Onetime Portland Porn Palace Paris Theatre Closes After 128 Years

The Paris Theatre never turned up on Portlandia, but the longtime adult cinema and, later, full-on sex club was part of the Portland, Oregon, downtown scene for 128 years, first seeing life as a burlesque house that opened its doors in 1890. But now, after its most recent owners took over in 2016 and turned the establishment into a traditional nightclub with such attractions as “punk rock karaoke,” the owners of the former porn palace announced Friday that it will close down for good, according to a report by The Portland Mercury.  In its heyday as an adult theater in the 1970s, the Paris, located on Portland’s Third Avenue, once ran the now-landmark porn film Deep Throat for an engagement that lasted four straight years.  More recently, the theater specialized in gay porn, and expanded beyond a mere movie emporium, adding such amenities as a sex dungeon, a bedroom, and perhaps most intriguing of all, a “perky exam table,”  according to The Mercury.  But the place had fallen into disrepair, with the local weekly newspaper listing the Paris as one of Portland’s spots “where ghosts wouldn't be caught dead,” rather uncharitably describing the theater’s clientele as “a bunch of winos, users and sleazy old guys the same age as your dad (or granddad), with their pants around their ankles and greasy cum rags in hand.” When the new owners, both local nightclub impresarios, took over, they announced plans to revert the Paris to its previous condition before it went to an all-porn format, refurbishing the theater’s decaying marquee and facade. Their first entertainment attraction was a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  They also eliminated the screening auditorium and sex dungeon. On September 27, however, the owners announced that they had closed due to a “safety issue,” but would reopen pending an inspection. But by October 4, it had become clear that wasn’t going to happen. According to the Mercury report, the historic theater had shuttered due to “water damage.” With their lease expiring at the end of 2019, the building’s owners—not the owners of the business itself—simply decided to shutter the former porn palace for good. Photo By Barry Caruth / Wikimedia Commons