Kings Theatre
1027 Flatbush Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
11226
1027 Flatbush Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
11226
86 people
favorited this theater
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As a theatrical type person I am willing to put myself behind both the Paramount and Kings projects. The more the theaters, the better the Brooklyn. Not that Brooklyn is bad, heck, Coney Island is a nice place. However, it could still use some tweeking to get it back to its former, Dodger Days, glory. Keep in mind that I am a former Brooklynite and still love the place. This will help
I find the different types of history each theater has to be interesting. For the Paramount it was more rock ‘n’ roll rebellion. For the Kings, it was more stars before they were stars. Alan Freed held his famous and raucus concerts at the Paramount, and they were so loved they became sort of a thing of folklore. However, the Kings silently backed people and assisted them in their Hollywood Glory as, well, their first break into show business. With their separate histories, they made a dent in the world of show business.
“Let’s Try to remember, the days in September” (September 7th, 1929- to be exact) when the Loew’s Kings opened their doors.. ‘and follow..’ Wasn’t that a song??? It’s a long, long time…. from May to September and the days grow short, till we reach September. (NYC EDC will issue their RFP in April-May)
“The days dwindle down to a precious few, September, November..” .Just remember, it’s not over till the fat lady sings!!
The theater opened on September 7th, but then soon enough, came ‘Black Friday.’ Not the movie, starring Boris Karloff, but the day the Stock Market crashed. For all you old movie buffs, ‘Those were the good old days.’ That was Ray Walston in ‘Damn Yankees’ It starred Gweyn Verdon, the dancer who had a friend named Viola Hoolihan. Vi started as a dancer working for the Arthur and Kathryn Murray Dance Studios at the corner of Church & Flatbush. Later, she auditioned for Billy Rose and also the Chester Hale Dancers (who worked the LOEW’S KINGS!) Viola chose the glitter of Broadway to the wilds of Brooklyn. Today, she lives to talk about it. How do I know??? Because she’s a close friend of my wife’s mother, that’s why!
If our message board members want to do something to Save The Kings, here’s what we CAN do.
Come up with a publicity campaign for select movies that played the Loew’s Kings. Pick those that have a relevance to reopening this cathedral of the ornate.
For instance, former usherette Barbra Streisand, along with Robert Redford in ‘The Way We Were’
Let’s resurrect the award winning campaign of Loew’s Kings Manager, Dorothy Solomon Panzica’s: To Clean Up The Neighborhood and return it to ‘The Way We Were’
Or how about, ‘The Lords of Flatbush’ which starred not one but TWO former Loew’s Kings ushers, Henry WInkler (The Fonz) and Sylvester Stallone.
Let’s not forget Eili Wallach, who narrated Christian Blackwood’s film: ‘Memoirs of a Movie Palace’ but was also a member of the Flatbush Boys Club, just a few blocks from the Loew’s Kings! From what I hear, when he was asked for a contribution to the Flatbush Boy’s Club, Mr. Wallach sent an autographed picture!
From what I hear, Barbra Streisand isn’t making many public appearances these days. She made ‘Funny Girl’ – the life story of Fanny Bryce, who also walked the boards at Loew’s Kings. I have heard that Babs secretly donates $50,000 a year to the Erasmus High School Alumni Fund. She has also talked about her roots at Loew’s Kings on her TV specials and concert tours. But, from what I hear, she’s gained a lot of weight. Maybe our campaign could say, ‘It’s not over until the fat lady sings!’
What movies played the Kings? [“What’s playing at the Roxy? I’ll tell you what’s playing at the Roxy.. what’s in the Daily News, I’ll tell you what’s in the Daily News…” That’s from ‘Guys & Dolls’ and that’s the 2005 production being mounted on the great stage at Brooklyn Tech next month!!
By the way, Rambusch, the decorative design firm created detail for the Roxy AND Loew’s Kings.
What if we threw a film festival of all the movies that played the Kings that could play a part or take a roll in creating The Kings County Center For The Performing Arts?
Earlier, I mentioned Boris Karloff. Does anyone remember that in 1958, he starred as Captain Hook in the Broadway revival of ‘Peter Pan.’ At that time, Zacherley, TV’s Cool Ghoul asked Mr Karloff, ‘Do you mind that we kid your old movies?’ Karloff replied, ‘No, you’re keeping me alive.’
But if you want a newer movie, how about ‘Neverland’ a Bob & Harvey Weinstein production (the boys from Brooklyn) That’s the story of J.M. Barry, author of Peter Pan. Wait a minute! Didn’t I talk about Karloff appearing as Captain Hook in ‘Peter Pan’? Yes, I do, indeed I do, and in the words of Al Jolson, (The Jazz Singer) “You aint heard nothin yet!” That was the first silent movie musical, but Gweyn Verdon’s husband was Bob Fosse and they made his life into a movie: ‘All That Jazz.’
(‘Silent Movie’ wasn’t that a Mel Brooks film? Speaking of Mel Brooks, another boy from Brooklyn, he’s now busy making ‘The Producers’ in Brooklyn! But then again, Woody Allen and Neil Simon are both from Brookyn! Didn’t Woody make some of his films in Brooklyn? Didn’t he make a movie about a movie theater?
If Neil Simon wasn’t born in Brooklyn. If Neil Simon hadn’t lived in Brooklyn, he wouldn’t have written: ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ and let’s not forget Arthur Schwartz (DJ Jonathan Schwartz’s father) He wrote, ‘Dancing In The Dark’ (there’s a scene in the Fred Astaire film that takes place in a park. Could Arthur Scwhartz have been thinking of The Prospect Park? He also wrote, ‘That’s Entertainment’ and lived in Flatbush!!!
‘Good night Mrs. Calabash, where ever you are.’ That was Jimmy Durante and HE appeared LIVE on stage at the Loew’s Kings. Does anybody remember hearing, ‘Channel 7, NY. Next 'Shock Theater’? Well, that starred TV’s Cool Ghoul, Zacherley! The grand old boy had and STILL HAS a tag line: ‘Good Night, whatever you are!!’"
Did I mention that in the mid 70’s Zacherley appeared LIVE on stage at the Loew’s Kings?? Well, if I didn’t mention it, he did! Besides, wouldn’t it be simply grand if the Loew’s Kings was beautifully restored and reopened as ‘The Kings County Center For The Performing Arts?’ Even Zacherley, (a personal friend) prefers that to Shock Theater.“ A few years ago, I met Karloff’s daughter, Sarah and asked: ‘What do you think of all the remakes?’ She replied, ‘If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”
I asked, ‘Do you go to see monster movies?’ She replied, ‘No, I’m too scared!’ BORIS KARLOFF"S DAUGHTER is afraid of monster movies? Are you afraid to help Save The Kings??
So if you want to talk about ‘That’s Entertainment,’ tune in ‘That’s Brooklyn'
BCAT-Tuesday 11 AM and 7 PM Time Warner-Ch. 56/Cablevision – Ch. 69
MNN-Wednesdays at 7:30 PM on Time Warner -Channel 56
QPTV-Wednesdays at 9:00 PM on Time Warner -Channel 35
And beginning April 5th, every Tuesday night at 7:30 throughout Nassau County on Cablevision.
You are on the money Bruce. Taking action is always the tough part…especially when you are unfamiliar with what is required.
All I can say is that we’ve got some pretty clever people coming up with ideas and historical stuff on this message board! Maybe if somebody would actually attempt to do, what THEY suggest, it might prove fruitful.
I don’t know anybody at the Building’s Department, (as the song goes) ‘How about you?’ If there were committees and ideas were actually discussed and strategies planned, possibly we could be successful.
Yesterday, on one of my fact finding missions, I found much underused land (surrounding Loew’s Kings) is being bought up by the same people. There’s even a large tract that some folks told me will be a warehouse. But other folks told me that their houses, (that are adjacent to the space) are getting offers to ‘sell’ so that a new shopping mall can be built. QUESTION: Why build warehouse with a shopping center next door? ANSWER: Because the developer plans to build a bigger mall!!
If that’s the case, then those same developers might not be planning to bid on the King’s site, in order to turn it into a shopping mall. But, regulars here will remember that I talked about Sear’s Flatbush, built on land owned by a multibillion dollar developer…well, that same developer with the cooperation of K-Mart has taken a controlling share of Sears. As Artie Johnson on Laugh-In used to say, ‘Very Interesting!!’ (Don’t forget Sears is right behind the Loew’s Kings)
Over the past 18 years, I have seen similar developments in the area. Now things seem to be heating up again. Maybe the time is finally right??
Timeline:
White Flight – In the 70's
The Theater closed in 1979
Afro American and Caribbean Community is vital to the economic growth of area
No theater serves the area
Nearby apartment houses have gone coop and condo
National chain stores have surrounded the theater
(originally, the theater came before the shopping district)
neighborhood has very good police protection and is now considered safe IN DAYTIME
(remember Times Square, before Disney?)
NYC will hold issue their RFP -April or May.
What we need is to do is call a meeting, divide into committees and actually do something!
Many cities such as Milwaukee microfilmed most old blueprints before discarding them and sent the films to rented archives deep in the empty salt mines out west; did New York do something similar? It may be necessary to cultivate a ‘friend’ in the city’s building inspection department to learn what may be confidential. Conceiveably, one could then pay to have a film returned and duplicated or have new prints made off of the film.
As Bruce points out from the print he acquired, it IS possible to redraw the prints from what remains and from photos, but is IS quite expensive!
The only blueprint of the Loew’s Kings that I know to exist is in my possession. It was found in a carton of garbage, in the dumpster, out back behind the theater. That blueprint allowed the guys who did the recent asbestos/lead abatement study to understand the structure.
As to the recent comments by Life’s too short, Warren, Astyanax, etc…I can only say that it’s too bad that nobody is interested in the BRILLIANT suggestion made by Lance!!!!
“Let’s stop all this talking and start taking some action to save the Kings!”
My uncle conducted the transaction I speak of…his name is CW Rapp. He is son of Mason Rapp, who closed Rapp & Rapp in the 60’s.
The transaction took place in 1988. All blueprints (actually linen tracings) that were left at the time the office closed, and a collection of photographs, were donated to the Chicago Historical Society.
Brother Andrew Corsini, from THS, was allowed to make copies of the photographs before transfer. This is the only thing that resembles a Rapp & Rapp archive at THS in Elmhurst.
The only plans for a Brooklyn theater included in the donation were those of the Paramount. The fate of plans for the Kings is difficult to judge. A lot of materials were thrown out around 1930, when the office was slow. Basically, they saved only what they thought might generate more work. There was a flood at one point. Each time they moved, a thing or two was thrown away. Maybe plans for the Kings really are floating around New York somewhere…
The enormous community revival underway in Brooklyn makes it conceivable that the city’s most populous borough can support several performance spaces in addition to BAM and Brooklyn College’s Whitman Auditorium. We should not consider the redevelopment of the Kings & the Paramount as canceling each other out. Some creativity especially in targeting niche audiences is what called for, in addition of course, to financial support. Both of these splendid spaces can co-exist.
Lance makes perfect sense! Bruce makes perfect sense, but from 1987 until the present, Bruce has tried everything and still nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I have brought the Loew’s Kings to the attention of Disney, Clear Channel, Ron Delsener Productions, Rambusch (the decorative design firm, who also did the Brooklyn Paramount), Evergreene, SFX—Sillerman, multi millionaire and showman who is a major investor in Bruce Ratner’s new NETS arena, Marty Markowitz- who loves the idea and has always been a big supporter of the project, Joe Franklin – who wants to put his movie merorabilia and vaudeville museum in the lobby, Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC), Ben Vereen' who’s mother was a char lady at the Kings, Sylvester Stallone, Henry Winkler and Streisand who were all ushers at the Kings, Arthur Tracy (The Street Singer) who performed here in vaudevill
and so so so many others. (Not to mention the biggest real estate developers including Ratner, Vornado, Grid Properties, the people who brought you Harlem U.S.A., Millennium Partners who opened the Sony Loews Lincoln Plaza complete with the facade of the Loew’s Kings, David Rockwell who designed that and everything DISNEY. Just think, if I never get this accomplished, I had one hell of a good time, met some fascinating people and my buddy, Dorothy at 90 is STILL the manager of Loew’s Kings!
So why don’t we continue writing little memories and little hopes and forget Lance’s BRILLIANT suggestion of actually doing something?
Folks,
This talk of sacrificing Kings Loew Theater for Brooklyn Paramount Theater is not acceptable. Because the Brooklyn Paramount is part of a university it has access to millions of dollars, so if the university wants to make it a theater again, they can. However,it is up to all of us who care about the Kings to save it. The idea that it is not cost effective to save the Kings is foolish. To build a new performing arts center would cost 3 or 4 times the amount it would take to restore the Kings and I doubt that anyone is going to build a more beautiful theater. Someone has to make a decision to create a non-profit organization to save the Kings and become incorporated. Once that is done, the organization can ask fortune 500 companies as well as the entertainment community to donate money to save the Kings. To encourage donations, the organization can make a list of corporate sponsors so that it will be worthwhile for companies and/or indivduals to donate money because they are getting free publicity. We, the readers cannot blame a theater owner for the decline of the Kings. The Kings belongs to the City of Brooklyn, so it is up to all of us, who care to save it. Let’s stop all this talk and bein taking action. Once people realize we are serious about saving the Kings than other people will look at the Kings in a different light. Instead, of seeing the Kings as a burden to the City, they will see all the potential. If the Kings were restored it could be used for filming (commericals, movies and videos just like the grand Los Angeles Theater in LA,CA), conventions, plays, and even use it as a church or a museum (placing art and/or scuptures throughtout the theater). Be creative but whatever we do, let’s stop all this talking and start taking some action to save the Kings!
I know the guy who conducted the transaction…the word was the entire colletion…no exceptions…went to the Chicago Historical Society.
But, what the hell…I can ask him.
Do you think we would need a website like I did for the Kings?
Well, why not try both. I’m game for the Paramount.
Did they open the King’s for people to get proposals for redevelopment?
I hate to say it, but if, finally, we cannot bring back the glorious KINGS, then we would do well to bring back the equally glorious BROOKLYN PARAMOUNT. The photos of it in Ben Hall’s BEST REMAINING SEATS reveal a wonderland of opulence, and typically, the sumptuous ‘Bird of Paradise’ house curtain will be among the most difficult and costly artifact to reproduce. We hate to trade off palaces, but if it must be, this is a fitting trade.
That’s great. But, still, what about the Kings?
Dear Warren and Gustav:
Sorry, but the only reference you will find at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection – at the LIbrary for the Performing Arts are the REFERENCE CARDS themselves! Everything else is long gone! Mr Big, the head man said to me, ‘We have no idea what happened to all those blueprints.’
Therefore, if the Chicago Historical Society has blueprints of the Kings, they are indeed – one of a kind!!
And — so it goes. On a happier note, the Brooklyn Paramount may get lucky. There is talk in LIU Long Island University Circles of a possible and that’s in capital letters—movement to restore and reopen the Brooklyn Paramount—as a theatre!
While we’re on the subject of Brooklyn, theatre fans might check out the magnificent Brooklyn Tech Theatre space which olds almost 4,000 seats and is in pristine condition. The Principal wants to see it used for outside productions, when not in use by the school.
The other night, I wandered into the Brooklyn Academy of Music and talked my way up to the dressing room area where they were preparing to shoot a scene from ‘The Producers’. By luck, I met the right people and explained that the architects for BAM were Hertz and Talent, who also did the New Amsterdam. It seems that they were shooting a scene from ‘The Producers’ but would also be shooting at the St. James (Yesterday) so it’s a movie about a play within a play that was based on a movie. Well, that’s the kind of movie we should write about the Loew’s Kings. It will not become a multiplex, but a live theater that might for a special run screen one movie to 1 big audience. No multiplex here!!
Bruce1
I hope that library is online
Life’s…;
In case you didn’t read it before…There is an effort just Email
Thanks Life…Maybe I should contact them.
Got to get in your face, Jim. Rapp & Rapp lasted well into the 60’s. By this time the firm did all kinds of work…bank buildings, for instance. The odd theater job did still turn up…like that place in Detroit…what was it…originally very exotic…the Fisher.
You can’t save them all…at least to function as 2,000 plus seat theaters. But, this was a great one. I was happy to hear that the plan to turn it into multiple cinemas fell apart. Hopefully a plan will materialize to bring it back to life. If a bunch of volunteers & community activists can save the place over in Jersey City, anything can happen!
Mason Rapp, who closed the firm, would be amazed to see so many of their theaters still around in 2005. He felt that movie palaces had become obsolete, and died just as preservation efforts in America were picking up steam.
Also of note…I don’t know what Rapp & Rapp materials exist in Elmhurst, IL. But, the entire collection of original blueprints was donated to the Chicago Historical Society in the 80’s. Ironically, Mason preserved the blueprints because he thought they would be worth money to the people tearing the old buildings down. He was a smart man, but he sure didn’t see to the other side of that one!
Not the same Rapp & Rapp, my friend…I assure you.
I tried getting in touch with the firm of Rapp and Rapp, but they never returned my E-Mails. I thought that maybe there would be some group that would be interested in restoring their architecture. The firm has since become a computer web firm.
If we could find a group that’s interested in the restoration of Rapp and Rapp Architecture then that would help to. They may be able to raise the money. Rapp and Rapp has not returned my E-Mails.
Your love of the grandiose KINGS is well placed, Bruce, and yes, it can be restored just as the NEW AMSTERDAM was as long as something of it remains to be a starting point in the restoration. All it takes is money, LOTS of money. Ironically, I fear that even if money is found for the essential structural and plaster repairs along with other physicals, it is the 3-story-high monumental draperies that will not be replacable, since no drapery makers of that caliber exist any longer, nor the firms such as E.L.Mansure Co. which made the 5-foot-long tassels and 4-foot-long fringe upon them. Such textile artistry was unique to the lavish interior of the KINGS which decorative draperies were intended to convey the opulence of a true king’s palace! Such ornaments of the past are today sneered at as ‘feminine’ and of no material worth in the iconography of the ‘now generation’. I guess I dream as you do of restoring this wonderful venue as the Jehovah’s Witnesses did the STANLEY in N.J., but even such as they who do not have to pay property taxes, still did not attempt to return the original lavish, opulent designs of the original draperies due to the extreme costs involved. The KINGS may never appear again as it did in 1929, but then few things do! If you again come upon any of the original textiles remaining, I strongly suggest that you get permission to remove them (or significant pieces of them) so that you can preserve them in some dry place to have some remaining examples of things to restore, should some miracle arise and an ‘angel’ wants to spend the millions to do a genuine restoration. True restoration can only be done if samples remain to guide and direct that restoration. With such samples preserved, ANYTHING can be reproduced with enough time and money. I volunteer to come and help make up the drawings of those draperies should such funding come to be.