Kings Theatre

75 years ago, the Wonder Theaters were built and became prime showcases for all the great MGM product over the next 3 decades. The only Wonder Theater showing film today is Loew’s Jersey but, sadly, they are not playing any MGM product in their 75th anniversary programming.

However, the beautifully restored Lafayette Theater in Suffern, New York salutes the Loew’s Wonder Theaters by presenting a newly restored 35mm print of one of MGM’s greatest musicals, “Meet Me in St. Louis.” It will be shown this Saturday, September 25 as part of their weekly Big Screen Classics series. They will also present a vintage MGM short, and will play live music on their magnificent Wurlitzer organ.

For more information, visit their website at www.bigscreenclassics.com

Theatrefan….The following excerpt from the American Theater Organ Society Web Journal dated April 9, 2003 will explain the location of the 5 Wonder Mortons…."

Only one of the five Wonder Mortons, originally installed in the greater New York area remains in its original location at Loew’s United Palace Theatre, 175th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. The one from Loew’s Jersey Theatre in Jersey City is now in the Santa Barbara Arlington Theatre. The Morton from Loew’s Paradise Theatre in the Bronx is being installed in Loew’s Jersey Theatre (where the original home of the Arlington organ). The Morton in Loew’s Kings Theatre in Brooklyn was broken up for parts but its restored console is now part of Paul Vandermolen’s residence organ near Chicago. Lastly, the organ from Loew’s Valencia in Jamaica, Queens is going to be installed in the Balboa Theatre in San Diego".

Interesting article about revival plans for Kings. View link

Okay, I just found out that it adds the link automatically when you type it in, so just go ahead and click on it. Enjoy!

The documentary you are referring to was called: MEMOIRS OF A MOVIE PALACE by Christian Blackwood Productions then of New York City in 1980. The VHS tape was in limited production and a copy ‘should’ be at the Library of Congress as part of its copyright. I know that the Theatre Historical Soc. of America (http://www.HistoricTheatres.org )has a copy, but whether or not they would be willing to copy it for you, I do not know. In July, after they return from their Conclave in Kansas City, inquire of their Ex. Dir. at the address on their front page. A Google search turned up places selling the original 3x4-foot poster advertising the video, but not the video itself. Blackwood Productions does not appear in a Google search, nor do recent titles by Christian Blackwood, whom I met as a young men here in Milwaukee back in April of 1980 when he was attending the “Symposium on the American Movie Palace” then held at the Univ. of Wis. at Milwaukee. If you find a source of the video, please let us know here! No doubt there are many people who would like to get a copy, including me, Jim Rankin at

Listing should be changed to Loew’s Kings

Warren,
What does the term “day-and-date” mean ?

Loews Kings opened on Friday September 6, 1928. It was built on the site of a seasonal outdoor movie park and the Flatbush BRT trolley depot and storage yard dating back to the 1890’s.

The site became available when a new carbarn and yards were opened, located at Avenue N and Utica Avenue in Flatlands. The Marcus Loew organization was seeking to expand his theater circuit and the Kings was to be one of the new “Wonder” theaters in the NYC metropolitan area.

After the Kings was built,the Cortelyou Road trolley, which began its run at the old depot,had to make a switchback on Flatbush Avenue to run south,
turning west onto Cortelyou

Road at the Century Rialto Theter and proceeding to Gravesend Avenue and then north to Church Avenue near the Beverly Theater.

The Kings feature vaudville with live orchestra, a large organ (Morton if I recall correctly) and silent movies. It was the number one Flatbush theater and was jammed with long lines of patrons waiting for seats in the vast lobby with brass railings and velvet ropes channeling the waiting throngs into multiple lanes.

In 1930 the Cortelyou trolleys were replaced by new electric trolley buses and added further glamour to the area which was well served by public transit. Despite this the patronage started dropping off as the Great Depression began.

In the eary ‘30’s the theater had been showing talkies for a few years and vaudville was dropped in favor of a straight movie policy.In 1935 double features became standard. Throughout the 30’s, Erasmus Hall High School, located up Flatbush Avenue next to the Astor Theater, held its graduations in the theater on Saturday mornings. The organ was prominently featured in the ceremonies with one of the music teachers ( can no longer recall his name) performing in a quite grand manner.

The orchestra was quite large, being very long and dived half way down to the stage by a transverse asile. The balcony was very small and on the whole the layout of the auditorium was similar the Brooklyn Paramount.

Attendance picked up in the late 30’s and boomed during WW2. Around 1947 the marquee and vertical were updated spoiling the exterior harmony with a garish if spectacular look. The vertical was huge and had a brillant neon effect changing from gold to silver and impossible to miss from far up the avenue.

Patronage began declining slightly in 1951 but was still good in 1953 after which a downward slide began. I was in the orchestra on a Wednesday afternoon in 1957 seated by the center aisle at the east side in the first row to the rear of transverse asile waiting for the show to start; I looked around and saw only two other people in the huge house. I sensed that things had really changed and wondered how long would the theater last. Shortly, four men came down the asile wearing suits, one the manager. I could hear them speaking as they approached me. They stopped at the asiles intersection. One man said to the manager that the theater was clean but the beauty was somewhat faded. The manager said it hadn’t had a coat of paint in 29 years. Another said that it was too bad but don’t expect it. Apparantly this group was a corporate survry team checking out the house.

At this time there was still a newsreel but that soon stopped.

On Wednesdays, in my high school days at Erasmus Hall, on lunch breaks of 40 minutes I would walk down Flatbush Ave. South and check out the openings at Brandt’s Astor, Fox-Eastern’s Albemarle, Loew’s Kings and Century' Rialto at Cortelyou Road. I’d crossed the street
and return checking all the fronts of the marquees ending up at the RKO Kenmore. All except the Kings and Rialto, still had 8"x10" stills and one sheet display cases. Lunches varied from Chock Full O'Nuts, Woolworth’s, the Jewish Deli accross the street from the Kings, and Jahn’s. (However, never at Garfield’s. The Granada where I worked from 1970-75 I saw on the way to school and home. I went to all the theatres from 1967-1975. I never thought they would all be gone. Loew’s Kings and Century’s Rialto in 1977, the Astor in 1978, the Granada in 1983, the Albemarle in 1986 and the Kenmore in 1999.
At least the Jehovah’s Witness' have taken very good care of the Albemarle. The Rialto must look the same way as far as the inside goes and the Kings just sits there. Three out of six is not bad. The Granada is a Rite-Aid, the Astor is a dollar store and the poor Kenmore was totally gutted including the restored lobby so that it can’t be used as a theatre, Onex (LoewsCineplex) saw to that.

$50 million is a small estimate for the extensive work needed to fix this wonderful 2-½ acres of seats in a six story high auditorium. The 4-story-high draperies that once made the looming walls look less foreboding would require the building of an assembly barn for this scale of work, since the old drapery houses that could do such work are long gone, and those few existing today do not have the perspective, experience, or talent to reproduce such monumental work, and if they could, it would cost at least $5,000,000 for just the draperies alone! (Craftspeople today will not work for the 25 cents per hour that they did in the Twenties!) And even if you could find someone willing to risk about $75 to 100 million on this space, where would the parking for the thousands attending come from?? (Americans are not in the habit of walking, even from a bus stop on the corner!) Perhaps there is available land adjacent that could be purchased, and perhaps the city would allow a parking structure to be built there, but that would add considerably to the cost. Reportedly, the electric company will not even turn on the power until someone pays the big back bills of the former operator, and the problems mount up from there. Yes, the KINGS was a most glorious movie palace, but unless TV and videos somehow disappear tomorrow, there is not likely to be found anywhere an audience large enough and CONSISTANT enough to support the theatre, which would be taxed again just as soon as a private party got ownership from the city. We must face the fact that the only reason it still stands today is that the city doesn’t want to spend upwards of $10 million to have it demolished, though they may have to do that if it becomes a refuge for undesirables in deteriorating conditions, as it inevitably will with time.

Will the equally wonderful BROOKLYN PARAMOUNT become available in a condition that enables it to be restored? I fervently hope so, but many of the same problems confront that situation as confront the KINGS. Where will the THOUSANDS of people come from to support the place? It is tax free now, but it is highly unlikely that it will remain so under new conditions! And taxes are just one of the expenses such huge facilities face, since just to pay for the utilities for a year would bankrupt the average business. (For example, few movie palaces had any insulation in the walls and ceilings to contain heat, so heating costs would be astronomical). The only real hope is for a ‘sugar daddy’ such as Donald Trump who presumably wouldn’t care if he lost millions each year, since he would be so in love with the place that he would keep it just for nostalgia and as a public monument to a day and age when people cared about such things and would support them with their hard-earned money. Now the people spend for rock spectacles and sporting events, not theatres, and even the much smaller, and therefore much more efficient theatres are in a financial bind as our culture degenerates, and people no longer support the arts in sufficient numbers to maintain them in any large scale.

For those of you in love with the KINGS, there was a documentary released in 1979 called “Memoirs of a Movie Palace” as a photographic tour of the KINGS, and it may be possible to find it in some library. Through such, it may be possible to relive some of those days of lost glory, but don’t hold your breath about reviving any such behemoths in our crass, and expensive, day and age. Unlike most cities, New York already has an abundance of theatres, and it is highly unlikely that the tax payers there will vote to pay to maintain another one.

P.S. The KINGS is one of my favorite theatres, simply from having seen it in photos and the documentary, so I am not being negative, simply realistic, sad to say. Oh to have a ‘time machine’ to be able to travel back to those days of architectural majesty!

Could be good news for the Kings: The New York Times recently did an article on the Ditmas/Flatbush area in their “If You’re Thinking of Living In” series. Many people priced out of Park Slope are moving south of the park, into the lovely single Victorian homes in the area. I have driven around there and it is definitely more gentrified, diverse and safe than it was about 5 years ago when I lived nearby. Would be fantastic if the theater followed in the footsteps of the Loews Jersey, and became a focal point for the community.

Warren this is major news for historic preservationists. I imagine though that Brooklyn Collge will want to sell the land and make a nice chunk of money for itself. A condo high-rise will do very nicely there. I guess Brooklyn historical societies should take note or this will diappear before you can blink. But how much is left of the theater?