Parkville Theatre
1028 McDonald Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
11230
1028 McDonald Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
11230
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 14 comments
A 5-story office building is going up on this site.
https://newyorkyimby.com/2020/09/permits-filed-for-1010-mcdonald-avenue-in-mapleton-brooklyn.html
robboehm: The Beverly Amusement Company built the Beverly Theatre, 111-115 Church Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11218 in 1919. It has a page on Cinema Treasures #3865. It must be the one you are enquiring about.
This is the only Parkville Theater on CT so if the one I mentioned in my 2014 post was built it was under another name. Anybody able to check out the site or know of a way to check on what was built?
1919 photo added courtesy Old NYC Photos Facebook page.
photo uploaded from Brooklyn pics.
Purely by chance I came upon a notice in the August 11, 1919 Brooklyn Eagle that the Beverly Amusement Corporation was building the 1,600 seat Parkville Theater at the intersection of Gravesend and Church and that there would be stores on the Church Av side. It was going to be outfitted with an organ costing approximately $ 20,000. Obviously not the same Parkville. Was a theater built on that site? Did one replace the other? Was the theater mentioned in the piece opened under another name?
Minor point but the Parkville should be classified as “Demolished”, not “Closed”.
The current commerical structure was built in 1959 as noted on the C of O:
http://a810-cofo.nyc.gov/cofo/B/000/166000/B000166162.PDF
I just updated the street view to show the correct corner (northwest). The theater was located where the red building is now.
DFC; Regarding your comment on Nov 23, the theatre at 990 McDonald Avenue is the Ditmas Theatre. I have just added it here: /theaters/34545/
The movie being shown at the time of the photograph is “The Sporting Duchess” (1915). It is a film presumed to be lost.
IMDB: The Sporting Duchess (1915)
Based on the even-numbered address the Parkville Theater was on the NorthWest corner of Gravesend (McDoanald) Avenue & Parkville Avenue.
Two blocks north of this theater at 990 McDonald Avenue & Webster Avenue there is a soda distributor (Culver Narrows Beer & Soda). Years ago the owner told me that the building was a former movie theater. The ceiling is very high and IIRC you could see evidence of where the projectionist’s booth was. I searched this site and found no entry for that address. Does anyone here have better information about this one time movie theater? Maybe it’s on this site and I couldn’t find it.
DFC is correct. As the theater was on one of the corners with an obtuse angle, it had to be on either the northwest or southeast corner, and the photo shows the front on Gravesend/McDonald Avenue (note that the street sign shows that Washington/Parkville Avenue ran along the side of the theater, not along the front.) The 1915 directory probably got the number right but the street wrong. There is no 1028 Parkville Avenue. The street is too short to reach that number. The correct address today must be 1028 McDonald Avenue.
Then the 1914-15 address must be 1028 Gravesend Avenue (now McDonald Avenue) because the addresses on Washington Avenue (now Parkville Avenue) at that point are below the number 100.