Loew's Fulton Theatre
1283 Fulton Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11216
1283 Fulton Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11216
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 26 comments
The wonderful Montrose Morris of the Brownstoner has a fine article that appears in today’s edition. It is worth checking out.
That’s not correct. The theater was at 1283 Fulton St, the old bank building, as well as all the buildings on that side of the street are odd numbers also.
The theatre was opposite the building shown. The building shown was the Brevort Savings Bank, 2nd building. The original Brevoort Savings Bank building was around the corner (THE S.W CORNER of Macon and Nostrand). The Fulton Theatre was on the south side of Fulton street, facing the bank.
First I have heard of this Loews.
It looked like it was a pretty imposing building. Too bad it was demolished.
During 1950 and 1951,I often took the Nostrand Avenue trolley from the Myrtle Avenue EL stop at Nostrand Avenue south to its end at Avenue U, I recall seeing a theater on Fulton Street to the east side of Nostrand, on the south side of Fulton, several stores down. The marquee attraction board was quite high but no name was on it that I can recall. The policy was to show 3 and some times four features, always old movies, action, war or westerns. I always looked to see what was playing.
The Fulton Street EL was torn down in 1941.
Iterestingly, the sketcher of the sketch that warren posted of the Fulton Theater’s facade forgot one important thing! if that was from 1908, they forgot to “draw” that the building was obliterated by the Fulton Elevated, as the Fulton Elevated was built in the 1880’s or 1890’s, so it was there already when the theater was built. But that’s nothing new, I have seen photos of the Loew’s Valencia in sketches in which they “forgot” to draw in that it too was obliterated by the el in front of it. I have even seen photos of the Valencia, RKO Bushwick, etc where they have actually airbrushed the elevated sturcture out of photos!
Thanks Warren, Bway, EdSolero & Lost Memory; We can now surely say this investigation is over and get the Status changed to Closed/Demolished.
Good work Warren, at least that puts this to rest.
Notice also that in your photo, which was definitely taken in the 1910’s (as that is when the Fulton el was strengthened and widened), that the theater was in fact still there as Ed mentioned where the bank is now, next to the building that we originally thought was the lobby:
View link
By the time the 1930’s came around, the Fulton Theater was gone, and the bank was there (which is a little lower than the theater facade) in the photo I found, taken from the similar angle:
View link
Great work, Warren. Looks like our suspected existing building on Fulton did not house the former entrance foyer and lobby for this theater. In fact, it would seem that the lot now occupied by the bank is where the theater was situated. At first blush, the architectural image posted by Warren looks like it had a bit more frontage on Fulton than the Bank does, but looking at the aerial local.live image posted above (and comparing the scale of pedestrians on the sidewalk) the footprints of both buildings are probably more or less identical.
Knowing now what the facade of the Fulton looked like, it appears that one can make out the building in Warren’s previous photo looking down the elevated tracks as the light colored structure with a slightly lower roof line than its neighbors that pokes up just about where the train station’s shedding ends. What’s curious about that particular photo is how high up the theater’s loft wall and water tanks towered over the block! Unless the tanks and the painted sign were on a taller adjacent building to the rear? Are you guys seeing it the same way as I am?
By the way, the photo Warren linked too was taken in the 1910’s when the original Fulton Street elevated was rebuilt, and strengthened, and widened to allow for a third track to be put in, and what they had thought would allow for heavier subway cars to run on the el (this was also done to the Broadway el and the northern end of the Myrtle el).
Anyway, in the 1920’s, the new IND subway planned instead to replace the BMT’s Fulton El with a subway (which they did in the form of what is now under Fulton St) instead of connecting the Fulton El to the subway system. It was then torn down.
In the photo, the right most building is still there, and is the one that has the large billboard scafolding on it in the current photos, on the east side of Nostrand. The low building next to it is on the opposite corner, west of Nostrand, and is the boarded up building in the current photos. The building to the left of that, is the one we believe to be the lobby area of the Fulton Theater (the one with the arched windows we were discussing). I believe the theater ran behind those buildings parallel to Fulton along Macon St, from the corner of Macon/Nostrand, to the back of what is now the bank property. Of course, I can’t prove it unless we come up with a better photo.
The Fulton St subway which currently runs UNDER Fulton Street (the A and C line) replaced the old BMT Fulton Street Elevated, which ran above Fulton Street. There was never an el on Nostrand. The Station in the photo is the Nostrand Ave station on the old, and demolished (in the 30’s or 40’s) Fulton St el which ran over Fulton.
This is the closest thing I could find to a photo of the Loews Fulton on the internet….as of yet. Here’s a photo taken from the Nostrand Ave Fulton El station that was demolished in the 1930’s.
Anyway, in the background is a building that looks like it’s the facade of the Loews Fulton, at least the front part that Ken and I photographed. All the buildings in the old photo are still there today. The building on the opposite corner of Nostrand (the grey bricked one with the yellow awning in my photo) has that large metal girder sign on top, just like it did in the old photo. The low boarded up building is seen, and then next to that the building we believe is the facade of the Loews Fulton after that, the third visable building from the left above the subway train.
It is possible that the auditorium was behind the current remaining facade, as opposed to the left of it, or at least fully to the left (meaning that it had perhaps no road frontage on Fulton, but instead just stretched behind all the buildings, from th corner of Nostrand/Macon St behind all the bukldings on Fulton, and also behind the bank property:
Click here for historic photo of Fulton St el station at Nostrand Avenue/Fulton
Click here for photo of theater facade about a year and a half ago
Ed, you are right! It was recently that those large arched windows were bricked up into smaller windows! I didn’t even notice that on the local live image which must be a couple years older. it looks even more like a theater entrance in that local live image.
I agree with you, I believe the auditorium is where the bank is. However, I still believe the lobby area is that building in the photo. It’s even screaming “removed marquee”, just look at that black area where the “fulton mall” sign is in my photo, and the fresh cement in Ken’s photo.
Warren, do you have access to the photo of the Fulton you mentioned in the IRT subway book above on your October 14th, 2004 comment?
Bway… if you look at the aerial local.live view you posted, you can clearly make out those large arched windows prior to their being bricked in to create smaller windows. Apparently, that work was done quite recently.
I suppose that the answer lies in between both theories. I am convinced that the building in the photo is the lobby/entrance to the old Loews Fulton. Like I said, if you take the alterations of adding those windows in the former large areas of the arched sections, the building screams “theater”. It just looks odd now because they put normal windows in on each of the floors. I wish we could find an old photo of the old Loews Fulton.
Anyway, it is entirely possible that the auditorium was demolished, while keeping the front part of the building, the “lobby building”. (Think of the Ridgewood theater where the lobby building is in line with all the other store buildings, but the auditorium is behind all of them). That may have been the case for the Fulton.
They may have demolished the auditorium, and built the bank.
BTW, when did the Fulton close? Perhaps if we find out when the Fulton closed, and when the bank was built, it may give some more insight.
As I previously stated in my post on July 7th, there is no sign of a 1,600 seat auditorium. I would say that the theatre has been demolished (possibly soon after closing in 1930 and the bank (built in the 1930’s) was built on the site. The building both B'way and myself have photographed is old and so are the other buildings to the immediate right of it and around the corner at its rear, and none of these buildings look anything like a 1,600 seat auditorium for(what was originally) a live stage theatre.
If by any chance this building we have photographed was ever part of the Fulton Theatre (foyer/lobby area), then the theatre auditorium must have been located to the left and at the rear of whatever stood on the site of where the front of the bank building is currently located. Unless we can get a photograph of the original exterior of the theatre this will remain a bit of a mystery.
It was also the “Fulton Mini-Mall” when I took the photo. Apparently, they have refurbished the exterior of the photo (steam cleaned, etc) in the last year between when I took the photo and when Ken took his.
You can almost see the verticle sign hanging on this building. I am convinced that is the lobby area of the Loews Fulton.
The bank’s address is 1281 by the way:
Click here for photo
Also, look at the building again in the photo linked below (or Kens photo), there was a vertical sign down the center of the building, and you can tell that on either side, those arched windows were originally large arched windows, from Marquee to the top of the building. They at some point bricked in the smaller windows there now. You can see the color of the bricks are different in those arched areas. That is more than likely the facade, and lobby area of the old theater. The auditorium may have been torn down perhaps, but the main entrance is that building:
Click here for photo
Perhaps Warren or someone can come up with a historical photo of the Fulton?
Yes, that is a photo of the Regent, aka Slave theater.
I don’t think the photo Ken and I photographed is the wrong building, it even looks like it had one of those large vertical signs over the marquee on the building at one time. You can see the clamps that held it up.
Here’s the link Ken was trying to post:
View link
Ken… to post a link from local.live, you have to click “permalink” from the “Share” menu on the site and then copy the permalink to your clipboard to paste into your message. Unfortunately, you can’t just cut and paste the url from the Explorer address bar. The link you posted shows us an aerial shot of the Regent Theater (which must have been the first address you searched when you opened local.live).
I’ve made the exact same mistake on this site.
Here is the arial view photograph:
View link
Although the ‘pointer’ marks the wrong building!…..look across the street at the building we have both photographed. It is really hemmed in with other older buildings, apart from on the left where the bank building now adjoins it. Could perhaps we be looking at the wrong building (a re-numbering or mis-print) and the site of the theatre was where the bank building is now located? (built in the 1930’s, which ties in nicely with the time of the Loews Fulton’s closure). A second theory could be that we have the correct building, but the theatre’s auditorium was located off center to the left where the bank building is now located.
In either scenario, the auditorium at least has been demolished.
So you mean that the photo I took above, (the same building you took a photo of) is only the main entrance and lobby area? I didn’t go around back when I took my photo last year.
I have taken a look around the rear of this building, and there is no sign of a 1,600 seat auditorium to be seen. The 1930’s bank building which stands to the left of the theatre has a small facade and former entrance on the street at the rear and I am almost certain that this was built on the site of the Fulton Theatre auditorium.
Here is a current (June 2006) view of the facade of the former Loew’s Fulton Theatre:
http://flickr.com/photos/kencta/184006408/
Does anyone know of any historical photos of either the exterior or the interior of the Fulton? I would love to see this theater back in it’s day.
Anyway, here’s an aerial view of the theater, which is now the Fulton Mini-mall:
1283 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216