RKO Albee Theatre
1 DeKalb Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
11201
1 DeKalb Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
11201
12 people
favorited this theater
The E.F. Albee Theatre, on Dekalb Avenue, which opened in January 1925, was named after Edward F. Albee (1857-1930) and had crystal chendeliers in the lobby and paintings from Albee’s private collection. It also contained a 40 x 70 foot Czech Maffersdorf carpet billed as the world’s largest rug.
The RKO Albee Theatre was closed in September 1978 and demolished in November 1978 to make way for the Albee Square Mall (which itself was demolished in the Summer of 2008).
Contributed by
Frank Tilelli, William Gabel
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Recent comments (view all 109 comments)
The RKO Albee was long gone by the time I came to NY so I never got to see it. I saw a photo of the lobby and auditorium in the book “American Picture Palaces” by David Naylor, and It looks amazingly similar to the RKO Palace in Cleveland OH. I suspected it was a mistake in the captioning of the photo, but was never quite sure. I would like to ask the Albee Theatre aficionados here to check out the links below that contain photos of the Cleveland Palace, which has been restored and is open and operating as one unit of a performing arts center. After viewing the photos could you please report here if the lobby and auditorium are similar to your recollections of the Albee interiors? Thanks in advance for your opinions.
RKO PALACE – Cleveland Ohio:
Exterior (front and side):
View link
View link
Lobbies:
View link
View link
View link
Auditorium:
View link
View link
View link
View link
To give proper credit, the photos were taken and links posted on the Palace page on this site by CT member ‘spectrum’ on Jul 9, 2009.
The CT page for the Palace Theatre Cleveland OH is at:
/theaters/1114/
Many of the large Keith-Albee houses had architectural similarities, but I think it would be wrong to assume that the Brooklyn Albee and the Cleveland Palace were close lookalikes. The Brooklyn Albee came later and was designed by Thomas Lamb, while the earlier Palace was Rapp & Rapp. I can’t connect to most of the links published by dave-bronx, so I can’t comment further at the moment.
That’s why I questioned the photo of the Albee I saw in the book – one theatre was Lamb and the other was the Rapp Bros. I worked at the Palace and am quite familiar with it. So while perusing the book I saw a photo and automatically assumed was the Palace until I read the caption that indicated it was the Albee.
This photograph of the E.F. Albee Theatre was taken in 1927 by George Mann of the comedy dance team, Barto and Mann.
Brad, you have an amazing collection of fascinating theater marquees. Thank goodness Barto and Mann so thoroughly documented their appearances.
Thank you for your good words, saps. It was my father George Mann who documented many of Barto and Mann’s appearances by taking photographs of the marquees where they appeared. Although most of the marquee photographs are more like snapshots, he was an accomplished photographer. You can see examples of his photography by clicking here clicking here.
On this day in 1959, Walt Disney’s Technicolor western epic, “Tonka,” which was considered too weak for a midtown Broadway booking, made its NYC debut at the RKO Albee. Sal Mineo, billed as “New York’s own,” played the title role in the “flaming story of courage and excitement,” which boasted a supporting cast of 1,000’s including Jerome Courtland, Philip Carey, and Rafael Campos. Filling out the program was the B&W suspenser, “Step Down To Terror,” with Colleen Miller and Charles Drake.
Warren G. Harris: I love that movie “The People Next Door” ! I’d love to hear more stories you may have. The INTERIOR of the suburban homes looked so realistic —that was a studio in NYC? I wish this movie would come out on DVD.
The rejuvenation of Albee Square is mentioned near the end of this recent article about the Fulton Street Mall: forgotten-ny
This theater and me have a long but short history, Me and my Mom spent lots of Money we didn’t have here. I was so young I remember being carried into this theater as a child, seriously I was born in 1969 and remember seeing Return of the Dragon (1974) and had to be held up to see over the chair in front of me. (The photo was provided by the Brooklyn Public Library)“SORRY DIDN’T MEAN TO REMOVE THE PREVIOUS PHOTO” when I saw the posting I new I had to contribute that shot…