In Case You Missed It: Flatbush Pavilion

In case you missed it... a note about the Flatbush Pavilion, from an article in today's Times about conversions of old theaters to other uses.

Note that in an earlier post, we incorrectly confused the Flatbush Pavilion with the nearby Plaza Theater, whose entrance was around the corner on Park Place. Commenter LGR pointed out our error at that time; you were right and we were wrong!

Flatbush Pavilion, 1912

Flatbush Pavilion
Park Slope, Brooklyn

ORIGINAL Built in 1912 by John Bunny, a silent-film star who was called Film’s First King of Comedy, it was known as the Bunny Theater until it closed in 1929. After a series of reincarnations — it has been called the Plaza Theater and the Plaza Twin — the Flatbush Pavilion opened in 2001 and ended its run as one of the oldest surviving movie theaters in the city when it closed in 2004.

REMAKE The old lobby’s floor has been redone in glossy blue epoxy and the tin ceiling has been restored, but where the screen once stood there is a stage, populated by mannequins clad in American Apparel leotards and leggings. The former projection booth is now a sound studio for the brand’s Internet radio station, Viva Radio, which has encouraged the rearranging of the letters on the marquee to create poems, jokes or advertisements.

Plaza Theater

Updated: Commenter LGR is correct about the Bunny Theater. See subsequent post about the nearby Flatbush Pavilion.

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, 1914
Photo: 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.