Combat Zone (Boston)
|
|
Two_O'Clock_Club.jpg
The "Combat Zone," in Boston, Massachusetts, was the name given to the adult entertainment district in downtown centered on Washington Street between Boylston Street and Kneeland Street. It extended up Stuart Street to Park Square. The name "Combat Zone" came from a series of exposé articles on the area published in the 1960s in the Boston Record-American newspaper.
The Combat Zone began to form in the early-1960s, when city officials razed the West End and former red light district at Scollay Square, near Fanueil Hall, to build the Government Center, Boston, Massachusetts urban renewal project.
Lower Washington Street was already part of Boston's entertainment district with a number of movie theaters, bars, delicatessens and restaurants that catered to night life. It was located between the classic, studio-built movie palaces such as the RKO-Keith and Paramount theaters and the stage theatres such as the Coloniale on Tremont Street.
With the closing of the burlesque theaters in Scollay Square many of the bars began to feature Go-Go dancers and later nude dancers. During the 1970s when laws against obscenity were relaxed many of the smaller movie theaters that ran second-run films became adult movie theaters.
The Combat Zone's demise can be attributed to a number of factors. Among them are the rising property values that made the downtown locations more attractive to real estate developers. In the 1980s the strip clubs in Park Square were replaced by the building of the Four Seasons Hotel and State Transportation Building. A new Emerson College dormitory, Suffolk University administrative offices, a relocated branch of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, a new $300 million development which includes a Ritz Carlton Hotel and a Loews cinema, and a renovated Opera House theatre all opened in the area in the late 1990s and earlier 2000s. A new luxury condo and apartment tower is currently under construction at the corner of Washington and Beach streets.
The introduction of home video and the Internet made it possible to view adult movies and other erotica at home without going to a possibly dangerous red light district. The strip clubs have moved to the suburbs and become more up-scale.
Years of grassroots activism by neighboring Chinatown residents, aggressive police work and massive urban renewal projects instigated by the Boston Redevelopment Authority helped to stem crime and close most of the adult businesses.
All that remains of the former Combat Zone as of 2005 are two small strip clubs along LaGrange Street and a few adult book and video stores on Washington and Kneeland streets. Prostitution and drug sales are still issues in nearby Chinatown, the Theatre District, Bay Village and Park Square.
Reference (http://parole.aporee.org/work/print.php?words_id=176)