Fortway Theatre
6720 Fort Hamilton Parkway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11219
6720 Fort Hamilton Parkway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11219
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Thanks Movie Place NYC!
I do have a copy of this book as any theatrefan should, do you know which edition is it that has the photo? I have the original hardcover version. I believe there were three versions published.
The 2 female figures that you speak of can clearly be seen (one of them anyway) in a photo in the chapter about organs and their players in Ben M Hall’s “Best Remaing Seats”. The Organ is up on it’s lift with a player seated at the console. The lift has it up higher than the orchestra. A tympani and a rack of chimes are visible to the console’s left on the orchestra platform.
The ceiling may still be painted blue, but unfortunately because of the drop ceilings in auditoriums number 3 & 4 you can’t tell. I believe the Fortway was part of the Golden Theatre chain along with the Alpine in the 1980’s before Cineplex Odeon took it over.
This theatre still has many remnants of its former single auditorium days, especially the side walls in auditoriums 2&3, and in the main theatre # 1, the proscenium is still visible along with two female figures on both sides of it. The Forway is the last of a dying breed of once glorious theatres chopped up to show movies in the era of the multimegaplex.
I wonder if the ceilings in the upstairs theaters are still painted dark blue.
As I recall, the Fortway had an Independent ownership. In the ‘40s and '50s, it was close to the bottom of the food chain because it got run offs from the Loew’s Alpine and RKO Dyker that had funneled through Loew’s Bay Ridge and RKO Shore Road before hitting Interboro’s Harbor, and then the Fortway (or simultaneously the Stanley westwards on 5th Avenue). To the east, the Marlboro in Boro Park and the College in Flatbush received hand-me-downs at roughly the same time. Before VCR and DVD, they were great places to catch films before they disappeared from the circuit. With the closing of most of the above-named, the Forway survives as a first-run house today. Though I could walk to it as a kid, I had never entered it. Gotta do that before it’s too late (for me, not for the Fortway: it’s like the bunny energizer that necveer gives out.)
Sorry, I forgot I posted a comment here. There is a chapter on theatre organs and their players. It is on a page with quite a few shots of players at the console. The caption reads something to the effect of so and so (I forget the name of the musician) “at the Fortway in Brooklyn. With a pilot’s License?”. The organ is on it’s lift and it appears to be higher up than the orchestra. I will look it up tonight and post it soon
The Fortway did have originally have an organ. There is a great picture of it in Ben Hall’s “The Best Remaining Seats: The Golden Age of the Movie Palace”
Here is some information on the seating capacity for each of the Fortway’s auditoriums. Theatre 1: 468 seats, Theatre 2: 390 seats, Theatre 3: 388 seats, Theatre 4: 210 seats, Theatre 5: 210 seats.
The Fortway Theater was also a two feature house throughout the 70’s until 1988 when they also became a multiplex. I remember getting driven there every Sunday in the 70’s by my father so my Mom and my sisters would all go see the newest feature. “Jaws 2”, “Animal House”, “The Shining” and other classics played there to packed houses. After the multiplex came the theater started togo downhill and the seats and decor have almost all gone and fade away. I still go there cause they have some of the films the Alpine can’t get.