The Brooklyn Public Library recently digitized and made available on the web its photographs of Brooklyn theaters. Naturally we reviewed the collection, looking for anything related to Park Slope.
One of the newly-available photographs features an early view of the Plaza Theater, at the corner of Park Place and Flatbush Avenue. The image is from 1914. The mansarded building on the right is the Durfey residence, 158 Park Place, which stood until 1932:
Plaza Theater, 1914Photo: Brooklyn Public Library
The center building housed an amazing mix of businesses. All of these signs beckon the passerby:
Prospect Lunch
Brush's Dining Room
Oysters
Bedford Rubber Tire Co. - Auto Tires Repaired
The Plaza Theater lingered until quite recently, finally succumbing to the ultimate ignominy of becoming a chain clothing store.
Hundreds of Park Slopers walk this very sidewalk every day, between the Q train entrance just beyond the edge of the photograph, to the left, and the foot of 7th Avenue to the right.
2 comments:
Actually, I think you're mistaken here: the Bunny Theater (1912) is what now houses the clothing store, which is right around the corner on Flatbush. This appears to have been situated at what is now a cell phone store at the corner of Flatbush and Seventh Avenues.
You are right, LGR. The current Plaza Theater entrance is/was around the corner, on Flatbush (and is now a chain clothing store).
But as this photograph attests, the Plaza's entrance was apparently located just around the corner, on Park Place.
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