Boston Arena

Boston Arena

Soon after opening in the early 1900s, Boston Arena became as synonymous with hockey as Boston Garden later became with hockey and basketball and Manning Bowl in nearby Lynn did with football and soccer. And like the other two venues, it presented a multigenred assortment of acclaimed musical acts in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Since being acquired by Northeastern University in 1979 and renamed Matthews Arena in 1982, the space has hosted relatively few concerts but drawn an impressive variety of household names including Bob Dylan.

The Arena’s road to becoming one of Boston’s top spots for touring rock bands was a bumpy one since a man was stabbed and a dozen others were robbed at the first rock show held at there (in 1958). Despite local officials’ insistence that there would never be another rock concert at the Arena due to the mayhem of that night, however, it eventually hosted rockers including The Animals, Alice Cooper, Steppenwolf and The Doors an addition to iconic acts of other genres such as Pete Seeger, Ray Charles, Dianna Ross & The Supremes, The Ike and Tina Turner Revue, The Beach Boys and Johnny Cash.

OPENING, INAUGURAL EVENT, HOCKEY, BASKETBALL

 Boston Arena opened on April 25, 1910 on St. Botolph Street, promoted by its owner, the Boston Arena Corporation, as “the largest, most complete and most elaborated template erected for devotees of sport in the world.” The 5,000-seat space was built to host sporting events including ice skating, curling and horse shows and American skating champion Herbert S. Evans dug the first portion of earth at the October 11, 1909 groundbreaking ceremony. Using an in-house power plant to run its two 100-ton ice machines and all its lighting, the Arena was an engineering marvel at the time, is now the world’s oldest multi-purpose athletic building and features the world’s oldest artificial ice sheet.

The inaugural event was an ice carnival to benefit the Sharon Sanatorium and included a performance by Olympic figure skater Irving Brokaw. The Arena hosted its first amateur hockey game in 1910, its first professional one in 1911 and on December 1, 1924, the Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Maroons at the venue in the first-ever NHL game played in the United States; the Arena served as the Bruins’ home ice until the 1928-‘29 season and at various times was home to teams from Boston College, Boston University, Harvard and MIT.

A fire destroyed the original Boston Arena on December 18, 1918, leaving it shuttered for over two years before reopening on January 1, 1921 in the same way it had opened in 1910 – with an ice show. As part of the reconstruction, the ice surface was reduced to the NHL’s regulation size, which increased the venue’s capacity from 5,000 to 6,000. Professional basketball arrived at the Arena in November 1925, when the ABL’s Boston Whirlwinds played their first game there, and the ABL’s Boston Trojans made it their home court for their single-season existence (1934-’35). On November 2, 1946, the NBA’s Boston Celtics played their first-ever game at the Arena, splitting their home games between it and Boston Garden until the 1955-’56 season.

BOSTON GARDEN OPENING, COMPETITION

Boston Garden’s opening on November 17, 1928 was a major threat to the Arena since the new venue’s roughly 14.500 capacity dwarfed it in size and the Bruins left the Arena to make the new venue their home. The Garden’s New York City-based owners, Madison Square Garden Corporation (MSGC), were very well financed and soon it became the city’s premier venue for ice shows and other popular events like boxing and wrestling, with MSGC often running events at a loss to draw people away from those at the Arena, according to a November 1939 article in The Boston Globe. That cut-throat approach resulted in the smaller venue struggling to stay afloat for several years, during which time it presented college hockey, figure skating and occasional rocking-chair derbies.

In 1934, however, with the Great Depression at its height and the Garden still not having turned a profit, the Boston Arena Corporation’s Henry G. Lapham purchased a controlling interest in the Garden and founded Boston Garden-Arena Corporation (BGAC), meaning he had a stake in both venues and could manage the bookings to some degree. In 1936, BGAC bought all the Boston Garden stock still owned by the MSGC, giving Lapham full control of it and the Arena.

MDC OWNERSHIP, 1950S MUSICAL EVENTS, CONTROVERSY

 In April 1953, the BGAC sold the Arena for $398,000 (about $4.7 million in 2025) to Pinsly Railroad Company founder Samuel M. Pinsly, who planned to convert it into a garment-manufacturing facility; the purchase agreement included a five-year ban on sports and entertainment at the venue unless it was acquired by a government entity. Three months later, the Metropolitan District Commission bought the venue from Pinsly for a reported $450,000 (about $5.3 million in 2025), intending to use it mostly for athletic events.

In September 1953, three months after the MDC took ownership (and before rock ‘n’ roll had commandeered American airwaves), the Arena held its first concerts, presenting two-night stands by four of the biggest acts in jazz: Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie & His Orchestra and Billie Holiday. Those were the only major musical events at the venue until May 4, 1958 (by which time many radio stations had moved from a jazz format to a rock/pop one), when Alan Freed hosted a concert featuring Buddy Holly & The Crickets, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Danny & The Juniors, Billy Ford & The Thunderbirds, Frankie Lymon and The Diamonds.

After one man was stabbed and a dozen others were robbed during the event, Boston Mayor John Hynes announced that he would not authorize any more licenses for rock shows at the Arena and its manager, Paul Brown, echoed the sentiment. “The next rock ‘n’ roll show at the Arena will be presented over my dead body,” Brown told The New York Times in an article headlined “Rock and Roll Stabbing.” Freed was charged with inciting a riot, but prosecutors dropped the case due to the chief investigator’s death and the difficultly in bringing in witnesses from outside Massachusetts, according a November 1959 piece in The New York Times.

1960S, 1970S MUSICAL EVENTS

 The Arena hosted musical acts on a regular basis during the ‘60s, but did not present rock acts for over eight years following the 1958 event, showcasing folk, gospel, jazz, pop, R&B, soul and country artists instead. In October 1960, folk icon Pete Seeger took to the Arena stage, as did comedian Steve Allen, and Count Basie returned in 1962, when pop star Bobby Darin and vocal trio The Tarriers made their debuts. In November 1963, the Arena hosted a “Stars of the Grand Ole Opry” event that included Ernest Tubb, Leftie Frizell, Jean Shepard, Hank Williams, Jr., Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper, Audrey Williams and The Texas Troubadours, and Johnny Cash appeared in May 1964.

The second half of the decade began with shows in 1965 by The Beach Boys and gospel acts The Consolers, The Swan Silvertones, Dorothy Love Coates and The Original Gospel Harmonettes. In 1966, country artists Hank Snow, Sonny James, Connie Smith, Slim Whitman, Johnny Paycheck, Dave Dudley, Dottie West and Del Reeves appeared, as did British folk duo Chad & Jeremy, pop rockers The McCoys, pop crooner Gene Pitney, Herman’s Hermits and – in the first example of a genuine “rock” band since 1958 – The Animals. In August 1967, Otis Redding headlined the “7th Annual Shower of Stars” at the Arena, which also featured James Carr, Bettye Swann, Betty Harris, Five Stairsteps, The Manhattans, The Bar-Kays, Percy Sledge and Arthur Conley.

The Arena wrapped up the ‘60s by presenting major acts including Diana Ross & The Supremes (who performed two shows at the venue in March 1968), The Chambers Brothers (in May 1968) and Canned Heat, Procol Harum and Sly & The Family Stone (in March 1969). In April ’69, the venue hosted the Boston Rock Festival featuring Steppenwolf, Terry Knight & The Pack, The Youngbloods and English group The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (whose single “Fire” hit #1 in the UK and Canada and #2 in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968).

In the 1970s, the Arena hosted only a smattering a concerts compared to the ‘60s, the most famous being on April 10, 1970, when The Doors were booked for two shows (7pm and 10pm). The second didn’t start until after midnight and frontman Jim Morrison was clearly intoxicated, according to reports. The performance continued for two hours before Arena management turned off the power, resulting in Morrison smashing a microphone stand on the floor and being escorted off the stage. In 2007, Rhino Records and Bright Midnight Archives issued Live in Boston, a three-CD, 46-track recording of both shows. Other acts that appeared at the Arena during the decade were Ray Charles (April 1970) The Ike and Tina Turner Revue (October 1970), B.B. King (April 1971) and Alice Cooper (July 1977).

NORTHEASTERN ACQUISITION, 1980S, 1990S, 2000S MUSICAL EVENTS

In 1975 and 1976, the MDC leased the Arena to the city of Boston and in 1977, 1978 and most of 1979 it provided the space to Northeastern University free of charge. Northeastern bought the venue in October ‘79, calling it Northeastern Arena until November 1982, when it renamed it Matthews Arena in honor of chairman emeritus of its board of trustees, George Matthews, and his wife, Hope M. Matthews. Since the acquisition, the venue has been the home of the university’s men’s basketball team and men’s and women’s hockey teams.

In the 1980s, the opening of the Centrum in Worcester (now DCU Center) and the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts (now Xfinity Center) increased competition among Boston and Boston-area venues for top acts of practically every genre. As a result, the Arena hosted only a handful of concerts during the decade, among them Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble in April 1988 (with opener John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band) and Little Feat in April 1989. The Arena’s musical offerings expanded in the 1990s with shows by Bob Dylan, The Psychedelic Furs (with opener O Positive), Lennie Kravitz, INXS, Phish and Blues Traveler, and most Arena concerts in the 2000s have been part of Northeastern’s annual SpringFest. Among the artists who’ve appeared over the past 20-odd are vocalists Kesha and Kelly Clarkson, rappers Snoop Dog, Drake and Lil Yachty, indie poppers MisterWives and alt rockers Guster.

2010 RENOVATIONS, POSSIBLE DEMOLITION, REPLACEMENT

In 2010, to celebrate the venue’s 100th anniversary, Northeastern invested in major renovations to the Arena including a new roof, new seats and a state-of-the-art scoreboard. Fourteen years later, in May 2024, the university filed a letter of intent with the Boston Planning & Development Agency to replace it with a new building. “Matthews Arena is more than a century old and reaching the end of its useful life,” a spokesperson for Northeastern told The Huntington News at the time, noting that various structural modifications had been made to extend the current venue’s use. “The university has been making long-term assessments regarding the increasing demand for state-of-the-art athletic and recreational facilities, and the existing building’s limitations to meet them.”

(by D.S. Monahan)

Published On: January 3, 2025

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