HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Springfield's vacant 1929 movie palace, built into an 1843 hotel and later the Hippodrome club
1676-1700 Main Street, Springfield, MA 01103
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The building is vacant and closed to the public; the Main Street facade can be viewed from the public sidewalk.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Downtown sidewalk along Main Street
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1929 · 1843 Massasoit House Hotel · Early New England Sound-Film Palace · National Register of Historic Places (1979) · Endangered Downtown Springfield Landmark
The structure at 1676-1700 Main Street in downtown Springfield first opened in 1843 as the Massasoit House, a prominent nineteenth-century hotel that was enlarged in 1857 and refronted in 1912. In the late 1920s a portion of the hotel block was reworked into a grand movie palace. The Paramount Theater opened in 1929 with 3,200 seats, built by the Paramount chain for the new era of talking pictures and counted among the first such houses in New England. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 10, 1979.
The theater closed as a cinema in the later twentieth century. After a renovation, it reopened in 1999 as the Hippodrome, a nightclub and concert venue that retained and restored roughly 1,100 of the balcony seats while clearing the main floor for events. The Hippodrome operated through the 2000s before closing in 2008.
The New England Farm Workers Council acquired the property in 2011 and ran it intermittently. Operations ended in April 2015 following a shooting at the venue, and the building went vacant. It was later put up for auction, and as of recent reporting the property was owned by a developer who announced plans to replace the roof in 2026 ahead of a possible restoration. The Massasoit House-Paramount block remains one of the most prominent endangered historic buildings in downtown Springfield.
Sources
Unlike many sites on the Springfield circuit, the Paramount does not carry a deep catalog of named hauntings in published sources. Its pull is the building itself: a 3,200-seat auditorium that has stood dark for years behind a Main Street facade, the kind of large vacant interior that tends to attract decay photographers and speculation rather than specific ghost reports.
The most concrete dark chapter is recent. As the Hippodrome nightclub, the venue saw a shooting in April 2015 that led to its closure, and that event is what most directly frames the place in local memory. Beyond that, stories tend toward the general unease of an abandoned theater, footsteps and shifting light in an empty house, without corroborated, dated incidents attached.
Visitors come for the exterior and the history. The interior is closed and unsafe, and entry is not permitted.
The Paramount's terra-cotta and marquee front faces Main Street in downtown Springfield and can be viewed and photographed from the public sidewalk. The interior has been vacant for years and is not open to the public; do not attempt to enter.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Redlands, CA
The Redlands Fox Theatre was built in 1927 and opened December 28, 1928, as a 1,505-seat Mission Revival picture house designed by Lewis A. Smith for the West Coast Theatres chain. After West Coast merged with Fox Theatres in 1929 it became the Fox West Coast Redlands. The building reopened in 2009 as the Fox Event Center.
Worcester, MA
Opened November 24, 1928, as the Plymouth Theatre by architect Arlan W. Johnson, the building originally featured a Robert Morton pipe organ. It was renamed E.M. Loew's Center for the Performing Arts in 1980 and became The Palladium by 1990. Today it operates as a 2,160-seat rock and metal concert hall with a 500-seat upstairs room.
Birmingham, AL
The Alabama Theatre is a 1927 Paramount-Publix movie palace in downtown Birmingham, designed by the Chicago firm Graven & Mayger in a Spanish-Moorish style. The theatre houses one of the country's surviving Wurlitzer pipe organs (the 'Mighty Wurlitzer') installed at construction. It is operated today as a live-performance venue by Birmingham Landmarks, Inc., the same nonprofit that operates the nearby Lyric Theatre.