Century's College Theater
1584 Flatbush Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
1584 Flatbush Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
3 people
favorited this theater
This little Art Deco house has a raised back section of seats that served as kind of a balcony.
In the 60s, this was a great place to see sub-run double features. When Century closed the Rialto, it moved that theater’s first-run policy here.
But as the neighborhood changed, the theater’s business waned, and the fate of this small theater was inevitable. (Oddly the local of the projectionists' union used to occupy the offices above the theater.)
Both they and the theater no longer inhabit the building.
Contributed by
philipgoldberg
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Recent comments (view all 24 comments)
Those are great images- it wasn’t all that when I was there, but, it was easy to see it once being that good.
This is a nice photo of the College Theater. Year given for the photo is 1945.
The College is prominently mentioned near the end of this article. The property site seems likely to benefit from a boom in Flatbush commerce. No mention, however, of the Loew’s Kings site, which is apparently too far from Triangle Junction: View link
This April 1967 NYT item gives the address as 1590 Flatbush Avenue.
A two-alarm fire swept through nine three-story buildings at Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn last night and early this morning, causing heavy damage and injuring four firemen. The nearby College Theater, a movie house at 1590 Flatbush Avenue, was also evacuated as a precautionary measure.
Here’s a 1945 view of the exterior: View link 39
That is an interesting photo. Thank you.
I wonder if other theaters sold war bonds/stamps as it appears the college did.
My express bus used to pass the College theater every day when it turned onto Flatbush Avenue. (It also passed the closed Rialto, now a Church and came within 2 blocks of the still-closed, though not demolished, Loews Kings.) I was only in this theater twice with my wife to see Olivia Newton-John in “Xanadu” and “The Amityville Horror.” I remember absolutely nothing distinctive about this theater and although I am now out of Brooklyn, I am totally unsurprised that it has closed up.
Sometime in the early 80s, the then President of Brooklyn College and a team from the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts visited the closed theatre in the hopes that it might be acquired by CUNY to take some of the performance load off the Center’s four theatre complex. Their theatres were having a hard time servicing all the events that they hosted every year. A fifth theatre would be able to ease the bottle necks they often ran into.
This theatre would have been perfect as it is directly adjacent half a block from the large U shape building and can be seen in the aerial view to the left of the theatre building on the next corner. All at that meeting, including President Hess, agreed the theatre would be a perfect addition to the Performing Arts Center.
Unfortunately CUNY in its wisdom would not purchase the property and now, decades later when the Center is pushed beyond its physical limits, CUNY and the City are forced to spend between 75,and by the time it is done, 85 million dollars do build a theatre exactly the same size of the College Theatre. Ironically, the PAC is designed with faux art-deco elements and so the College Theatre would have been a perfect match.
Gary C. is mistaken; the theatre had some wonderful and yes very distinctive art-deco elements including the lighting fixtures and structural lines made with aluminum plating. The stand-alone external box office itself is a very unique structural design indicative of that period and almost never seen today. Many times we can look directly at things and not realize how special they are.
The College Theatre didn’t close because it was unremarkable, it closed, just like so many others, because of the slump caused by commencement of the video age. Also because Century Theatres by this time had become nothing but a real estate company with little interest in operating theatre; they were making profits by selling off it property holdings before dissolving their east coast operations. They were letting all of their theatre simply run into the ground. An independent operator who knew (and loved) the theatre business could easily have made this or any of the other Century Theatres operate profitably.
Why didn’t anyone else take up the gauntlet on these theatres with great locations? Because Century had in its sale contract an encumber that stated the property could not be used as a movie theatre. This lovely, modest theatre should not be faulted because of the stupidity of greedy corporate types.
My grandfather was the projectionist here. I remember the walk past the manager’s office and up the several stairs to the projection room. I must have seen Rocky -5 times in one day. I’m glad it’s closed, so the memory of my grandfather was preserved with its closing.