Imperial Theater
869 Halsey Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11233
869 Halsey Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11233
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Showing 1 - 25 of 30 comments found
What year did this Imperial stop showing movies?
Never mind, I found out what the problem was….I was looking under “Brooklyn”, and the Imperial Theater on Irving Ave is listed under “Ridgewood”. Sorry all for the confusion…. Here it is…
/theaters/8166/
I know we had a listing here for the Imperial Theater at 157 Irving Ave. Does anyone know what happened to it? Why can’t I find it. I tried searching “Imperial”, and it won’t come up. I also tried searching “Imperial” using former names. Where is the Imperial Theater listing?
How many Imperial Theatres are listed for Brooklyn NY, and have you checked all of them ?
Crap. I posted this in the wrong Imperial theater!
Okay, how come I can’t find the listing for the right Imperial Theater?
OK, Bway, so now we’re talking about the other Imperial Theatre at Irving and DeKalb in Bushwick.
Here’s a photo I took of the DeKalb Ave side of the old theater back in July. I didn’t get around to uploading it until now:
Click here for photo
Here’s an aerial view of the old Imperial Theater, which now has been altered into a church. It’s right across from Saratoga Park.
View link
Judging by the building, it was never that large of a theater to begin with.
On August 12, 1927 the city issued a certificate of occupancy to a Mr. Leiffer for a 460 seat motion picture theater at this address. In October of 1940 a new C/O was issued for this property to be used as a Laundromat, so this theater was closed by 1940.
Yes I would also like to find out more about Our Lady Of Lourdes Church on Aberdeen St. I went to there school and I was a graduate of the class of 1969.
posted by alicia Nov 8th 2004
The Imperial theatre “Halsey” opened 1930 and closed in 1945
I don’t really know all the lines, just those. I have seen that movie so many times that I should know the lines by heart.
Thanks, Bway. No, I don’t know the name of that church that became a nightclub. However, I have heard of a nightclub in Manhattan called “The Library”, which looked like one, and know of a “Seminary Coffee Shop” at Lincoln, Halsted and Fullerton, in Chicago, near several blues clubs.
You know the whole thing by heart, lostmemory ?
Bway, the Imperial must have closed well before “The Exorcist” opened in NYC the day after Christmas 1973.
I am both awed and horrified at the thought of how “Exorcist” would have looked and sounded at Loew’s Valencia in Jamaica. I have read on this site that it played in a similar theater, the now-closed State Lake in Chicago’s Loop.
Actually, some have said that “Exorcist” was a commercial of sorts for the Catholic Church, implying that its rituals were powerful enough to cast out demons. Then again, both priests died in the process, the younger, first possessed, then a suicide, then absolved before he died …
Peter, they are at 75 Lewis Ave in Bedford-Stuyvesant. In their website they have a History Section that gives an all to brief history of them, and I can;t find any more information. In another section, they give a photo of the interior, which obviously is a “lower” church, or the main church with a “fake” drop ceiling.
Yes, I love those type of conversions, like the one in “Basic Instinct”. I remember the conversion in Greenwich village too. Is is still a nightclub, and do you know it’s name?
“We use the old ones for greasing the stones. If they are killed it is no loss” “Are you a master builder or a master butcher?” “God made men. Men made slaves” “It would take more than a man to lead the slaves from bondage. It would take a god.”
How much time do we have, maybe I’ll do the whole movie for you.
Thanks, Bway. According to my aunt, this was the original Brooklyn location of St. John’s University.
What is the address of this St. John the Baptist RC Church ?
I’ve been in the church and rectory of St. Jean Baptiste RC Church at 74th and Lexington on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. That was late 1980 and early 1981. My best friend was studying for the priesthood at the time and had stayed there.
It would be interesting to research the history of Our Lady Of Lourdes R.C. Church, which once stood on Aberdeen St. between Bway and Bushwick Avenue. It was demolished between 1972 and 1976.
You might recall the uproar in the late 1980’s over the conversion of a Greenwich Village church into a night club, and the scene showing that in L.A. in the 1992 film “Basic Instinct”.
I wonder if it closed before the early 1970 release of “The Exorcist”. The irony of playing that in a theater that is to become a church.
Hehe. Anyway, at first I didn’t thing this was the theater, but if you look at the side, you can tell the front has been resurfaced with a new brick vanir at one time, giving the look it has now.
I know this is off topic to theaters, but one post should be fine.
Speaking of Churches and theaters, I finally drove by the church I had always seen boarded up from the Myrtle-Bway station el platform. I found out it is “St John the Baptist RC Church” church, and is still open, although boarded up. What a beautiful building, a shame.
I looked on their website, and it shows a photo of their sancuary, and it is not what you would think with the high ceiling. It has a low ceiling. Either they have a “lower” church (like some other large Catholic churches) and the upstairs sits empty, or they put a a “drop ceiling” in the church to save maintenence costs, and then boarded up all the windows upstairs to protect them, as you can’t see them anyway from the interior. ALso, they sold their “Great lawn” in front of the building and homes are built on it, so now the “front” of the church is an alley. Very sad for a beautiful building.
Maybe someone should do the opposite, convert the church into a theater…..
Here’s a link to a photo of St John the Baptist
I would love to find out more about what they did. Obviously the main church is either unused, or has a “fake” low drop ceiling.
Which version ? Silent or sound ? There were also silent and sound versions of “Ben Hur” and “King Of Kings”.
The sound, Heston version of “Ten Commandments” (1956) is probably closest to when the Imperial closed :
“So let it be written. So let it be done !”
(old windbag !)
You “see” Thomasina Aquinas on-line? You need a vacation or I need glasses. She isn’t related to Sally, is she?
How about the “Ten Commandments”? Do we know when this theater closed so I can come up with an appropriate movie?
I see “Thomasina Aquinas” is on-line. Perhaps this lady (?) named after the learned doctor of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, can be of help here. She could consult her greatest work, her magnus opus, “Summa Theologica Et Cinematicus”.
I have read in it that most medieval films were in Latin, with vernacular subtitles, particularly those of Chaucer and Bocaccio.
Glad you liked that ! Not only “Oh God !” but any religious movie. “The Next Voice You Hear” and “Between Two Worlds” come to mind, as they are older films, 1950 and 1947, respectively. In the latter, God is a character called “the examiner”.