Yes, that’s exactly what we need to save the Keiths! A boycott that will force the current owner to either abandon the theater or sell to someone else who will very likely gut it for other uses.
Regardless of how you feel, the reality is that the current owner has kept the theater more or less intact for decades as he operated a bingo hall/flea market. It’s highly unlikely that another operator would be as kind to this structure.
This theater is not landmarked and is not in an area that would work well as a performing arts center and certainly not as a movie theater again. No one has come forward with any alternate use for this space that would retain its architecture and enable it to sustain itself going forward.
Knowing all of this, I would hope George would change his mind about any boycott of the current owner unless he’s willing to step in and buy the theater himself. Then he could show us how easy this problem is to solve.
The only way a single screen theater will survive in the future is if the retail value or land values don’t rise in excess of what the theater can make as a going concern. Sadly, this doesn’t bode well for theaters like this one in Sag Harbor.
In New York City, I believe that the odds are better than even that the two best remaining single screens, The Ziegfeld and The Paris, will survive for many years to come. The Paris is owned by a billionaire who, in theory, doesn’t need the money that the sale or the sublet of the Paris would bring. The Ziegfeld, is on a very long term lease and, again, the land is owned by the very wealthy Fisher family. Hopefully, they don’t need the money either. Otherwise, these two would have been long gone.
That’s the sad part. At $12MM this site will not pay as a theater. Any buyer who pays anywhere near that will be forced to use it as high end retail. The seller says that he prefers the buyer keep it as a movie theater but if someone offers him $12MM and plans to turn it into a Versace store, I can pretty much guarantee he isn’t going to turn it down out of principle. He’ll take the money and run. Who wouldn’t?
There will be no comparison between a restored Kings and Brooklyn College’s sterile non descript Performing Arts Center. The Kings will be a true destination and will be a vital part of the experience that they are paying for.
Sorry, I don’t buy the neighborhood issue for a second. Flatbush Avenue has a worse perception than Washington Heights? (Loew’s 175th), Journal Square? (Loews Jersey), Stapleton? (St. George), Harlem (The Apollo), The South Bronx? (The Paradise). Until recently, the area around the Brooklyn Academy of Music would have fallen under this category as well, but the restoration of BAM and its artistic programming has helped to revive the area as would the Kings. No, Flatubush’s reputation is nowhere near as bad as those other areas and yet those other areas have retored palaces!
Blaming the problem of the Kings on the neighborhood is a cop out and not at all supported by the facts. How do you explain that all of these theaters were restored despite the fact that they were in “problem” neighborhoods? The reality is that we still have the Kings today because Flatbush Avenue has not yet made a transition to high end retail. If it had, the Kings would have been demolished years ago for a new mall or gutted as so many other palaces have been over the years. The problem, in my opinion, is solely on how much the retoration would cost and who would pay for overruns.
Thanks Warren. I agree that more info is needed and that’s why I didn’t think it fair to call the owner greedy. It’s also why I was surprised that the reporter didn’t ask the question of “WHY” the lettering was taken down. Still, I’m not optismistic for the Keiths because I don’t see a flea market/bingo hall as a long term business plan.
Hey Warren, I agree with your concern about the Paradise and the resemblence between the two, but instead of focusing on the one possible negative (The Paradise), why not focus instead on the palaces that are doing well: The Beacon, The St. George, The Loews 175th St. and the Loews Jersey.
I don’t know what’s going on at the Loews Paradise, but it could just be inept management rather than an inability to book events.
Recently, a poster inquired about how to contact the owner of the Paradise because she wanted to hold her wedding reception there and I’m not sure if she ever got through. That is an example of incompetent managment when someone who wants to give you business can’t get a hold of you. It doesn’t mean that the demand isn’t there.
A side note to Scott. In addition to all of the concert/event venues that New York offers there are also about 37 Broadway theaters and there is demand to keep them all up and running thanks not only to local demand but to the booming tourist industry who have kept New York’s economy running relatively well while the rest of the country struggles.
I don’t think that it’s fair to call the current owners of the Keiths Richmond Hill greedy. Unless I’m mistaken, the current owners have run this old palace as a flea market/bingo hall for decades while still leaving the theater pretty much intact. A “greedy” landlord would have gutted the theater years ago to prevent calls for landmarking. Except for the slight alteration of the marquee (which is still tragic) the theater remains intact.
Nonetheless, I have to agree with Panzer65 that it doesn’t look good for this theater. How long could it possibly go on as a bingo hall? If they sell, the new owner is going to want a higher income revenue stream. How will this theater support itself? Richmond Hill is a quiet lower middle to middle income neighborhod with some low end retail on Jamaica Avenue. It is not a destination for anyone except those who live there.
I would love to see the Keiths saved, but I don’t see the city stepping forward on this one. I would prefer the focus be on saving the Kings in Brooklyn which the city has said it will contribute significnat funds to and has much better odds of paying its own way once it’s been restored.
I just don’t see how this will end well for the Keiths. I feel the minor vandalism of the marquee is just the opening shot. The owner is looking to to see what kind of reaction occurs. I think it’s the beginning of the end. It’s really a shame, but the reality is that this theater is not landmarked and it is private property unlike the Kings which is owned by the city and, while not officially landmarked, it is being treated as such by the city.
I have to agree with Scott on this one. Yes, there are many other venues in New York City as a whole, but there are very few in Brooklyn and let’s not forget that there are many, many, many more people in New York to support those venues.
The movie palaces that have been restored so far appear to be doing well. The Loew’s 175th Street in Washington Heights has become a popular concert venue, The Beacon has been serving the same function for many years. The St. George in Staten Island has also done very well as has Loew’s Jersey in Jersey City. The only possible exception might be the Paradise, which doesn’t appear to have a lot of events, yet you don’t hear that it is in financial trouble.
My point is that all of these palaces (except for the Beacon) are in areas that would have been classified by most people as slums not very long ago and today they have been restored and are successful.
Each palace has its own individual story. The 175th Street was restored by a church, The Beacon by a major corporation, The Jersey by the City of Jersey City and very dedicated voluteers, The St. George by the heroic work of one local woman and The Paradise by an entrepeneur. Every palace has its own individual path. The Kings will be no different. But the Kings would probably result in the most beautiful theater restoration of them all!
As Warren has posted on The Valencia’s site, New York just aproved a grant of $20MM for a new Performing Arts complex in Jamaica, Queens, which will transform a historic church into an arts space. Jamaica too is a former “down at the heels” neighborhood that is seeing a rebirth.
New York is a wealthy, big, and varied city. I repeat that, while the city as a whole has lots of performing Arts spaces, Brooklyn itself is woefully short of it. That is why the Kings has a real shot at success. If you build it they will come and not just from Brooklyn. Many from the Diaspora would return as well. Brooklyn in now Cool!
The City IS willing to grant significant money towards the restoration. Again, the issue ultimately is how much is it going to cost in the end. The city has made it clear that they will provide outright grants to renovate, but they will NOT provide operating expenses. Nonetheless, a potential developer has to be concerned with who would pay for the inevitable cost overruns. That’s why we need a corporate white knight or millionaire who wants his name in lights to step forward.
I totally disagree that this theater is not viable without constant subsidy. As I mentioned in above posts Brooklyn is a “city” of 2.6MM people with a vast middle class. There are only two true performing arts centers: The Brooklyn Academy of Music and Brooklyn College. There IS room for more. The city has just announced a grant of $20MM for a new performing arts center in an old church in Jamaica, Queens! Jamaica! $20MM! The Kings will get a bigger grant as long as the developer can provide plans to operate without subsidy. I think the issue is more about the actual cost to renovate.
I’m not getting involved in the argument, but……I would never use Wikipedia as a source document. Anyone with a mouse can update that. Now, if you were to say Britannica…….
I can’t believe the reporter didn’t ask the simple question, WHY was the lettering taken down? WHY? It’s a great marquee and now it looks sad. What a shame. I still haven’t had an opportunity to take a look inside but I understand the theater is substantially intact with the exception that all of the orchestra seats have been removed.
Unfortunately, Richmond Hill is a quiet neighborhood and it is unlikely that a renovated theater could support itself in this location. It’s actually a small miracle that it has survived this long.
The city will commit at least $35MM to the Kings. I think the problem lies in how much more it will actually cost to restore and who would be responsible for overages. This project is crying out for a Corporate White Knight like Keyspan (a Brooklyn Based Corporation) to provide a significant grant in exchange for naming rights – The Keyspan Kings Theatre. Ideally I would like it to keep the Loews Kings name, but if it means the name has to be sold to get it done, so be it. I would insist that “Kings” be part of any name ultimately attached.
When people say that the Kings needs to promote “local” events as part of their product mix, they don’t mean just Flatbush! It means a large part of BROOKLYN!
The New Jersey Performing Arts Center is a perfect example of this. They present programs that appeal to African Americans, Latins and Portuguese in addition to more traditional fare and it is one of the busiest PA centers in the country. Newark has a huge crime problem (Brooklyn does not, regardless of your perception) and yet their Performaing Arts Center does quite well.
No, Flatbush is not the same as it was in the 50’s. But this is not a slum by any stretch of the imagination. I’m a lifelong New Yorker and I was very pleasantly surprised by the area. I’m a firm believer in “If you build it, they will come!” Look at Dumbo, Downtown Brooklyn, Ft. Greene, Park Slope, etc…. These areas were god awful, but they were turned around. New Yorkers are also much more likely to visit the boroughs now than they used too. They’re not afraid to ride the subways at night. That also bodes well for The Kings.
Finally, there is one more very important statistic. Brooklyn has 2.6MM people! That would be the 4th largest city in the America. In all of Brooklyn, the only significant performance space is The Brooklyn Academy of Music (which is spectacular) and perhaps we can add the PA center at Brooklyn College. That is remarkably little in a “city” the size of Brooklyn. A showplace like The Kings can easily book many shows and, yes, I do believe people would come not just from Brooklyn, but from Manhattan as well.
As far as parking goes, there is parking right behind the theater and more could be built on the lot, if deemed necessary.
Remember that the other Loew’s Wonder Theatres: The Jersey, The Paradise, The Valencia and The 175th Street all in areas that were considered dicey at best and all have been restored by either private enterprise, local volunteers or churches. The Kings (when compared to the othe Wonder Theatres is probably in the nicest neighborhood of all. The only thing truly holding The Kings back is the actual cost of the renovations. Once restored, I have no doubt that it will carry itself quite well.
The Ziegfeld (and I think Radio City) have a higher number of postings. The Ridgewood can be said to have the highest number of postings for a closed theater.
I agree with Scott. The local merchants and community fundraisers won’t be enough. This is much more complicated than The Jersey’s restoration. Nonetheless, I believe there are many more opportunities in Brooklyn as well, but it won’t happen without city grants and other assistance which the city has said it WILL provide.
Welcome Staten Island Ellie! It’s great to see your enthusiasm for the Kings. My Junior High School graduation was at The Valencia and I never got to see a movie in The Kings, but I am a big fan of the Wonder Theaters and want to see them all restored and in public use. Four have been saved and one, The Jersey, actually shows movies. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing The Day The Earth Stood Still there and had a great time.
In my opinion, The Kings is arguably, the most beautiful of the Wonder theaters. Even in its decayed state it it truly an incredible site to behold. I’ve had the opportunity to tour the abandoned theater on 2 ocassions as part of the EDC’s RFP process
and I’ve posted my detail obeservations on those visits in prior posts above.
I agree that this theater has great promise as a performing arts center; especially given the success of The St. George on Staten Island. I live in Manhattan, but I took the ferry over with some friends to see Joy Behar and was amazed at how big that theater was and what a wonderful job they are doing. (Now if they could only replace that monstrous marquee with a proper one befitting a theater of this stature!)
When I visited the Kings, I was actually impressed with how nice Flatbush Avenue was. My image (having never been to that area of Brooklyn in my life and I’m a life long New Yorker) was that it was a border line slum and it most defintitely was not. The retail strip was lively and while it didn’t have a lot of high end retailers there were virtually no empty storefronts. The only abandoned building was, of course, The Kings. The surrounding areas wer filled with well kept single family homes and small apartment buildings and I felt quite secure walking in the area and would absolutely visit The Kings in the future if it had programming that appealed to me.
Another case in point is the New Jersey Performing Arts Center which has had tremndous success even though it was placed in downtown Newark (and not that close to Penn Station at that)! Most of their programming has been geared to the local population and they have done very well.
There is room in Brooklyn for both The Brooklyn Academy of Music and a restored Loews Kings as performing arts Centers. Brooklyn has 2.6MM people for gosh sakes! This is really a no brainer. In this case, it truly is a situation of “If you build it, they will come!”
I’m hopeful that they will build it……and we will come!
What’s very funny to me is that when I was young, I didn’t truly appreciate the palaces either, probably because there were so many of them. Marcus Loew famously said, “I don’t sell tickets to movies, I sell tickets to theaters!” While I was always happy to see a film at my favorite palace, The Valencia, I picked a theater based on what was playing and how close it was to my house (which was usually the crappier theaters). I only grew to truly appreciate them once I wasn’t able to see a movie in a movie palace anymore and now I realize what was truly lost. I’m not old enough to remember the heyday of moviegoing, but I can only imagine what it was like.
Many of us may also remember the Grand Banking Halls of our youth, with the huge Corinthian Columns and Chandeliers and Marble Floors and Brass finishes. They were spectacular! But today, they don’t make any sense financially and so very few of them remain and fewer still remain as actual banks. Most were torn down since they usually sat on prime land and had a lot of unuse air rights, but in New York a few incredible examples survive as party/event spaces. Some of the best examples are 2 Bowery Savings Bank buildings (one on The Bowery and the other on 42nd Street), The Old Citibank at 55 Wall Street and The Greenwich Savings Bank on 6th Avenue. The Williamsburg Savings Bank in Brooklyn is being turned into retail but will be beautifully restored as well. They survive because of a combination of strong Landmark and Zoning Laws and the ability to find an adaptive resuse of the property now that the old one no longer worked financially.
The point is that these buildings were quite beautiful but were built for a different age and a different economy. They survive today becaue they have found alternate uses.
The Boyd will not survive based on movies alone. It must be geared toward live theater and concerts and corporate events. it would be wonderful if it could still show movies as well, but that can’t be its primary purpose if it is to survive.
Thanks Howard and Theterbuff1 for your comments. Regarding Condos on the Jersey Shore, once again, it is all about zoning and landmarks laws, of which New York is strong on both. That is why we have a relative wealth of our old palaces remaining. Yes, we cry about all of the ones that we lost (as we should): The Roxy, The Center, The Capitol, The Rivoli, The State, The Paramount, The original Ziegfeld, etc…
But we still have many with us: Radio City, The Hollywood, The Paradise, Loew’s 175th Street, The Valencia, The Brooklyn Paramount, The New Amsterdam, The Elmwood, The St. George, The Metropolitan, The Paris, The Beacon, The RKO Keiths Richmond Hill, and sitting in the middle of Brooklyn waiting for its restoration…..The Kings! In addition many of the old Broasdway theater houses remain.
New York’s theater district salvation, arguably, was started by the construction of the Marriott Marquis on the site of 3 demolished old Broadway houses. They were sacrificed to bring business back to Times Square which at the time was a cesspool of crime and filth. While it was painful to lose those theaters, I choose to look at it from the standpont that it started the ball in motion of saving Times Square and by ectension, saving the remaining Broadway houses. Eventually, it led to the 42nd Street Redvelopment Corporation and the plan to build 4 huge office towers in Times Sqaure while at the same time restoring many of the old theaters on 42nd street, but not before getting rid of all of the x rated businesses, prostituion and crime that the street was long known for.
Today, 42nd Street is home to 39 screens in two huge multiplexes, a wax museum, many restaurants, a jazz club, several “Broadway” houses, dance studios, a Childrens Theater and lots of other retail.
Many years ago, Pennsylvania Station was torn down in New York which for many people was the worst architectual crime in the history of the city – worse than the Roxy’s destruction which I believe occured a little earlier. The loss of Penn Station roused the people albeit too late to save it. But because of the outcry, it led to the Landmarks Laws that prevail in New York today. It is why New York still has Grand Central Station, The TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport, and many of the theaters that we still have today. Without landmark protection AND zoning laws, New York today would be more like Houston. (No offense meant toward Houston, but they don’t seem to have an appreciation for historic architecture and its preservtion).
Philadelphia had some of the most beutiful movie palaces in the country and lost almost all of them. They have one chance to retain a single theater – The Boyd! I mentioned this before but I’ll say it again. If there is any city that should protect, relish and promote its history, it should be Philadelphia! I am dumbfounded by the apparent indifference of not just the city govenment but the local business community and civic groups to fight for projects like the saving of The Boyd. Maybe this will be a turning point.
I agree with Warren. The current state of the economy has to be affecting the viability of certain proposals. However, this theater is just too important to just write off and say that it should be torn down because no one will save it. While it is true that it has sat unused for almost 30 years, no one has said that it is not structurally sound. The city did reinforce the walls and ceilings and the only sttructural damage appears to have been the retail space fronting Flatbush Avenue which has, in fact, already been torn down.
I think this theater is going to need an angel that can provide a grant/donation to jump start this project. If my memory serves correctly, the city has absolutely said that they would contribute capital funds for any renovation of the Kings. What they won’t do is provide operating funds. The theater will have to pay its own way once it’s up and running.
I refuse to give up hope for this theater which, in my opinion, is one of the two most beautiful theaters in the country (the other being the Uptown in Chicago) that is sitting abandoned and unrenovated. There is now movement at The Uptown and we’ve seen the Paradise in the Bronx and The Jersey in Jersey City (other formerly abadoned Wonder Theaters)returned to their old grandeur. The Kings will have a happy ending……someday!
Yes, that’s exactly what we need to save the Keiths! A boycott that will force the current owner to either abandon the theater or sell to someone else who will very likely gut it for other uses.
Regardless of how you feel, the reality is that the current owner has kept the theater more or less intact for decades as he operated a bingo hall/flea market. It’s highly unlikely that another operator would be as kind to this structure.
This theater is not landmarked and is not in an area that would work well as a performing arts center and certainly not as a movie theater again. No one has come forward with any alternate use for this space that would retain its architecture and enable it to sustain itself going forward.
Knowing all of this, I would hope George would change his mind about any boycott of the current owner unless he’s willing to step in and buy the theater himself. Then he could show us how easy this problem is to solve.
The only way a single screen theater will survive in the future is if the retail value or land values don’t rise in excess of what the theater can make as a going concern. Sadly, this doesn’t bode well for theaters like this one in Sag Harbor.
In New York City, I believe that the odds are better than even that the two best remaining single screens, The Ziegfeld and The Paris, will survive for many years to come. The Paris is owned by a billionaire who, in theory, doesn’t need the money that the sale or the sublet of the Paris would bring. The Ziegfeld, is on a very long term lease and, again, the land is owned by the very wealthy Fisher family. Hopefully, they don’t need the money either. Otherwise, these two would have been long gone.
That’s the sad part. At $12MM this site will not pay as a theater. Any buyer who pays anywhere near that will be forced to use it as high end retail. The seller says that he prefers the buyer keep it as a movie theater but if someone offers him $12MM and plans to turn it into a Versace store, I can pretty much guarantee he isn’t going to turn it down out of principle. He’ll take the money and run. Who wouldn’t?
There will be no comparison between a restored Kings and Brooklyn College’s sterile non descript Performing Arts Center. The Kings will be a true destination and will be a vital part of the experience that they are paying for.
Sorry, I don’t buy the neighborhood issue for a second. Flatbush Avenue has a worse perception than Washington Heights? (Loew’s 175th), Journal Square? (Loews Jersey), Stapleton? (St. George), Harlem (The Apollo), The South Bronx? (The Paradise). Until recently, the area around the Brooklyn Academy of Music would have fallen under this category as well, but the restoration of BAM and its artistic programming has helped to revive the area as would the Kings. No, Flatubush’s reputation is nowhere near as bad as those other areas and yet those other areas have retored palaces!
Blaming the problem of the Kings on the neighborhood is a cop out and not at all supported by the facts. How do you explain that all of these theaters were restored despite the fact that they were in “problem” neighborhoods? The reality is that we still have the Kings today because Flatbush Avenue has not yet made a transition to high end retail. If it had, the Kings would have been demolished years ago for a new mall or gutted as so many other palaces have been over the years. The problem, in my opinion, is solely on how much the retoration would cost and who would pay for overruns.
Idiot! The theater should sue HIM for putting other patrons at risk for his own stupidity!
Thanks Warren. I agree that more info is needed and that’s why I didn’t think it fair to call the owner greedy. It’s also why I was surprised that the reporter didn’t ask the question of “WHY” the lettering was taken down. Still, I’m not optismistic for the Keiths because I don’t see a flea market/bingo hall as a long term business plan.
Hey Warren, I agree with your concern about the Paradise and the resemblence between the two, but instead of focusing on the one possible negative (The Paradise), why not focus instead on the palaces that are doing well: The Beacon, The St. George, The Loews 175th St. and the Loews Jersey.
I don’t know what’s going on at the Loews Paradise, but it could just be inept management rather than an inability to book events.
Recently, a poster inquired about how to contact the owner of the Paradise because she wanted to hold her wedding reception there and I’m not sure if she ever got through. That is an example of incompetent managment when someone who wants to give you business can’t get a hold of you. It doesn’t mean that the demand isn’t there.
A side note to Scott. In addition to all of the concert/event venues that New York offers there are also about 37 Broadway theaters and there is demand to keep them all up and running thanks not only to local demand but to the booming tourist industry who have kept New York’s economy running relatively well while the rest of the country struggles.
I don’t think that it’s fair to call the current owners of the Keiths Richmond Hill greedy. Unless I’m mistaken, the current owners have run this old palace as a flea market/bingo hall for decades while still leaving the theater pretty much intact. A “greedy” landlord would have gutted the theater years ago to prevent calls for landmarking. Except for the slight alteration of the marquee (which is still tragic) the theater remains intact.
Nonetheless, I have to agree with Panzer65 that it doesn’t look good for this theater. How long could it possibly go on as a bingo hall? If they sell, the new owner is going to want a higher income revenue stream. How will this theater support itself? Richmond Hill is a quiet lower middle to middle income neighborhod with some low end retail on Jamaica Avenue. It is not a destination for anyone except those who live there.
I would love to see the Keiths saved, but I don’t see the city stepping forward on this one. I would prefer the focus be on saving the Kings in Brooklyn which the city has said it will contribute significnat funds to and has much better odds of paying its own way once it’s been restored.
I just don’t see how this will end well for the Keiths. I feel the minor vandalism of the marquee is just the opening shot. The owner is looking to to see what kind of reaction occurs. I think it’s the beginning of the end. It’s really a shame, but the reality is that this theater is not landmarked and it is private property unlike the Kings which is owned by the city and, while not officially landmarked, it is being treated as such by the city.
I have to agree with Scott on this one. Yes, there are many other venues in New York City as a whole, but there are very few in Brooklyn and let’s not forget that there are many, many, many more people in New York to support those venues.
The movie palaces that have been restored so far appear to be doing well. The Loew’s 175th Street in Washington Heights has become a popular concert venue, The Beacon has been serving the same function for many years. The St. George in Staten Island has also done very well as has Loew’s Jersey in Jersey City. The only possible exception might be the Paradise, which doesn’t appear to have a lot of events, yet you don’t hear that it is in financial trouble.
My point is that all of these palaces (except for the Beacon) are in areas that would have been classified by most people as slums not very long ago and today they have been restored and are successful.
Each palace has its own individual story. The 175th Street was restored by a church, The Beacon by a major corporation, The Jersey by the City of Jersey City and very dedicated voluteers, The St. George by the heroic work of one local woman and The Paradise by an entrepeneur. Every palace has its own individual path. The Kings will be no different. But the Kings would probably result in the most beautiful theater restoration of them all!
As Warren has posted on The Valencia’s site, New York just aproved a grant of $20MM for a new Performing Arts complex in Jamaica, Queens, which will transform a historic church into an arts space. Jamaica too is a former “down at the heels” neighborhood that is seeing a rebirth.
New York is a wealthy, big, and varied city. I repeat that, while the city as a whole has lots of performing Arts spaces, Brooklyn itself is woefully short of it. That is why the Kings has a real shot at success. If you build it they will come and not just from Brooklyn. Many from the Diaspora would return as well. Brooklyn in now Cool!
The City IS willing to grant significant money towards the restoration. Again, the issue ultimately is how much is it going to cost in the end. The city has made it clear that they will provide outright grants to renovate, but they will NOT provide operating expenses. Nonetheless, a potential developer has to be concerned with who would pay for the inevitable cost overruns. That’s why we need a corporate white knight or millionaire who wants his name in lights to step forward.
I totally disagree that this theater is not viable without constant subsidy. As I mentioned in above posts Brooklyn is a “city” of 2.6MM people with a vast middle class. There are only two true performing arts centers: The Brooklyn Academy of Music and Brooklyn College. There IS room for more. The city has just announced a grant of $20MM for a new performing arts center in an old church in Jamaica, Queens! Jamaica! $20MM! The Kings will get a bigger grant as long as the developer can provide plans to operate without subsidy. I think the issue is more about the actual cost to renovate.
I’m not getting involved in the argument, but……I would never use Wikipedia as a source document. Anyone with a mouse can update that. Now, if you were to say Britannica…….
Does that even still exist? :–)
I can’t believe the reporter didn’t ask the simple question, WHY was the lettering taken down? WHY? It’s a great marquee and now it looks sad. What a shame. I still haven’t had an opportunity to take a look inside but I understand the theater is substantially intact with the exception that all of the orchestra seats have been removed.
Unfortunately, Richmond Hill is a quiet neighborhood and it is unlikely that a renovated theater could support itself in this location. It’s actually a small miracle that it has survived this long.
How depressing! :–)
Anyone know what the latest is on the redevelopment of this theater?
The city will commit at least $35MM to the Kings. I think the problem lies in how much more it will actually cost to restore and who would be responsible for overages. This project is crying out for a Corporate White Knight like Keyspan (a Brooklyn Based Corporation) to provide a significant grant in exchange for naming rights – The Keyspan Kings Theatre. Ideally I would like it to keep the Loews Kings name, but if it means the name has to be sold to get it done, so be it. I would insist that “Kings” be part of any name ultimately attached.
Too bad they can’t switch venues!
When people say that the Kings needs to promote “local” events as part of their product mix, they don’t mean just Flatbush! It means a large part of BROOKLYN!
The New Jersey Performing Arts Center is a perfect example of this. They present programs that appeal to African Americans, Latins and Portuguese in addition to more traditional fare and it is one of the busiest PA centers in the country. Newark has a huge crime problem (Brooklyn does not, regardless of your perception) and yet their Performaing Arts Center does quite well.
No, Flatbush is not the same as it was in the 50’s. But this is not a slum by any stretch of the imagination. I’m a lifelong New Yorker and I was very pleasantly surprised by the area. I’m a firm believer in “If you build it, they will come!” Look at Dumbo, Downtown Brooklyn, Ft. Greene, Park Slope, etc…. These areas were god awful, but they were turned around. New Yorkers are also much more likely to visit the boroughs now than they used too. They’re not afraid to ride the subways at night. That also bodes well for The Kings.
Finally, there is one more very important statistic. Brooklyn has 2.6MM people! That would be the 4th largest city in the America. In all of Brooklyn, the only significant performance space is The Brooklyn Academy of Music (which is spectacular) and perhaps we can add the PA center at Brooklyn College. That is remarkably little in a “city” the size of Brooklyn. A showplace like The Kings can easily book many shows and, yes, I do believe people would come not just from Brooklyn, but from Manhattan as well.
As far as parking goes, there is parking right behind the theater and more could be built on the lot, if deemed necessary.
Remember that the other Loew’s Wonder Theatres: The Jersey, The Paradise, The Valencia and The 175th Street all in areas that were considered dicey at best and all have been restored by either private enterprise, local volunteers or churches. The Kings (when compared to the othe Wonder Theatres is probably in the nicest neighborhood of all. The only thing truly holding The Kings back is the actual cost of the renovations. Once restored, I have no doubt that it will carry itself quite well.
I think the quote from the Times was that the 3 balconys were closed and that the orchestra “appeared one third full”.
The Ziegfeld (and I think Radio City) have a higher number of postings. The Ridgewood can be said to have the highest number of postings for a closed theater.
I agree with Scott. The local merchants and community fundraisers won’t be enough. This is much more complicated than The Jersey’s restoration. Nonetheless, I believe there are many more opportunities in Brooklyn as well, but it won’t happen without city grants and other assistance which the city has said it WILL provide.
Welcome Staten Island Ellie! It’s great to see your enthusiasm for the Kings. My Junior High School graduation was at The Valencia and I never got to see a movie in The Kings, but I am a big fan of the Wonder Theaters and want to see them all restored and in public use. Four have been saved and one, The Jersey, actually shows movies. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing The Day The Earth Stood Still there and had a great time.
In my opinion, The Kings is arguably, the most beautiful of the Wonder theaters. Even in its decayed state it it truly an incredible site to behold. I’ve had the opportunity to tour the abandoned theater on 2 ocassions as part of the EDC’s RFP process
and I’ve posted my detail obeservations on those visits in prior posts above.
I agree that this theater has great promise as a performing arts center; especially given the success of The St. George on Staten Island. I live in Manhattan, but I took the ferry over with some friends to see Joy Behar and was amazed at how big that theater was and what a wonderful job they are doing. (Now if they could only replace that monstrous marquee with a proper one befitting a theater of this stature!)
When I visited the Kings, I was actually impressed with how nice Flatbush Avenue was. My image (having never been to that area of Brooklyn in my life and I’m a life long New Yorker) was that it was a border line slum and it most defintitely was not. The retail strip was lively and while it didn’t have a lot of high end retailers there were virtually no empty storefronts. The only abandoned building was, of course, The Kings. The surrounding areas wer filled with well kept single family homes and small apartment buildings and I felt quite secure walking in the area and would absolutely visit The Kings in the future if it had programming that appealed to me.
Another case in point is the New Jersey Performing Arts Center which has had tremndous success even though it was placed in downtown Newark (and not that close to Penn Station at that)! Most of their programming has been geared to the local population and they have done very well.
There is room in Brooklyn for both The Brooklyn Academy of Music and a restored Loews Kings as performing arts Centers. Brooklyn has 2.6MM people for gosh sakes! This is really a no brainer. In this case, it truly is a situation of “If you build it, they will come!”
I’m hopeful that they will build it……and we will come!
What’s very funny to me is that when I was young, I didn’t truly appreciate the palaces either, probably because there were so many of them. Marcus Loew famously said, “I don’t sell tickets to movies, I sell tickets to theaters!” While I was always happy to see a film at my favorite palace, The Valencia, I picked a theater based on what was playing and how close it was to my house (which was usually the crappier theaters). I only grew to truly appreciate them once I wasn’t able to see a movie in a movie palace anymore and now I realize what was truly lost. I’m not old enough to remember the heyday of moviegoing, but I can only imagine what it was like.
Many of us may also remember the Grand Banking Halls of our youth, with the huge Corinthian Columns and Chandeliers and Marble Floors and Brass finishes. They were spectacular! But today, they don’t make any sense financially and so very few of them remain and fewer still remain as actual banks. Most were torn down since they usually sat on prime land and had a lot of unuse air rights, but in New York a few incredible examples survive as party/event spaces. Some of the best examples are 2 Bowery Savings Bank buildings (one on The Bowery and the other on 42nd Street), The Old Citibank at 55 Wall Street and The Greenwich Savings Bank on 6th Avenue. The Williamsburg Savings Bank in Brooklyn is being turned into retail but will be beautifully restored as well. They survive because of a combination of strong Landmark and Zoning Laws and the ability to find an adaptive resuse of the property now that the old one no longer worked financially.
The point is that these buildings were quite beautiful but were built for a different age and a different economy. They survive today becaue they have found alternate uses.
The Boyd will not survive based on movies alone. It must be geared toward live theater and concerts and corporate events. it would be wonderful if it could still show movies as well, but that can’t be its primary purpose if it is to survive.
Thanks Howard and Theterbuff1 for your comments. Regarding Condos on the Jersey Shore, once again, it is all about zoning and landmarks laws, of which New York is strong on both. That is why we have a relative wealth of our old palaces remaining. Yes, we cry about all of the ones that we lost (as we should): The Roxy, The Center, The Capitol, The Rivoli, The State, The Paramount, The original Ziegfeld, etc…
But we still have many with us: Radio City, The Hollywood, The Paradise, Loew’s 175th Street, The Valencia, The Brooklyn Paramount, The New Amsterdam, The Elmwood, The St. George, The Metropolitan, The Paris, The Beacon, The RKO Keiths Richmond Hill, and sitting in the middle of Brooklyn waiting for its restoration…..The Kings! In addition many of the old Broasdway theater houses remain.
New York’s theater district salvation, arguably, was started by the construction of the Marriott Marquis on the site of 3 demolished old Broadway houses. They were sacrificed to bring business back to Times Square which at the time was a cesspool of crime and filth. While it was painful to lose those theaters, I choose to look at it from the standpont that it started the ball in motion of saving Times Square and by ectension, saving the remaining Broadway houses. Eventually, it led to the 42nd Street Redvelopment Corporation and the plan to build 4 huge office towers in Times Sqaure while at the same time restoring many of the old theaters on 42nd street, but not before getting rid of all of the x rated businesses, prostituion and crime that the street was long known for.
Today, 42nd Street is home to 39 screens in two huge multiplexes, a wax museum, many restaurants, a jazz club, several “Broadway” houses, dance studios, a Childrens Theater and lots of other retail.
Many years ago, Pennsylvania Station was torn down in New York which for many people was the worst architectual crime in the history of the city – worse than the Roxy’s destruction which I believe occured a little earlier. The loss of Penn Station roused the people albeit too late to save it. But because of the outcry, it led to the Landmarks Laws that prevail in New York today. It is why New York still has Grand Central Station, The TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport, and many of the theaters that we still have today. Without landmark protection AND zoning laws, New York today would be more like Houston. (No offense meant toward Houston, but they don’t seem to have an appreciation for historic architecture and its preservtion).
Philadelphia had some of the most beutiful movie palaces in the country and lost almost all of them. They have one chance to retain a single theater – The Boyd! I mentioned this before but I’ll say it again. If there is any city that should protect, relish and promote its history, it should be Philadelphia! I am dumbfounded by the apparent indifference of not just the city govenment but the local business community and civic groups to fight for projects like the saving of The Boyd. Maybe this will be a turning point.
Could that Marquee be any less attractive? Especially when compared to the vintage photos posted by LM on 6/6/04.
I agree with Warren. The current state of the economy has to be affecting the viability of certain proposals. However, this theater is just too important to just write off and say that it should be torn down because no one will save it. While it is true that it has sat unused for almost 30 years, no one has said that it is not structurally sound. The city did reinforce the walls and ceilings and the only sttructural damage appears to have been the retail space fronting Flatbush Avenue which has, in fact, already been torn down.
I think this theater is going to need an angel that can provide a grant/donation to jump start this project. If my memory serves correctly, the city has absolutely said that they would contribute capital funds for any renovation of the Kings. What they won’t do is provide operating funds. The theater will have to pay its own way once it’s up and running.
I refuse to give up hope for this theater which, in my opinion, is one of the two most beautiful theaters in the country (the other being the Uptown in Chicago) that is sitting abandoned and unrenovated. There is now movement at The Uptown and we’ve seen the Paradise in the Bronx and The Jersey in Jersey City (other formerly abadoned Wonder Theaters)returned to their old grandeur. The Kings will have a happy ending……someday!