Gotham Theater

Just wanted to add a couple of comments…The Pool Hall that wasmentioned survived into the 1980s. The diner survived into the new millenium. As for the former Mueller’s Hotel, when I was a young DJ in 1976, it contained an after-hours club named Arizona Barbara’s. It was a very popular spot, with strippers & all & in those crazy Disco days of the mid-to-late 70s, it had a large clientele & with the Transit Depot being right across the street,needless to say, it was very popular with the transit workers. After Arizona Barbara’s closed for the night, the folks would continue the partying at my club, Club Atlantis a few blocks away at Atlantic Avenue & Wyona Street.

Arizona Barbara’s closed down some time during the 1980s & became a welfare hotel/shelter.

Haha, it is reversed! Someone printed the negative the wrong way….

Here’s an early 1900s picture of the Gotham Theater, showing an elevated train, a streetcar, and other vehicles. Click on the picture to enlarge.

http://tinyurl.com/5uyvkjx

Warren, I don’t know why the link isn’t working for you, it does work when I click the link.
if it still doesn’t work, try this link, which will bring you to a thumbnail page you can click on:

View link

The zip code given at the top of the page, 11237, is wrong. The theater was in East New York and 11237 is Wyckoff Heights two miles to the northwest.

Thanks, Bway. The arches remind me of Carnegie Hall and the Cooper Union Foundation Building a bit.

OK, thanks, Lost, I won’t worry !

Thanks for repeating your explanation, Lost Memory. Didn’t mean to blame you for wrong zip code.

Pete is correct re the zip: 11207. (In the Gotham’s heyday, it would’ve read “Brooklyn 7, N.Y.”)

During my recent NY trip, I took a walk to the site of the former Gotham Theater as photo-linked by tapeshare. The intersection of Alabama Avenue and Fulton Street now boasts the Imperial Hotel, flanked on the west by Golden Krust, Nemo’s Seafood, and a Subway sandwich franchise. Across from these at Herkimer and Broadway is the new Paphos Diner. The old one on Fulton between Georgia and Alabama is long closed and shuttered, and the apartment above it remains unoccupied. There is nothing left of Gotham Lanes and Pool Hall but fenced-off yard space. The J train above clatters and squeals by every 10 minutes or so, and the newly-remodeled el station now has dual staircases, 65 steps to platform access.

Researchers seem to agree that the Gotham Theater disappeared from the East New York scene by 1934, and yet one can almost feel the ghost of Brooklyn-born Mae West still lurking somewhere out and about.