Boston Opera House

Variant names

Dates:

Active 1908

Active 1958

History notes:

The Boston Opera House (BOH) was the local citadel for lyrical drama for nearly 50 years. It cost Eben D. Jordan $700,000 to build in 1909. Most contemporary singers of note, including Enrico Caruso and Kirsten Flagstad, sang on the Opera House stage. In September 1957, the Boston City Building Department declared the BOH unsafe, and it was sold three weeks later by the Opera Holding Company to the S. and A. Allen Construction Company for $135,000. The Charlestown-based construction company then sold the Huntington Avenue property to Carl S. Ell, President of Northeastern University, for $160,000. The building, directly across the street from the university, was razed in the summer of 1958 to provide space for campus expansion.