RKO Prospect Theatre
327 9th Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11215
327 9th Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11215
2 people
favorited this theater
B.F. Keith’s Prospect Theatre opened on September 14, 1914. It began presenting programs from Keith’s Palace Theatre on Broadway, Manhattan. Films began to be screened as part of the vaudeville program from 1916. In 1920 a Moller organ was installed. This was replaced in October 1926, when a Wurlitzer 2 manual 10 ranks organ was intalled.
It went over to full time movie theatre use in May 1929, and was renamed RKO Prospect Theatre in 1930. However vaudeville returned in 1933.
Closed as a movie theatre in 1967. As the picture at right illustrates, the RKO Prospect Theatre has been converted into retail space. A store belonging to the C-Town grocery chain currently occupies the ground floor of the former theatre.
Contributed by
William Gabel
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Recent comments (view all 33 comments)
The Wurlitzer organ that was used in the Prospect was removed in 1960 and was put into storage. About 14 years later, it was moved to Pittsburgh, P.A. and rebuilt. It was then installed in the Keystone Oaks High School just outside of Pittsburgh. The Wurlitzer is maintained by the Pittsburgh Area Theater Organ Society (http://mysite.verizon.net/patos.wurlitzer/index_files/Page323.htm).
The main page of the website is actually View link
Couldn’t wait for Halloween?
View link 340
The new website for PATOS – the current owners of the WurliTzer organ from the Prospect is: http://theatreorgans.com/patos
Jay Smith
Just left the Avon Theatre site and now another memory jogger. My mother and I often went to the Saturday matinees at the Prospect Theatre, circa 1941-1945. Besides a movie, the clliff-hanger serials (remember Nyoka, Queen of the Jungle"?) and vaudeville shows. The all-midget show totally fascinated me. My Mom and I would buy a bag of candy from the candy counter at the 5 and Dime located diagonally across the street from the theatre. My memory is foggy but I believe there was a dance studio called “Rhetta’s” whose entrance was next to the theatre. I took tap dance lessons there.
Thanks to the creators of these fabulous websites.
My parents were from nearby Red Hook. I only heard of this theatre and others close to it because of them.
Some history and photos here: heresparkslope
Tinseltoes….Great stuff!
The Prospect was another of those great neighborhood movie theatres. My grade school graduation in 1959 was held there. I remember the dinnerware set that my mother treasured. She bought pieces weekly at the Prospect. Movies that I saw there shape my thinking for my entire life. Two notable ones were Two Women with Sophia Loren and I Want To Live with Susan Hayward.
According to this interview with Moe Howard, this is where Ted Healey and Moe Howard teamed up—starting what became The Three Stooges. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm6F5-qYONo