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 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 theater was originally bounded by East 22nd Street to the east, but that street was closed and partially removed to make way for an expanded stage house in the 2010s. Behind the stage house is a public parking lot located east of East 22nd Street. 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. The auditorium originally had a roof measuring or tall. 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 replacement stage house is tall and occupies part of the former right-of-way of East 22nd Street.
Flatbush Avenue elevation The only elevation of the facade with substantial decoration is on Flatbush Avenue, which is wide. 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 and 800 light bulbs. Unlike the original sign, it lacks the Loews name because AMC Theatres still used that name as a trademark in the 2010s.
The rest of the facade above the marquee is clad in cream-colored architectural terracotta and is divided vertically into three bays. The center bay of the facade includes a bas-relief with decorations such as acanthus leaves, birds, foliage, a mask, shields, and trefoils. This bas-relief is surrounded by a semicircular arch with terracotta moldings. On either side of the arch, within the outer bays, are terracotta pilasters with more bas-reliefs of motifs such as acanthus leaves, fleurs-de-lis, figures, scrolls, and urns. The outer bays also have rusticated terracotta blocks. Above the center of the roofline is a parapet with a segmentally-arched broken pediment with a medallion at the center. The outer corners are topped by finials. A vertical sign existed in front of the central bay until the 1980s.
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. The facade of the auditorium is also utilitarian, with little decoration, although the auditorium does have some windows. There is a brick chimney above the southeastern corner of the auditorium. In addition, a parapet with terracotta coping runs above the perimeter of the auditorium. There are emergency-exit doorways leading from the northern and southern walls of the auditorium section.
Interior The interior was designed by Harold Rambusch, who collaborated with Rapp & Rapp on the design details. Anne Dornin was also involved with the interior design. The decorative details were inspired by the decorations inside the Paris Opera House and Palace of Versailles. A contemporary source characterized the interiors as being decorated in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. There are only two above-ground stories, plus a basement. The interiors include a one-story-high entrance vestibule, a main lobby, an inner lobby, several foyers and lounges, and an auditorium. The back-of-house areas (such as dressing rooms, offices, and storage and mechanical areas) are within the basement, backstage, and near the entrance.
Originally, the theater's interior space totaled about . Following a renovation in the 2010s, it was expanded to . When the theater opened, it had a well, which supplied of water for the mechanical equipment every minute. There was also an air-filtering system that could clean about of air per minute. The system drew air from openings on the building's roof, and it pushed out air via "mushrooms" under the auditorium's seats.
Vestibule and lobbies
Just past the entrance is a north–south vestibule occupying the entire frontage on Flatbush Avenue. The vestibule's western wall has a storefront with brass-and-glass doors leading from the entrance, and the eastern wall has a nearly identical storefront leading to the lobby. There was a ticket booth on the eastern wall, which was identical to the one at the entrance, but no longer exists. On the vestibule's north and south walls are marble panels with mirrors. The floor of the vestibule is made of poured concrete with rubber mats. On the ceiling is a grid of iron beams, with rosettes at the intersections of each set of beams; the ceiling is surrounded by a plaster cornice.
To the east of the vestibule is the main lobby, which is oriented east–west and measures about across. The marble floor is divided into a grid of pink and white tiles with a red-and-black border. Originally, the space had brass railings so patrons could form queues. The walls are high; the lower portions are decorated with red marble dadoes, while the upper portions have walnut panels. On the western wall of the main lobby is the archway from the vestibule. The lobby walls contain groups of wooden pilasters with ornate capitals, which flank one arched bay to the north and two to the south. The lower portions of the arched bays have walnut display cases, while the upper portions have mirrors, draperies, and painted plaster decorations. The mirror frames, trim, and pilasters were all carved by hand. The eastern half of the north wall contains an archway, underneath which is a stair that ascends to the mezzanine. The main lobby's eastern wall has two archways, flanked by walnut columns in the Corinthian order; the left (northeast) archway leads to the orchestra-level foyer, while the right (southeast) archway leads to the inner lobby. The ceiling, inspired by that of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, is made of plaster, with elaborate octagonal and square coffers. Three Art Deco lantern-shaped chandeliers with prisms, fleurs-de-lis, and pendeloques hang from the ceiling; each chandelier weighs about .
The inner lobby is across, extending southeast from the main lobby, and is built of similar materials to the main lobby. On the southwestern wall are protruding wooden pilasters, which divide the wall into three arched bays. Wooden columns divide the northeastern wall into three archways, behind which are the mezzanine and the orchestra-level foyer; there is a cast iron balcony railing at the mezzanine level. A stair to the mezzanine runs along the southeastern wall. There are blind openings with wooden grilles behind the staircase. Red and gold draperies hang from the archways and arched bays. The barrel-vaulted ceiling is made of plaster, with coffers similar to those on the main lobby's ceiling, and has four chandeliers. In addition, the concrete floor is covered with carpeting.
Foyers and lounges Directly northeast of the inner lobby are foyers on both the ground (orchestra) level and the mezzanine level, which have simpler design details than those in the lobbies. The orchestra-level foyer measures wide and long. It runs parallel to, and just to the northeast of, the inner lobby. Leading off the orchestra foyer are several lounges and other spaces. These include a men's lounge, a women's lounge, a cosmetic room, a coat-check room, offices, and a stair to the basement. The women's lounge had such decorations as draperies, marble fountains, and a marble fireplace mantel. The mezzanine foyer is directly above the orchestra foyer. The men's lounge, women's lounge, and cosmetic room all connect with the mezzanine foyer, and there is also a stair leading from the mezzanine foyer to a projection room. The projection room still exists, but the projector is no longer usable as of 2019; instead, a digital projector is used whenever the Kings screens movies. Three of the theater's four lounges were also restored in the 2010s and are open to the public.