Rogers Theatre

I agree with Lundy. Never having been to the “other Rogers”, my recollection of the Broadway house in the “50’s is of a very simple/plain setting with wooden seats, no similarity to the house discussed in the 1936 article of Boxoffice. Similarly, the communities served by each theatre would reflect the differences. The B'way location on the edge of Williamsburg & Bushwick, under the el served a poor & working class community. The Roges Ave. address was located near Flatbush & Crown Heights, two upwardly mobile middle class neighborhoods, more accustomed to luxury and comforts.

Well, so far that’s three to zero against the Boxoffice photos being of this Rogers Theatre. If they depict the Rogers Avenue Rogers, though, then the attribution of the design of that theater to Charles Sandblom must be wrong. Boxoffice often got some details wrong (that’s why I discounted their reported seating capacity of 600 in that article), but I don’t think they’d make a mistake about who sent them photos for publication, and the text of that article is quite clear that the photos were supplied by architect William Hohauser.

I wonder if maybe the Rogers on Broadway was an early Sandblom design, and that’s where the confusion came from? He was working independently (after leaving Thomas Lamb’s office) as early as 1921. On the other hand, from the descriptions above it doesn’t sound as though this Rogers Theatre had any architecture to speak of, and that makes it less likely to have been a Sandblom design. In fact the descriptions (wooden seats, sawdust on the floor) sound like it might have been a survivor from the nickelodeon days.

In reviewing the last few posts and consulting the City’s Dept. of Building on-line file, I came up with a few facts and observations that I would now like to share. Here goes:

1. While the one story tax-payer now occupying this site was only constructed in 1987, it appears that the old home of the Rogers was not rased until at least 1985, though it, at that time, had probably been little more than an abandoned shell of its former self for a considerable number of years. That was when the “current structure” was designated as an “unsafe building”; it was probably demolished soon thereafter. (The same fate also occurred with just about all of the buildings previously situated on this block-front at around this time.)

2. A review of the certificate of occupany underlines just how little space was available for theatrical use. Specifically, the Rogers was situated in what was essentially the first floor of two, three story, adjacent residential structures. As the records clearly indicate, the two upper floors were occupied by either offices (on the second floor) or residences (on the third). This basically left the Rogers with only the first floor to use – and probably ruled out the existence of any balcony. (This provides further proof that the 1935 article referenced above did not concern this theater.)

3. Given these facts, it is surprising that the capacity of the Rogers was as large at it was. But capacity was actually set at approximately 590 persons in the late 1930’s and only reduced to 520 in the following decade – and the 488 capacity noted at the top of this page was only designated somewhat later.

4. In sum, the Rogers was probably, as Joe Vogal notes above, a real survivor of cinema’s “nickelodeon days”. If it had not been situated along one of Brooklyn’s main comercial drags, it would probably have closed upon the onset of the talking movie. but that did not occur – and the Rogers survived for many more years thereafter.

Cool History.

To put this to sleep, that is the Rogers on the corner of Broadway and Park street in the Bushwick Section. I was raised on Park street about 5 doors down from the theater….1948/1964.