Brooklyn Paramount

Damn thanks :)

Porgy & Bess in 1959
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I’m not buying anything from ij’s collection, but I thought there were several interesting items that I enjoyed looking at.

The above post is by “Irajoel” who is just polluting this theatre’s page as he has many others here. It is a pity that he cares nothing for the theatres but only for his own profit. Others speaking here have some nobility of purpose, but not such huckstrers! To patronize such greedy and brazen merchants is to do a DISservice to us all. If only there were a way to block such spammers!

That is a great one! I just wish the rail car was not in the way.

I still have hope.

I was there on Sunday and I spent about two hours wandering around inside and out. I had dinner at Junior’s across the street then wandered over.

1. The first thing on the exterior you notice is that the fire escapes are all removed. Then you can see the stagehouse it was small, but had flyspace. On the inside you can see the stage was not that deep I’d say about 20 feet! I find this really surprising, so it must have been built mainly for movies.

2. The original plasterwork, procenuim, and ceilings are all still there, and in remarkable condition.

3. LIU has removed the mezzanine, most of the balcony seating, and has retained the lobby as a restaurant.

4. They have tried to utilize as much of the space as possible. The mezzanine level doors to the old boxes are now small offices. The stagehouse flyspace area has been floored in and that space used up. The stage entrance and associated rooms are now the LIU securuty department.

5. The balcony has been walled into the existing space and converted to classrooms retaining some of the the original upper balcony seating area.

6. The stairways to the upper areas of the theatre have been removed and the connected office building is now used to get upstairs.

7. The lobby is in great shape, and the grand staircase to the mezzanine is still there.

The space is remarkable, but I think it is very unlikely it will ever be restored. The stage is too tiny for todays use, and the abutting buildings seem to prevent any expansion.

I then drove up Flatbush to look at the Kings, how depressing!

Nice one. What a roof sign!

A story from the day after the closing
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The article cites the Paramount’s 4144 seating capacity as being “second only to Radio City” in NYC. What about the Loew’s Capitol on Broadway? Had they already curtained off large chunks of seating for the Capitol’s conversion to Cinerama by the summer of 1962?

Yes Warren that is exactly what i saw when i went snooping around that day. I really do hope the LIU considers restoring the theatre.

Ed – Judging from the two copies in my collection (and many from previous years before Hall’s version), it appears that the Music Hall updated their souvenir booklet every time there were major changes in personnel. Ben Hall originally wrote it in the mid-sixties, when the phrase you refer to was “more than thirty years”. The bulk of the later versions (I know of at least two) used Ben’s original text, with names changed and a paragraph altered or added here and there and many changes to the photos and captions, including new covers. The added writing does have a similar “turn of phrase” in a couple of spots, so they might well have been channeling him!

I’ll never forget the last time I saw Ben, which was at the very first of Virgil Fox’s “Heavy Organ” Bach and light shows at the Fillmore East in early December of that year. Every organist in town was there, it seemed – certainly the ones who appreciated a good show – and Virgil did not disappoint. The place was sold out and the lines stretched around the block. His spotlit rhinestone-studded heels were the hit of the performance! Ben and I had a few brief words on the way to our respective seats in different parts of the balcony and arranged to get together in early January to discuss a revised version of “The Best Remaining Seats” that his publisher had apparently asked him to work on for its tenth anniversary in 1971. He wanted to talk to me about designing and producing it, and start going through his files with him to select photos from the thousands he had accumulated since the book first came out. As you can imagine, this was pretty heady stuff to a 20-year-old graphic design student with a love of theatre organs and movie palaces! Alas, two weeks later he was gone and that was that. I got “the call” the day before I left to go home for Christmas – those were NOT happy holidays that year!

Hi Patsy, The last time I was at the BP/LIU was almost 10 years ago. The first time I was in the building was back in the mid to late 70’s. When I walked in the doors it still looked like I was walking in to a theatre. I looked in the main orchestra area and was surprised that it was the athiletic center for LIU. I had thought they still used the theatre for production. From what I could see at that time the suspended cieling was still there. The walls were almost untouched. The stage looked like it had been gutted out and I did not see any type of fly rigging above the stage. It looked very bare. When I took a walk to the back of the house and up a grand stair way I walked up to where the balcony seats used to be and the area was sectioned off and they turned it in to class rooms. As I was saying in the previous post the last time i was in there it was in good enough shape that it could be renovated and restored to it’s former glory. To bad that Con Ed bought out the o;d Brooklyn Fox. I never got to see the inside but from what I recall as a kid passing by it was huge on the out side then poof it was just a hole in the ground.