Venerable buildings still dominate Gardner s skyline today
Mike Richard
Special for The Gardner News
If there was ever a shot that perfectly depicted West Gardner Square on a lazy summer day in the 1960s, the accompanying photograph taken by Charles Clark could be it.
Shoppers are seen milling in and out of the many stores, while downtown regulars lean on a streetlamp or congregate in the doorway of a barber shop to share in the daily news.
A Gardner police officer, safely stowed in his traffic box, directs the cars motoring along through the square.
This was downtown Gardner in the mid-1960s when Edward’s Rexall Drugs, City Barber Shop, Gardner Office Supply, Priscilla Candy Shop, Sandrof’s Men’s Furnishings, Davis Hardware, First National Bank, J.C. Penney and Gardner Cooperative Bank filled the Pleasant Street store fronts.
Then and Now: Orpheum Theater and Ryan Block in Gardner
Two entrepreneurial brothers and a iconic local movie house left their mark on downtown
Mike Richard
Special for The Gardner News
The three-sided marquee was easily one of downtown Gardner’s most familiar landmarks, promoting the double-feature films at the beloved Orpheum Theater.
How many Saturdays around noontime did you get into the line that would snake down Parker Street, around the bend at Liggett’s Drug Store, to the corner of Pleasant Street and beyond for the afternoon matinee?
Originally known as the Murray Block, the Orpheum Theater first opened in the building at 32-40 Parker St. on May 29, 1913, by the Trimount Theatre Co. and was called “the last word on model construction of a motion picture house.”