Brooklyn Paramount

Clay Cole. The Brooklyn Paramount did host THE CLAY COLE CHRISTMAS SHOW WITH MURRAY THE K in 1960, produced by SID BERNSTEIN.
I am writing the book about THE CLAY COLE SHOW – with lots of stories about Brooklyn Paramount – anyone have photos, memories, gossip, trivia, stories, I’d love to hear them. Did I meet you? Even better. You send send any reminisces to
Thanks – and MERRY CHRISTMAS 2005, Clay Cole

What a shame. If you click on the article link, you’ll see in the 3rd photo how much of the original theater remained when the orchestra was first converted to the hardwood court. Sadly, the present day photos reveal how much as been stripped from the room. I wonder what they’ll do with the space now? Will it be completely gutted and converted to office/classroom space?

I think if you read the Cinema Treasures Book they may have moved the organ to another theater outside the state.

However, while I don’t remember the Paramount, I know the effect it had on Brooklyn, especially in Popular music (Thanx Mister Freed), and I think it may be worthwile to get a grass roots effort started to rebuild it. I will take on the idea of rebuilding in any theater from Staten Island to Montauk.

I agree with Jim, but what a shame that profit should be the major priority of a university. With foresight, intelligence and creative minds the Paramount might have been incorporated into the university in a different way. Other universities have done it. At one time L.I.U. got major donations. Perhaps they could have worked out some plan then.

I don’t think that we should jump to the conclusion that the university was being magnanimous in “preserving” any part of the theatre. I am sure that to them it is and always was a strictly dollars and cents issue: this is a large space that we can buy for much less than building a new facility in 1961, and they determined to remove/rework any area and ornament that might interfere with their use of the space for their purposes, and not to remove anything more simply because such unneeded work would have cost them more. Why remove such as the great grilled ceiling when no basketball or student could reach it? After that, it was at best a case of benign neglect. For these reasons, I highly doubt that they will move the organ to the new building, and if a bid comes along to sell it, I am sure that that is what they will do. They are there to make a profit, not to preserve theatres and organs.

EdSolero, ERD and R.H – I suspect that the cost of any significant restoration of that magnificent auditorium at this point would be so huge that nobody would want to touch it. I was a member of the New York Chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society and was on the organ crew from 1969-71 while I attended Pratt Institute about 15 blocks or so away down DeKalb Avenue.

At that point the original conversion was less than 5 years old. Basically what they had done was to extend a new basketball court floor into the theatre at the level of the original stage until it met the upward slope of the auditorium floor at a point behind the lip of the balcony. From that point to the back wall the room was essentially left untouched on the main floor and the loge (mezzanine), including all the seats and lighting. I remember all of the side pillars separating the side aisles from the seats had curved fronts on the auditorium side that were what appeared to be frosted glass held in by gilded lattice frames. Each of these used to be filled with coloured lamps and was hinged to open so the bulbs could be changed. They were part of the “Wilfred Color Organ” that dazzled the patrons by changing the auditorium’s colour during the shows. The fromt of the balcony and mezzanine were also faced with color-organ lighting, and it was all still there.

From that point forward the walls were torn out from the new floor level to about 10 feet up, along with the choral staircases and ornamental pillars in front of the organ drapes, and replaced with plain facing and padding. The basketball court was set side-to-side with the boards and hoops in the organ arches. The proscenium grand drapery was gone and the stage house had been filled in with offices and classrooms. What had been the stage was stripped bare and filled with retractable bleachers. Classrooms also filled in the top third of the balcony, faced with a cinderblock wall from the balcony floor up to the ceiling. (I was never in those rooms, but I assume the projection booth and all the ornamental walls and ceilings were taken out for this.) The remainder of the balcony, its walls and ceiling were intact but had been stripped of all the loose decoration. Ben Hall told me that the lighting fixtures for the colour organ were all still there but all the bulbs had been removed and, of course, the original board was gone, too. I had never seen it when it was operating as a theatre but it looked as if the original parts of the room still had their original finishes and that the new walls had been finished to roughly match the mottled gold colour. I also remember that at some point in that time all of the remaining original ornamental lighting sconces were removed and replaced with less fragile fixtures.

The original orchestra lift was at that point still intact (they had simply built the new floor out over it), as were the blower room and some other spaces in the basement, but understage was completely modernized. The organ console was on its original lift and a plug had been fitted into the new floor that could be removed so the console could be raised. At its top level, originally stage level, the top of the 6-inch ornamental lip on the lift was just level with the floor so you had to step down into it.

I have not set foot in the place since then, but people who have been there over the years have related sad tales of major structural alterations, and some recent pictures I have seen seem to bear this out. It appears that the entire mezzanine has been torn out to the walls, as has the front third of the balcony, although it looks like the side pillars remain. I may be wrong about this next part, but it looks like the floor has been raised a bit, too. It’s still a magnificent space, and the Wurlitzer sounds even better with the extra flat walls to reflect its might, but to restore it to anything even close to wnat it was would be a VERY expensive undertaking, I think.

R.H…. Any idea what the plans are for the Paramount auditorium? This might actually be an exciting bit of news, although I’m nervous that this could easily go the other way and spell a complete gutting of what’s left of the old theater.

If L.I.U. restored the auditorium, it would be part of developing an excellent music & theatre department. It would make the university stand out. I am sure they have many gifted people who could write grants. An area for a gym could be found close to the campus.

L.I.U. should consider starting a project to restore the auditorium of the Brooklyn Paramount. As a university, it would be doing Brooklyn and future generations a great cultural service. It was a stunning theatre, and the organ has a beautiful sound.

Here is a great ad from when “The Ten Commandments” played exclusive in Brooklyn here.
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A painting of the Paramount

Thanx guys