Century's College Theater

My brother and I used to walk to this theater in the early 1960’s. We saw many movies there, mostly in the summer. The last movie I remember seeing there was Father Goose in 1964. I also remember one time being told to leave by the matron after our movie was over. I think a ‘mature audiences’ movie (not an adult movie, just one not suitable for kids) was going to start and we had to leave.

Cinema Treasures shows a total of 395 theaters in Brooklyn only 21 of which are open. Regardless of neighborhoods that’s the way things are.

I remember seeing a number of AIP releases during my 1970s childhood. FOOD OF THE GODS, THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR as well as a few Universal movies in the 1980s.

I remember seeing Sgt Pepper, Jaws 2 and Amityville Horror there, each on opening night. Nice little theater. Shame it’s gone.

Sometime in the early 80s, the then President of Brooklyn College and a team from the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts visited the closed theatre in the hopes that it might be acquired by CUNY to take some of the performance load off the Center’s four theatre complex. Their theatres were having a hard time servicing all the events that they hosted every year. A fifth theatre would be able to ease the bottle necks they often ran into.

This theatre would have been perfect as it is directly adjacent half a block from the large U shape building and can be seen in the aerial view to the left of the theatre building on the next corner. All at that meeting, including President Hess, agreed the theatre would be a perfect addition to the Performing Arts Center.

Unfortunately CUNY in its wisdom would not purchase the property and now, decades later when the Center is pushed beyond its physical limits, CUNY and the City are forced to spend between 75,and by the time it is done, 85 million dollars do build a theatre exactly the same size of the College Theatre. Ironically, the PAC is designed with faux art-deco elements and so the College Theatre would have been a perfect match.

Gary C. is mistaken; the theatre had some wonderful and yes very distinctive art-deco elements including the lighting fixtures and structural lines made with aluminum plating. The stand-alone external box office itself is a very unique structural design indicative of that period and almost never seen today. Many times we can look directly at things and not realize how special they are.

The College Theatre didn’t close because it was unremarkable, it closed, just like so many others, because of the slump caused by commencement of the video age. Also because Century Theatres by this time had become nothing but a real estate company with little interest in operating theatre; they were making profits by selling off it property holdings before dissolving their east coast operations. They were letting all of their theatre simply run into the ground. An independent operator who knew (and loved) the theatre business could easily have made this or any of the other Century Theatres operate profitably.

Why didn’t anyone else take up the gauntlet on these theatres with great locations? Because Century had in its sale contract an encumber that stated the property could not be used as a movie theatre. This lovely, modest theatre should not be faulted because of the stupidity of greedy corporate types.

I wonder if other theaters sold war bonds/stamps as it appears the college did.

This April 1967 NYT item gives the address as 1590 Flatbush Avenue.

A two-alarm fire swept through nine three-story buildings at Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn last night and early this morning, causing heavy damage and injuring four firemen. The nearby College Theater, a movie house at 1590 Flatbush Avenue, was also evacuated as a precautionary measure.

I worked at The College near it’s final days.
It had a real ticket booth under the marquee and was fairly in tact in terms of it’s low-key Deco splendor. Not big enough to split, it was a dump because it was rundown and sort of forgotten. It did host live shows as late as the late 60, early 70’s. My best friend saw a Chuck Berry concert there.

Here’s an aerial view of the theater. I “think” it’s the triangle shaped building on the corner:

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The Jewish Child Care Association (JCCA) now occupies the upper level of the theater, with it’s entrance on Avenue H.

The theatre space was converted to a Record Store store. The lobby would have been to small for anything with the descending stairs to the concessions and ladies room on one side and the men’s and manager’s office on the other side. Correction, both restrooms and manager’s office were on the right and the candy counter on the left.
I think it closed in ‘85/86.

Does anybody have details on Century’s Rialto on Flatbush Ave. off Cortelyou Road.
I know that it closed in the summer of 1977, its last film was “Kentucky Fried Movie”, and it now serves as a church.
Does anybody know anything more about it’s history ?

The former lobby of this small Art Deco theater is now a West Indian restaurant.