funds next year."
 
Increases the district has in the FY25 operating budget are from active employee health insurance, retiree health insurance, special education out-of-district tuition, temporary bond principal and interest payment, pupil transportation, Berkshire County Retirement contributions, and the federal payroll tax. 
 
View Full Story

More Pittsfield Stories