BRIC Arts Media House

Thanks JoeR. Now that I can post, I will go through my old newspapers for ads from various theaters, from New York of course.
The rest of the ad was cut off at the bottom of “Ten Cents a Dance” which included the names Jane Frazee and Jimmy Lloyd.
I check in on BB every so often and read some of the interesting posts, and look at the pictures. It’s a great site.

Joe B.

I’m attempting to post a newspaper ad of the Strand Theater featuring the movie “Dillinger” (1945) with Lawrence Tierney.
If it does not post, I will continue to go for it.

View link

Joe B.

I took these shots of the Strand building while strolling downtown Brooklyn this past weekend:

Strand & Majestic from Flatbush Ave
Facade full shot
25 cent parking
Sidewall view
Carpe Diem
Ars Longa

I’d say the numerous windows along the sidewall would confirm that the old auditorium has been gutted and converted to office/commercial space. The entrance to the BAM Harvey can be seen adjacent to the Strand’s corner entrance.

According to the THS’s list of largest movie palaces, the Strand has been converted to offices; presumably gutted.

Thanks Bway, Ed, Lostmemory, Warren and all the regulars for the Photos and the memories…….The Co-Feature, by the way, is “Murder On The Yukon” and old 1940 Renfrew of the Royal Mounted film by Monogram———-available at Ebay if you are lucky enough to hit it right………Regards from Joe From Florida

Here’s a photo of the Strand from just before they tore down the old Fulton St Elevated. Ed, perhaps you should post your aerial photo here too….

http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?52097

EdSolero, thanks a heap. It was most interesting, and nice to know that the building where the Strand Theatre was located in all it’s glory wasn’t destroyed. One of the films I saw there was “Calamity Jane” with Doris Day.
The Dollar Dreams store is a hoot and seems out of place there. Is it a store where everything is a dollar?

Thanks again,

JoeB.

No. The building is across the street to the right from the Dollar Dreams store. The image should show you the north side of Fulton Street; the Dollar Dreams store is on the northwest corner of Fulton and Rockwell Place while the Strand entrance is on the northeast corner. Compare the photo at the top of this page (note the Ionic columns) with the corner facade of the building on the northeast corner. If you follow the building roof line up Rockwell Place, you will see where it increases in height for what must have been a grand foyer and you can also see the peak to the roof as well as the rectangular shape of the stage loft housing at the north end of the property. The BAM Harvey is a smaller building to the right of the Strand, with a lower profile but much more pronounced roof peak and stage loft.

Did that help you get your bearings?

Lovetheoldtheaters… If you have a Macintosh, the local.live site will not work. It is powered by Windows and only works on that system. Of course, if you have one of those awesome new dual-platform Macs, you should be in business if you switch over to the Windows side to view the site.

Here’s an aerial view from local.live.com showing the Strand and the Majestic (now BAM Harvey) theaters sitting side by side – albeit off center from each other due to the block’s trapezoidal shape:

Fulton Street view to North

Close out the white “Welcome” box on the left and maximize the window so you can take in the full image. The Strand is the large theater on the left with the Ionic façade and entrance on the rounded corner of Fulton Avenue and Rockwell Place. I guess the BAM Harvey entrance is through the archway that is adjacent to the right of the Strand. That structure seems barely attached to the auditorium behind it. It looks like there would be an entrance closer to the Harvey auditorium on the side street (Ashland Place) but an alternate angle view of that façade doesn’t show any signs of such an entrance. BAM flies advertising banners between the Strand’s columns â€" two of which can be seen in the image above. Not being familiar with either theater when I passed by sometime last year, I just assumed that the Strand building was where the Harvey was located. I didn’t realize there was another auditorium that ran parallel along Ashland Place. You can make out how impressive the stage housing is for the Harvey compared to its size â€" it looks at least the same size as that of the Strand and perhaps even bigger, which probably made it attractive to BAM as a performance space. You can also see how much more lobby and foyer space the Strand appears to have (logically so, given its nearly 3000 seat capacity).

Does anyone know the status of the interior or about its future prospects? Does BAM own this as well? How much damage would have been done in a conversion to a bowling alley? I cringe at the thought, but perhaps its not as invasive as I’m imagining.

JoeR, my memory ain’t in such great shape either. If the Strand Theatre was closer to the Fox, it had to be on the other side of Flatbush Ave., hidden away from the main drag on Fulton St.
I also went to the R&R shows at the Paramount. I recall seeing Mickey & Sylvia singing “Love Is Strange” and The Skyliners doing “Since I Don’t Have You”, and when the lead Jimmy Beaumont couldn’t hit the high notes the audience laughed.
Did you ever hear of The Passions? They came from my neighorhood of Red Hook in Brooklyn.
Those were the days.
JoeB.

I recall the Strand Theatre, which was sort of hidden, away from the Fox, RKO Albee, and nearest to the Paramount in downtown Brooklyn.
I believe that’s where I saw “Calamity Jane” with Doris Day.
I also remember on the side street of the theatre where the exit fire doors were located, there was wino’s unsually hanging around with their bottle of hooch in paper bags, sitting against the wall.
In any event it was a handsome showplace, sadly overshadowed by the other theatre’s in the area.

Hello Lostmemory: Nice article for somebody like me that collects Classic Films on Video and DVD……….and it hits home when you read about all of the lost films from those Golden Years………Most of my 500 plus titles are 1930s titles……The others, films i saw at the Theaters we talk about here!……….I wonder sometimes, what would have happened to the Library of films in the Huge MGM library, had Ted Turner not purchased them………He immediatly set out to restore many of them, and they became the Corner-Stone of his Turner Classic Movie Channel………One would hope that when he is no longer in the picture, Time_Warner will continue to rejuvenate what still amounts to thousands of titles waiting to be restored……and that someday, MCA/Universal which owns all of the pre-1954 Paramount titles plus Universal, will do the same thing——-They are only marginally involved at this point in Restoration and showing of the Huge Paramount Library——At this point, thousands of titles just sit in their warehouses collecting dust———-Great Article Lost-One——-Joe From Florida—-sasheegm

Long before its bad days, the Strand even had a “ballet-master” (Sonia Serova). This was around 1918. Ray Bolger appeared at this time as one of the dancers long before his later fame.