During the 1970s, when laws against obscenity were relaxed, many of the cinemas then screening second-run films began screening adult movies. With the closing of the burlesque theatres in Scollay Square, many of the bars began to feature go-go dancers and, later, nude dancers.
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It was located between the classic, studio-built movie palaces such as the RKO Keith's and Paramount theatres and the stage theatres such as the Colonial on Boylston Street.
Lower Washington Street was already part of Boston's entertainment district with a number of movie theaters, bars, delicatessens, and restaurants that catered to night life. Originally, there was an attempt to name the area Liberty Tree Neighborhood after the Liberty Tree that once stood in the area, but the name did not catch on. Displaced Scollay Square denizens relocated to the lower Washington Street area because it was only half a mile away, the rents were low, and the residents of nearby Chinatown lacked the political power to keep them out. The Combat Zone began to form in the early 1960s, when city officials razed the West End and former red light district at Scollay Square, near Faneuil Hall, to build the Government Center urban renewal project.
The moniker described an area that resembled a war zone both because of its well-known crime and violence, and because many soldiers and sailors on shore leave from the Charlestown (Boston) Navy Yard frequented the many strip clubs and brothels while in uniform. The name "Combat Zone" was popularized through a series of exposé articles on the area Jean Cole wrote for the Boston Daily Record in the 1960s.