Cinema Kings Highway
711 Kings Highway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11223
711 Kings Highway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11223
13 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 177 comments
The marquee in the front that says Cinema, the sale sign used to be over it. Not sure if it is closed, will check it out next time I am near the place.
the theater is basically closed completely. It looks even more torn down than before
Brushed up against what? Is the theater still open? Thanks..
Yes, it looks like a truck brushed up against it and shredded it. I hope it will be repaired, but somehow doubt it.
Wait i thought the porno theater closed. I saw a for sale sign and it looked kinda torn down
Wow – new to site. I used to work at this theatre back in the day. There were times that I would sell the ticket; get the refreshments and run the films! I used to let my good friends in – lasted for a while until my parents found out it was a porn theater and wouldn’t let me work there anymore. Good memories.
The Jewel Theatre was in business for less than a half year before the mayor came after its operators as a numbers front and charged with other illegal gaming activities. That’s old school Brooklyn!
The theatre is still open…for now.
Whoever buys it had better have the floors scrubbed REALLY well.
According to a Real Estate listing website, it is listed for sale for $4,499,000 and will be delivered to the buyer vacant.
Thanks for responding. I think I will check it out again before it is gone.
I passed by yesterday (see photo). It looks like it’s still open, but it’s definitely for sale.
Thank-you for the update. Is the theater still open? I would like to visit a few more times.
I saw the for sale sign tonight.
I haven’t seen it but I hear there is a FOR SALE sign up on the building.
Any other porn theaters left in the city? I went there many times. Loved to cruise and be cruised.
I don’t believe this link has been published in any earlier comment. Boxoffice of January 7, 1939, had an article about architect Benjamin Schlanger’s innovative design for reverse-slope auditoriums. The second page of the article has a photo of the Jewell Theatre.
This is the first page of the article.
This is the secondpage of the article with the photo of the Jewell at bottom right.
The only original area of the theatre still remaining is the balcony but that was used as a separate theatre years ago. However it still retains the original chairs.
I added some new photos I took this evening. I want to go back with my camera and take better pics.
Excerpt from Village Voice article:
Speaking of “social” moviegoing—in an abandoned-looking building next to the Kosher Hut in Gravesend lurks Brooklyn’s last living porno theater, the Kings Highway Cinema (711 Kings Highway, Brooklyn). Marquees and poster displays blacked out, the only clue to the theater’s ongoing operation is a computer printout in the window that reads “Box Office Inside.”
Paying $12 in a small lobby decorated with decoy posters of art house titles, the curious pass through an ominous turnstile and into history. Thanks to the 1995 zoning law that requires purveyors of XXX to devote 60 percent of their floor space to nonpornographic material, the two larger theaters, both empty and reeking like humidors, were playing a biopic of French gangster Jacques Mesrine and a Two and a Half Men.
The big houses are flanked by two theaters of some 15 seats each, screening, respectively, gay and straight hardcore. These are linked by a back passageway that’s a hive of private booths, an intermediary zone suggesting a fluid sexuality—though given the age of most of the patronage, sex might be purely theoretical.
The most off-putting element here: the concession area, which consists of hot-water carafes, Styrofoam cups, and a sign reading “Ask Cashier for Hot Chocolate Package.” Before its Deco interior was gutted by a fire in the 1960s, the Kings Highway was—as the Jewel Theatre—one of Brooklyn’s first art houses, frequented by a young Woody Allen.
Providing a hyperlink is not important. All one has to do is copy the link and then paste it; it’s no big deal. It doesn’t involve any strenuous exertion or sweat, lol.
I don’t know (or remember) how to hyperlink.
saps, thanks for that link. OMG, what an Art Deco jewel (no pun intended)!
Here’s the direct link:
http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/7176.html
I saw some beautiful pictures of the theatre on www.cinematour.com The place was a beautiful Art Deco jewel. What a shame.