Casino Theatre

1151-1155 DeKalb Avenue,
Brooklyn, NY 11221

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Showing 26 - 50 of 62 comments

Fernando
Fernando on December 12, 2004 at 3:25 pm

I have a 1980 photo of the Casino, will someone give me an email address to send it to you/them, maybe they will have a better chance of emailing the photo to Cinema Treasures since I am unable for some reason. Thanx.

PeterKoch
PeterKoch on September 27, 2004 at 4:50 pm

Bway, that’s what I thought you meant !

So the Ridgewood-bound B-38 bus, after leaving DeKalb Avenue and crossing Broadway, must go northeast on Kosciuszko, then left on Bushwick for a short block, then right back onto DeKalb (two-way northeast of Bushwick Avenue) to continue northeast to Ridgewood.

Bway
Bway on September 23, 2004 at 5:42 pm

You’re welcome, and to further confuse things, I meant:
“Dekalb Ave becomes one way SOUTHbound south of Bushwick Ave.”

Bway
Bway on September 23, 2004 at 5:32 pm

Peter, I think I figured it out. The photos of the Casino were taken looking northwest. Meaning the building faces southeast. The Casino Theater is located between Dodworth and DeKalb. DeKalb becomes a one way street driving south. I was on Dekalb not Kosciuszko. That is the old DeKalb Ave main entrance to the theater.
My confusion yesterday, and why I missed the theater, is because I thought the Casino was on the other side of DeKalb (which you probably did to, since you mentioned Kosciuszko St)!
Dekalb Ave becomes one way northbound south of Bushwick Ave.
Whew!

Bway
Bway on September 23, 2004 at 5:20 pm

Hehe. After all this, now I can’t remember if that was DeKalb or Kosciuszko St! You are absolutely correct about the odd number thing. See, I was so confused yesterday when I was looking for the Casino, and now I still am! One of the biggest theaters I took photos of yesterday, seemingly the hardest to miss, and the most confusion! I think it’s because I thought it was on the other side of DeKalb that confused me at first, and why I am still confused even after being there! I really felt like a fool when I rode through there, and then only noticed it from like four blocks away after going in circles!

And after all that, I forgot to even look for “Bargain Town”!

PeterKoch
PeterKoch on September 23, 2004 at 5:04 pm

Bway, one more thought. The Casino / DeKalb’s address is listed as 1151-55 DeKalb Avenue. If DeKalb Avenue is consistent with the other Bushwick and Ridgewood streets that run parallel to it, the odd building numbers would be on the northwest side of the street. If that is so, then, to front on DeKalb Avenue, the DeKalb / Casino would have to be northwest of DeKalb, between DeKalb Avenue and Dodworth Street.

Wanna drag “Where’s Bargain Town ?” back into the mix, for good luck and good measure ?

PeterKoch
PeterKoch on September 23, 2004 at 4:23 pm

I would have to walk around those blocks again to be sure. My inital thought was that was the railing around the library just out of view to the left in your first photo.

It’s such a beautiful day, I’m tempted to leave my office and zoom out there on the J or Z or M just to check !

Bway
Bway on September 23, 2004 at 4:21 pm

Actually, maybe that is part of my confusion, I believe DeKalb becomes a one street, right around there. COuld I be further confused yet, and that this is DeKalb? The library is just out of view to the left in the first photo I linked to. I think that’s what got me so confused to begin with. I think the Casino is actually west of DeKalb, and I had thought it was east. Or am I still confused?

PeterKoch
PeterKoch on September 23, 2004 at 4:07 pm

Thanks Bway for confirming that. I realized after posting that it had to be Kosciuszko, because it’s one way southwest, and DeKalb there is two-way, to permit the B-38 bus route there. It’s also consistent with what my quad sheet shows : a big school building on the block bounded by DeKalb, Kosciuszko, Bway, and Bushwick Avenue.

I remember well the library at the south corner of Bushwick and DeKalb Avenues. I think it’s the DeKalb branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

Your experience of at first missing the DeKalb reminds me of my April 30 2004 attempt to observe the Colonial Theater from the rear of the Manhattan bound J train I was on. Just west of the Chauncey Street station, all I could see was the former entrance, adjacent to the Rockaway Avenue exit of the Jamaica-bound platform. As I got further away, the Colonial Theater building stood out more and more from adjacent buildings, and became more obvious, particularly the roof.

I think the original entrances were on Broadway and DeKalb Avenue. I will ask my father when I see him next Sunday.

Bway
Bway on September 23, 2004 at 3:55 pm

Yes Peter you are correct.
I sort of felt like a fool yesterday, but actually had trouble finding this theater, despite it’s size! I was driving around in circles.The first time down the DeKalb Ave side, I blew right by it! There was a library on one corner, and I was looking in the direction of that for the theater. It wasn’t until I drove around and back towards bushwick Ave that I noticed the theater in the distance from a few blocks away, then I had to laugh at myself because it’s so huge! There is no entrance on DeKalb that I saw.

Anyway, do you guys think that is the original entrance to the theater in that photo? It seems too ornate not to be. Was there a similar fasade on the other side of the building on DeKalb? If there was an entrance on Bway, it’s gone now.

PeterKoch
PeterKoch on September 23, 2004 at 3:38 pm

Thanks, Bway. “Link” looks like a view towards Broadway from Bushwick Avenue and Kosciuszko Street. “Link2” looks like a view northeast on Kosciuszko from Bway to Bushwick. Correct ?

Bway
Bway on September 22, 2004 at 6:49 pm

Here’s a current view of the Casino Theater building taken today.

Click Here for Link

Click Here for Link 2

The theater is now a school.

It is incorectly listed as “demolished” above.

Bway
Bway on September 7, 2004 at 7:27 pm

Okay, I feel like a fool now. Obviously, this is the Casino near the Kosciuszko St station.
Now I am still confused. What was the name of the Casino in Downtown Brooklyn that I can’t find it? Was that “Inmann’s Casino”.
Also, I believe the proper name for this theater is the “New Casino” rather than Casino. Warren should be able to help us whether it should be “New Casino” or “Casino”, or even “DeKalb” as he suggested. It’s a tough call as I believe when it closed it’s doors it was simply “Casino”. It’s hard to find some theaters here when you look for them under their former names.

Bway
Bway on September 7, 2004 at 7:15 pm

I am having trouble finding the “New Casino” theater on this site, the one that was located at the Kosciuszko St El station on the Broadway El. I was almost certain there was an entry made for it months ago when we discussed this here. Was it known as a different name? What was it’s address?

EMarkisch
EMarkisch on July 6, 2004 at 7:08 pm

I agree with Warren that there should be a listing for the DeKalb,so one can search for it by that name on this site. On the other hand, there should be a cross reference for people looking for the Casino name.

I am the one who listed the Casino because that was the only name that I knew it by and that was from afar. I used to see the theater and its name painted on the rear wall from the Myrtle Avenue el as the train went from the Knickerbocker Avenue station to the Myrtle Avenue station and on down to Bridge & Jay Street in downtown
Brooklyn.

Is there any reason why the listing cannot be Casino / Loew’s DeKalb?
Some other Theaters that come to mind, which are badly in need of cross referencing are:

Adonis / Tivoli
Adonis / Cameo / Squire / Ideal
Cinemart Cinemas / Inwood / Metropolis
Embassy Five / Victoria / Gaiety

With all names listed, wouldn’t the search engine be able to find the theater under either name an individual would be looking for?

PeterKoch
PeterKoch on July 6, 2004 at 1:27 pm

Thank you, Matt A. Which side of the building appears in that photo ? Dekalb Avenue, I would think. You must also know that the former RKO Bushwick Theater at 1396 Broadway is now the Bushwick High School For Social Justice.

Also, there was an article in the June 27 2004 Sunday NY Daily News about a group of Bushwick H.S. students performing their unique updated version of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” at, I think, a theater in Bushwick at Central Avenue and Hart Street.

ackdad
ackdad on July 6, 2004 at 12:52 pm

I am a teacher at EBC High School, which currently resides in the building I think you all have been discussing. As far as I know, the building stood vacant for a number of years, and 6 or 7 years ago was gutted by the board of ed and turned into a high school. the original facade, i think, has been maintained. here’s a link to the school’s website, with a clear photo of the building http://www.altschools.org/schools/ebcb/
the address is 1155 dekalb ave.

Orlando
Orlando on May 7, 2004 at 12:28 pm

Loew’s DeKalb and the Casino are one in the same. I have photos of the DeKalb and it is the same structure as the Casino which i was in before the conversion. There were two entrances and a long narrow lobby that connected them in the front of the building. The interior auditorium still had the rake that was being leveled out. I had my camera but didn’t take the pictures of the dilapidated interior as I did with the Bushwick. Sorry I didn’t but got photos of the painted exterior walls showing the vaudeville and casino wording.

PeterKoch
PeterKoch on May 3, 2004 at 7:57 pm

Dear Fernando, thank you for talking to your brother yesterday, and for providing all this detail. I very much appreciate it. Do you think you might try to scan and post your 1980 photo of the Casino Theater ? It would be better than no photo at all, and the only other available image would be the one of the Kosciuszko St. el station from nycsubway.org that “Bway” posted the link to.

Thank you also for the info on Bud Abbott and where he once worked as a cashier. “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein” is one of my all-time favorite films, and now, my son (age 9)has known it for several years as well.

Fernando
Fernando on May 3, 2004 at 7:28 pm

Dear Peter, I talked to my brother yesterday and he has told me the Casino is being used by the Board of Ed and has been whitewashed just like the old “Bargain Town”, which is a Co-op now, e.g. apartments. I have an old photo, very bad quality, since it was a 110 film. It’s a photo of the Casino, in 1980. I took it from the next street over from DeKalb, which was Dodworth St. From that side, in the photo, you can legibly read “CASINO THEATRE”, below that “continuous”. Then below in caps, “VAUDEVILLE”. But faintly over Vaudeville, you can make out the letters “MUSICAL REVUES”. The next street from Dodworth is Lawton St, whose corner is occupied by the Bargain Town bldg. How I wish I would have had a digital camera in those days! One more thing, I remember when Bud Abbott of “Abbott & Costello” fame passed away, I think in 1975. Anyway, I read in his obituary that as a teenager, he worked as a cashier at the Casino Theatre in Brooklyn. I always thought it was the Dekalb, but I think it was the old Casino in downtown.

PeterKoch
PeterKoch on May 3, 2004 at 3:01 pm

Thank you, Fernando and Bway ! The “huge three-towered rusty steel look ” hospital is Woodhull Hospital, which was still under construction in July 1972, as one can see from images of Flushing Avenue el station on the BMT Broadway el on www.nycsubway.org

I rode by on the J last Friday about noon and glimpsed the roof line
of what once may have been the New (now so old !) Casino Theater. It’s hard to be sure. One has to literally “get down” into the street, walk around, and look up !

On that same ride I caught glimpses of the old Colonial Theater, Loews Gates, and RKO Bushwick.

Bway
Bway on April 30, 2004 at 6:42 am

Interesting. So what you are saying is that at least part of the Casino Theater is still standing and used for a shcool, similar to the RKO Bushwick Theater. I really have to get over there again soon one day and get some photos. I have a “semi-current” photo of the RKO Bushwick that I will post the link to in the Bushwick Theater page here. It was taken last July from the rear of a J train at the Gates Ave station. It was while they were still fixing it, but it still was not completed. I wish I had known about the Casino Theater last year as I would have tried to look for it.
As for that “rusty” building in the distance of my “current photo” (also from last July), that is Woodhull Hospital. They had torn down a good many buildings to build that in the 60’s. Again, if you go to www.nycsubway.org and click on BMT Lines, Jamaica Line, and Flusing Ave, you can see both before and after photos of the block where it is now and even construction photos. Today, Flushing Ave is one of the busiest stations on that line, and they even build elevators to the elevated platform.

Fernando
Fernando on April 30, 2004 at 12:26 am

Wow! I never could imagine how my starting information on The Casino would bring out all you great people who have brought back memories of my old neighborhood! Well, Peter and Bwdy, first, the striped building with the arched windows is indeed Bargain Town later known as Buy Rite. Notice off to the distance, that’s the Myrtle Avenue El station. Also judging from this photo, it was certainly taken about 1965/66. I know because that’s exactly how it was painted at the time. Also, notice that to the left of the station area on the old photo you don’t see that “three identical rusty brown colored building” that is visible on the more recent photo of the area, where the old Bargain Town/Buy Rite building is now light grey. The “rusty steel buiding” was the huge hospital which began to be built around 1967/68. I remember because that building took years to finish, We left the area around 1971 and I remember it still hadn’t been fully completed. No, the building to the right of the train is not the Casino. Just a block before that building, on Dekalb, was the Casino. I talked to my brother on the phone about a month ago in Brooklyn. From what I understood the Casino was being used by the Board of Ed, just like the Bushwick now. I wish I was there to show you. I think the Casino’s ads may have been whitewashed already I don’t know. If you walk up Dekalb, on the left side of the street, walking towards Bushwick, the high building to your left, or what’s left of it, just before you get to Bushwick, is the Casino.

Bway
Bway on April 29, 2004 at 7:04 pm

Fernando, in the links below you can see the building Peter is talking about. Peter and I had been trying for quite a while to figure out where the Casino Theater was until recently finding out the Casino was nearer to the Kosciuszko St El station, and we had originally mistakenly thought that that arched windowed building may have been the Casino Theater. For some reason now I have a feeling that arched building may have been “Bargintown”. Although refurbished in the late 90’s, into the 80’s it was abandoned and painted in red and white stripes, as seen in the distance in the nycsubway.org photo: http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4666 The Casino Theater would have been just to the right of the train in the photo.
The striped building has since been restored as seen in the “transitgallery photo”:
View link
Any information would be appreciated.