Embassy Theatre
3208 Fulton Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11208
3208 Fulton Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11208
5 people
favorited this theater
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Mom & Pop’s was across from The Embassy. My sister and I would get a bag of potato chips and a box of stick pretzels for 10 cents and take them into The Embassy on a Saturday afternoon. We would sometimes go to Mom & Pop’s for lunch and get a soup and sandwich for 50 cents (PS 65 is around the corner on Richmond). Wilken’s ice cream parlor was on Fulton between Pine and Euclid. They made great sundaes and ice cream sodas.
Adelphi Drug Store is located at 3350 Fulton in a row of commercial/residential properties. The Gem was across the street that is now the parking lot of North Fork Bank (originally the Hamburg Savings Bank). I believe the Gem was torn down in the mid 1950’s.
From 1932 Brooklyn Yellow Pages, then Donnelly’s Red Book.
Adelphi Theatre 3356 Fulton
APplegate 7-7547
Embassy Theater was located on Fulton & Richmond Streets in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn 11208. It had an orchestra section, loge (today’s mezzanine) and a balcony. Decor was red carpeting and curtain with gold tooling all around. In the late 1950’s early 1960’s kids could get in for 35-40 cents from 12 noon to 5 pm on Saturdays. That was usually two movies, cartoons, Movietone newsreel and coming attractions. The regular movie would start after 5 pm. Movies were shown Wed-Sun. Always a double bill. Many movies were shown on Mon and Tues only. Remember seeing The Great Caruso and Showboat one Monday afternoon with my parents' permission. It was a cultural experience. Everytime I pass that Senior Citizen’s Center on the site I still have fond memories of many Saturday afternoons at The Embassy and still see the theater in my mind. Miss those days.
For those interested is seeing pictures of the area and the
theater, you can visit http://www.tapeshare.com/ENY.html
Does anyone have a picture of the Embassy??
Would really like one if there’s one out there from 50’s to 60’s.
Thank yoy
I grew up in the Cypress Hills area in the late 50’s and early 60’s and spent many hours at the Embassy. I don’t see that anyone has mentioned one feature that I fondly recall. At the top of the building, they had a huge billboard that displayed what was showing now or what was coming next depending on which was the better draw. The neat thing was that the el track on Fulton Street made the sign virtually invisible unless you were actually riding into or out of the Crescent St station. As shows turned over quite frequently, it was always exciting as a kid to look out the train window to determine what was going on at the Embassy. As I recall, “big” movies would play on a Wed to Sun basis with a possible extension while minor ones were sometimes there only for a Mon – Tues run. That billboard guy was pretty busy!
I’m sorry but I can’t help with the Adelphi Theater. From what I have seen at this site there were several theaters that changed their names over the years. I was never aware of that. Both the Embassy and the Gem always always went by the names that I knew.
The Concord Theatre is listed in “The American Motion Picture Directory : a Cyclopedic Directory of the Motion Picture Industry 1914-15” (Fulton & Richmond is the address given). The Film Daily Yearbook (1926 & 1927) gives the address as 3208 Fulton Street. Both editions place seating capacity at 600. The Embassy is listed in the 1929 Film Daily Yearbook (address given is Fulton and Richmond).
Ah, Karl B, good to have you on this page. Thanks for being here !
Can you help us out with the Adelphi Theater, a silent movie theater, which may have preceded the Gem Theatre at its selfsame location ?
The Embassy Theatre was the theatre where I first saw the original “Psycho” movie during the summer of 1961. It was the most violent movie I had seen up till that time and it really made an impression on me. I did not attend many movies at the Embassy preferring to go to the Gem which was closer to home. After the Gem closed most of my movie going was to the Merrick and Valencia in Jamaica.
The Embassy Carriage Shop was across the street and further west, closer to Logan St. The Carriage Shop was a Lionel Train dealer so I was in there very often.
Does anyone remember Sonny’s Sport & Hobby Shop? It was a very small store in the Embassy Theatre building with an entrance on Fulton St. I bought many a 10 cent balsa wood airplane kit from Sonny in the 1940’s.
I was surprised to read that the Embassy was razed. I have not been in the area in many years, but had been told that the theatre was converted into a Senior Citizens Center.
Was it a conversion or was the theatre actually razed?
I used to go to the Embassy in the 50’s and 60’s. I remember the interior as being rather plush with red patterned carpeting and red velvet curtains in the stage with a gold fringe. The manager in the 50’s was a Mr. Grace and the assistant mgr was a Mr Franzese. There were 2 matrons that showed you to your seat.
Tuesdays were dish nights and Saturday mornings were kiddie shows.
Does anyone have a picture of this theatre?
Raymond, in response to your 5/25/04 post, sorry, but that’s not the case ….. although you do bring up Cortes ice cream parlor and Longs ice cream parlor, both of which were very popular and well-known ice cream parlors in Cypress Hills for many, many years ….. decades, if not generations.
Cortes ice cream parlor was at the corner of Norwood Avenue & Fulton Street/Arlington Avenue (where Arlington Avenue starts …. or ends if you go by the actual address numbers), near the Norwood Avenue “el” train station (the “QJ” or “KK” train, if anyone remembers those designations from the late ‘60s/'70s). A little more trivia – Cortes ice cream parlor was originally named “Oedings” …… from what my mom tells me, Oeding(s) was the owner’s last name, and when the daughter got married, they changed the ice cream parlor name to the daughter’s new married name, “Cortes”.
Longs ice cream parlor was near the Crescent Street “el” train station on Fulton Street between Crescent & Hemlock Street. It was run by the Long family, who I think were local residents, as well as politically active in Queens/Brooklyn. Longs was about the last “hold-out” of the great ice cream parlors to remain in Cypress Hills after most of the others had left (I know Longs was still in Cypress Hills in the late ‘70s).
The ice cream parlor across from the Embassy theater may have been named “Mom & Pop’s” (according to my mom) …… I was kind of little when it closed up, but I can still remember the couple who ran it – older with white hair and glasses.
The other ice cream parlor that was “big” in that part of Cypress Hills (at least in my time) was Wilkens ice cream parlor on Fulton between Euclid Avenue & Pine Street, also near the Crescent Street “el” train station.
Warren, in response to your 9/1/04 & 9/7/04 posts:
Yes, the Embassy did have a balcony, and I seem to remember it was “off-limits” if you were under a certain age. I asked my mom about this (she went to movies at the Embassy from back in the mid/late 1930s when she was a child, up to the time it closed in the late ‘60s/early '70s), and she tells me that at one point, they closed the Embassy balcony altogether because they were having a lot of problems with smokers who would “flick” their cigarette butts down onto the audience below.
I really don’t remember the decor of the Embassy, I’ll have to ask my mom about that the next time I talk to her. If you’re interested, my mom also used to go to two other Cypress Hills movie theaters – the Lowe’s Warwick (which is shown on this site), as well as the Gem theater, which was up at Fulton Street & Crescent Street ….. I don’t see any Gem theater listed on this site for Brooklyn, NY – could you check your records for it? The address for the Gem theater would have been either Fulton Street (like the Embassy) with the street number higher than the Embassy’s 3208 address going in that direction; or the Gem’s address may have possibly been Crescent Street, number 190 or something like that. I think the Gem closed sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s – I’ll ask my mom to see if she remembers.
Re. the name “Concord Theater” for the Embassy, I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my mom if that rings a bell with her from her childhood years.
Tim O.
The ice cream parlor across from The Embassy was called Cordes, formerly Longs.
The correct neighborhood for the Embassy Theater is the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn, not the East New York section. The correct zip code is 11208, not 11207. The Embassy (and the adjoining Embassy luncheonette/coffee shop) was demolished in the late ‘60s/early '70s. Plans were made to build a day-care center on the site, but the residents fought that and instead, a senior citizen’s center was built (which I think is still open today).
Back in its “heyday”, the “four-corners” of Richmond & Fulton were: (1) the Embassy Theater;
(2) Goldberg’s jewelry store; (3) Lenny’s deli; and, (4) Gray’s clothing store. There was also a children’s furniture store on the opposite side of Fulton Street across from the Embassy called “Embassy Carriage”.
There was an ice cream parlor across from the Embassy too, right next to Goldberg’s jewelry store. We kids would stop at the ice cream parlor to buy our candy (it was cheaper) before going over to the Embassy for the movie. A couple of movies I remember seeing at the Embassy: (1) “The Man Called Flintstone” (1966); and, (2) some “McHale’s Navy” movie that was stitched together from the “McHale’s Navy” TV show.
The Embassy Theatre seated 1439 people.