The area that became the Combat Zone was vibrant in the 1950s and first run films were often shown, but as Scollay Square’s luster began to tarnish, even before it was swept away by the urban renewal of the early 1960s, Washington Street south of Avery Street began to see an increasing change in the character of the neighborhood.

With bars, strip clubs, and theaters beginning to show adult X-rated movies, the area increasingly became a place that one either went out of his way to avoid or found so alluring that the inevitability of joining in the irreverent fun of it all quickly overcame one’s reservations.

The new name of the neighborhood was the “Combat Zone,” which was coined when in 1951 Judge George Roberts said of the area that “It is really a Combat Zone.”

It was also popularized through a series of exposé articles on the area by Jean Cole, a writer for the Boston Daily Record in the 1960s.