The Kings Theatre (formerly Loew's Kings Theatre) is a theater and live performance venue at 1027 Flatbush Avenue in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City, New York. Designed by Rapp and Rapp as a movie palace, it opened on September 7, 1929, as one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York City area. The theater's interior decor was supervised by Rapp and Rapp along with Harold Rambusch. Owned by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the Kings Theatre has been operated by ATG Entertainment since 2015. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Kings Theatre occupies an irregular site and is divided into two sections: the lobby section and the auditorium. The lobby section has an elaborate terracotta facade with a marquee and an arched entrance storefront. The entrance leads to a vestibule and two lobbies with high ceilings, in addition to several foyers and lounges. The auditorium has 3,250 seats on two levels, with an elaborately decorated proscenium arch, walls, and ceilings. Like the other Wonder Theaters, the Loew's Kings Theatre featured a "Wonder Morton" theater pipe organ manufactured by the Robert Morton Organ Company, though the organ has since been removed.
A theater on the site was originally proposed in 1919 by William Fox. Allied Owners Inc. took over the theater site and developed it starting in 1928, leasing the venue to Loew's Theatres. The Kings Theatre originally presented films and live shows, although the live shows were discontinued within a decade of the theater's opening. The theater slowly declined after World War II, screening films almost exclusively. The theater closed in August 1977 due to high costs and low attendance. Despite several attempts to redevelop the Kings Theatre, it lay abandoned for more than three decades and gradually decayed during that time. ACE Theatrical Group leased the theater from the New York City Economic Development Corporation in 2013 and, after a $95 million renovation, reopened it on January 23, 2015. Since then, the Kings Theatre has functioned as an event venue.
Description<span class="anchor" id="Design"></span><span class="anchor" id="Architecture"></span>
The Loew's Kings Theatre was designed by the architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp. It is one of three theaters that Rapp and Rapp designed in New York City, the others being the Brooklyn Paramount and the Times Square Paramount. The Loew's Kings Theatre was one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York City area, along with the Jersey Theatre in Jersey City, the 175th Street Theatre in Manhattan, the Paradise Theatre in the Bronx, and the Valencia Theatre in Queens. Rapp and Rapp had intended for the theater's elaborate design to impress visitors and make them feel special.
The theater is located at 1027 Flatbush Avenue in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. The site occupies the center of a city block bounded to the south by Duryea Place and to the north by Tilden Avenue. The Kings Theatre occupies an irregular site and is divided into two sections: the lobby section and the auditorium. The main entrance faces west toward Flatbush Avenue; the lobbies extend east of the entrance before turning 45 degrees to the southeast. The auditorium extends to the northeast of the lobbies. The Sears Roebuck & Company Department Store is located immediately southeast of the theater.
Facade
The facade rises three stories from Flatbush Avenue. The roof of the lobby section measures tall, although the facade on Flatbush Avenue is tall, obscuring the lobby's roof. There are parapets surrounding the roof of the auditorium to the west and east. In addition, the originally stage house to the northeast of the auditorium measured tall. The main entrance is through a segmentally arched, brass-and-glass storefront, topped by a frieze with text welcoming visitors to the theater. The doors are recessed slightly from the facade, and there is a bronze ticket booth protruding from the middle of the storefront, separating the doors into two sets of five. The storefront itself is polygonal in shape, with a marble base, a half-domed roof, and etched glass windows. There is a marquee above the storefront, which is suspended from two cables that protrude from the upper portion of the facade. The marquee originally had a concave soffit, but this was replaced in 1949 with a rectangular sign flanked by two rectangular light boxes. The original marquee was restored in the 2010s. The modern marquee contains the theater's name
Other elevations
The facades of the lobby section's northern and southern elevations are clad in plain brick and lack windows. The southern elevation is discolored due to the presence of an adjacent one-story building that no longer exists.
Interior
The interior was designed by Harold Rambusch, Anne Dornin