Located among densely built-up early-twentieth-century commercial blocks at Upham's Corner, the Strand was the earliest movie palace in suburban Boston. Nathan Gordon, a New England theater mogul who began his career in Worcester in 1903 and eventually owned a chain of seventy-five theaters, built it. Funk and Wilcox created a narrow facade in the form of a classical proscenium arch with a monumental lunette at the second-floor level. Above is a parapet emblazoned with the name “Strand.” William Reisman and Associates restored the interior with its Adamesque ornamentation.