In an interview with Baltimore magazine last year, longtime Baltimore Sun staff photographer Amy Davis reflected on her past decade spent cataloging the city’s few current and many, many former movie theaters: “I was astonished to learn that, at one point, more than 120 theaters existed in the city. Even native Baltimoreans aren’t aware of the former theaters that they pass by on a daily basis.”
Davis was speaking on the work that went into her recently published photography book, “Flickering Treasures,” spotlighting 72 theaters around the city. Nearly all of them are shuttered and either replaced or in ruins, as befell the Mayfair on downtown’s Westside or the Royal in Upton. A handful have survived as salvaged and restored cinemas, most popularly the Senator near Belvedere Square or The Parkway in Station North.
Beginning next month, the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. will showcase some of Davis’ shots in a nearly year-long exhibition of the same name, “Flickering Treasures: Rediscovering Baltimore’s Forgotten Movie Theaters.” The show will put more than 70 framed photos by Davis alongside relics of Baltimore’s cinema heyday, including building fragments, memorabilia and written stories and biographies on display.
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