Tag Archives: Fine Arts Theatre

Do You Remember These?

Posted on January 7, 2024 | 175 comments

The retail history of Westport is littered with ghosts.

From banks to restaurants, record stores to grocery stores, once-thriving businesses are today only memories.

That’s the way the world works, of course. Westport is no different.

For every Gold’s and Mitchells — businesses nearing their 70th anniversaries — there are scores more that lasted 7 years.

Or 7 months.

Several years ago, Erin Regan made a list of places in Westport that no longer exist.

Some were well-remembered. Others were vague. A few were obscure.

This list is spectacularly incomplete. There are many blanks.

It is also by no means exhaustive. Thousands more places could be added.

And it does not include spaces that have been demolished or substantially altered (for example, Gene Hallowell’s gas station on Main Street which is now Vineyard Vines, or DeRosa’s restaurant and Riverside Barber, which are now a kayak rental and the recently closed Saugatuck Sweets).

But for a walk down memory lane, on a mid-winter day, it will do. (NOTE: The current tenant is listed in parentheses.)

Arnie Place — now Ulta — remains a Westport legend, 40 years later.

Arcudi’s, Chef’s Table (Aux Delices)
Arnie’s Place, Anthropologie (Ulta)
Arrow #1, Chinese Takeout (Lomito)
Arrow #2, Jasmine, Blu Parrot, Mystic Market (empty)
Barker’s, King’s, Ames (Super Stop & Shop)
Barnes & Noble #1 Pier 1 (BevMax)
Baskin-Robbins (AT&T Store)
Beefsteak Charlie’s, Mongolian BBQ (Shake Shack)
Cedar Brook (Patio.com)

The Cedar Brook Cafe — at one time the oldest continually operating gay bar in the country — was a few yards away from both a strip club and the state police barracks.

Chef’s Table, Wild Pear, Java (Mrs. London’s)
Charpentier’s Butcher Shop, Tacos or What? (Border Grille)
Colgan’s, Thompson’s Pharmacy, Ships, Eddie Bauer (Tiffany)
Connecticut State Police barracks (Walgreens)
Dairy Queen, Swanky Frank’s, Woody’s (Little Barn)
Franklin Simon, Carousel, Sam Goody’s #2 ([solidcore])
Hay Day (Maserati of Westport)
Fine Arts I & II Theaters, Restoration Hardware (Barnes & Noble)
Fine Arts III, Matsu Sushi (Basso)

The Fine Arts Theater was a longtime Post Road mainstay.

Fuddrucker’s, Leong’s Palace (Westport National Bank)
Genovese Pharmacy (Marshall’s Shoe Store)
Grand Union, Shaw’s (Fresh Market)
Häagen-Dasz (Finalmente)
Herman’s (Trader Joe’s)
IHOP, Westport Pancake House, Thaeroa Nail Spa (now empty)
Klein’s, Banana Republic (Oka)
Krazy Vin’s, Starbucks (Earth Animal)
Manero’s, John Harvard, Conte’s (Rizzuto’s)
Players Tavern, The Dressing Room, Positano (Gabriele’s Steakhouse)

The Dressing Room, next to the Westport Country Playhouse, was owned by 2 celebrities: Michel Nischan, and the even better known Paul Newman.

Post Cinema, Zany Brainy, Pompanoosuc Mills (Bassett Furniture)
Remarkable Book Shop, Talbots, Local to Market (next: Eleish Van Breems Home)
Rocco’s (Tengda)
Sam Goody’s #1, Alphagraphics, Pierre Deux, Qdoba (Salsa Fresca)
Vigilant Fire House, DeRosa’s Brick Oven Pizza, Neat (Oko)
Schaefer’s Sporting Goods (Dovecote, now closed)
Waldbaum’s, Barnes & Noble (the probably-never-opening Amazon Fresh)
Westport Bank & Trust (the recently departed Patagonia)
Westport Public Library (Domain, HSBC, Guess, Pop’TART, Freshii (Starbucks and Bond Vet)
Ye Olde Bridge Grille (Mar Silver).

Click “Comments” for additions, corrections, and — of course — memories.

(“06880” is your hyper-local source for news — and nostalgia. Please click here to support our work. Thank you!)

A few decades later, Susan Malloy created this “Main Street 1960” map for the Westport Historical Society.

175 Comments

Posted in Local business, Looking back, Restaurants

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Friday Flashback #152

Posted on July 26, 2019 | 4 comments

“Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin” — the wonderful Westport Country Playhouse production running now through August 3 — got me thinking about entertainment options, back in the day.

America’s greatest songwriter lived long enough to see Elvis Presley (whose version of “White Christmas” he loathed) and MTV (it’s unclear what Berlin thought of “Video Killed the Radio Star”).

But in 1919 — when he turned 31, and was already a Tin Pan Alley and Broadway composing star — the main entertainment in many small towns was a motion picture theater.

Westport was no exception. The Fine Arts on the Post Road (today it’s Restoration Hardware) seems like a hopping spot. I posted photos a while ago.

Now — thanks to Kevin Slater — we’ve got a great idea of exactly what Westport movie-goers were watching, exactly 100 years ago.

There were 3 shows a day: a 2:30 matinee, then 7 and 8:45 p.m.

But the Fine Arts was open just on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. (The fact that it was closed Sunday was so obvious, it wasn’t even noted on the poster.)

You had to move fast: Each movie (and accompanying shorts and newsreels) was there for one day only.

So what was Irving Berlin doing in 1919, when long-forgotten names like J. Walter Kerrigan, Vivian Martin and Madge Kennedy were stars?

That’s the year he wrote “A Pretty Girl is Like a melody” for Ziegfeld’s Follies.

And it was a full 8 years before Al Jolson performed Berlin’s “Blue Skies” in “The Jazz Singer” — the first feature sound film ever.

If you had any questions about any of the shows — and you could find a telephone — all you had to do was call.

The phone number was right there at the top corner: 325.

4 Comments

Posted in Downtown, Entertainment, Friday Flashback, Westport Country Playhouse

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Friday Flashback #129

Posted on February 15, 2019 | 17 comments

Last week’s Friday Flashback — showing a snowy Post Road sidewalk from 1993, with the Fine Arts Theatre prominently featured — sent alert “06880” reader/ amateur historian Fred Cantor scurrying down the internet wormhole.

He found Cinema Treasures, a website devoted to 51,000 movie theaters from around the world. (“Because you’re tired of watching movies on your laptop,” the tagline says.)

There’s a page devoted to “Fine Arts 1 and 2” — though the photos show only the original theatre (now Restoration Hardware), long before it was subdivided into a pair of cinemas. (Later offspring included Fine Arts 3 in the back — now Matsu Sushi restaurant — and Fine Arts 4 down the block, across Bay Street from Design Within Reach.)

One image is from 1939. It shows the theatre entrance, flanked by an unnamed restaurant and Vogel Electrical Service.

Other photos show Fine Arts after a major 1940 renovation. Here’s the exterior. It looks like the neighboring businesses are gone.

Here’s the new, modern interior:

But the money shots are these 2. They show the Art Deco lounge.

Cinema Treasures is right. The Fine Arts was definitely better than watching movies on your laptop.

17 Comments

Posted in Entertainment, Friday Flashback, Local business

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Fred Cantor Grants Staples A Special Gift

Posted on June 9, 2016 | 11 comments

All year long, Staples Tuition Grants raises money for scholarships.

Tonight, they give it away.

Staples Tuition Grants new logoOver 100 students — soon-to-be graduates as well as alumni from the past 4 years — will receive $300,000 in college aid.

The ceremony is low-key, but warm and inspiring.

And very, very important. Contrary to myth, there is plenty of need right here in Westport.

Fred Cantor did not receive an STG grant when he graduated from Staples in 1971. He no longer has formal ties to the school; he’s just a proud alum.

But the longtime Westporter is eager to give back. Recently, he found a unique way to do so.

For the 1970s on, he’s taken photos of iconic Westport scenes. Now he’s licensed 5 of them to STG: Main Street with Remarkable Book Shop; Fairfield Furniture and the Saugatuck River; Fine Arts Theater; Longshore’s main entrance, and Railroad Place.

They’re displayed on gift items like luggage tags, coffee mugs, magnets, note cards and tote bags. They’re on sale to the public — with all profits going to the scholarship organization.

Actually, they’ll go to one specific fund: the STG award named after Chou Chou Merrill. The 1970 grad reveled in her childhood and youth here — the memories she shared, the friendships she nurtured, the opportunities she was given. She died in 2014.

A luggage tag, with an image of the Longshore entrance.

A luggage tag, with an image of the Longshore entrance.

Fred says that the photos and souvenirs are a perfect way for Westporters, current and spread around the globe, to show their affection for this town. And help a great cause.

How generous of Fred — an avid “06880” reader — to think of Staples Tuition Grants in this way.

How fitting that he’s chosen Chou Chou’s scholarship to be the recipient of his generosity.

Now all you have to do is click here for a great Fred Cantor-themed/Westport-style/STG-assisting souvenir. (NOTE: More items will be added soon!)

(The public is invited to today’s Staples Tuition Grants ceremony [Thursday, June 9, 5:30 p.m. in the Staples library]. To donate to Staples Tuition Grants, click here.) 

all feature Fred Cantor's photos of Westport.

Luggage tags, coffee mugs, magnets, note cards and tote bags feature Fred Cantor’s photos of Westport. Fairfield Furniture is now back to its original name: National Hall.

11 Comments

Posted in Downtown, Education, Local business, Longshore, Organizations, People, Staples HS

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This Old House #13

Posted on May 13, 2015 | 8 comments

Trust your instincts.

Westport Historical Society house historian Bob Weingarten thought that last week’s “mystery house” was the current site of Dream Spa — the handsome building at the entrance to the Crate & Barrel shopping center, between Green’s Farms Elementary School and Fortuna’s.

Then he thought it wasn’t. But research by the inestimable Wendy Crowther and others convinced him he was right all along. (Click here to see a 1930s photo of the house, and comments.)

This week’s house is a great one.

This Old House May 13, 2015

We know exactly where this very handsome home once stood. According to a state database of WPA photos, the house — built around 1823, and owned originally by “Wheeler or Capt. Gresham Bradley” — was “formerly situated on the present site of the Fine Arts Theater in State Street.”

That’s great. But the Fine Arts Theatre opened around 1920 — more than a decade before the photo was taken. It closed in 1999, and is now Restoration Hardware. And State Street has been renamed the Post Road.

So where was this house when the photo was taken?

Hopefully it has not been torn down in the interim.

If you know its whereabouts, click “Comments” below. The WHS is seeking info on this and other “mystery houses,” in preparation for an upcoming exhibit on the changing face of Westport.

Bonus photo: Here is what the Fine Arts Theatre looked like, a decade or 2 after it opened.

Fine Arts theatre black and white

8 Comments

Posted in Entertainment, Local business, Looking back, Organizations, People

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