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DON'T KNOCK neglect. Were it not for neglect, the Loew's Kings Theater on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn might be an assembly-line multiplex showing dreck-of-the-month films on postage stamp screens. Or it might be an off-the-rack minimall, indistinguishable from all the other grand spaces this city has lost to developers whose vision extends only to the bottom line.
But entering the darkened lobby - its chandeliers and fluted columns mute testimony to the greater grandeur that is evident even in the darkened corners of the 3,195-seat auditorium - leaves little doubt that the neglect has preserved an opportunity to resurrect what The New Yorker once called "the grandest theater in New York devoted exclusively to the movies - perhaps the single most ornate movie house in the country."
Now the city, which took control of the shuttered theater a decade ago after the previous owner walked away, wants to see the theater redeveloped as an entertainment complex. The redevelopment is a key element in plans to revive what once was a grand shopping and entertainment center along a stretch of Flatbush Avenue south of Church Avenue.
"We owe it to future generations so they can see what it was like to go to the movies before they were shown in shoe boxes which just sell popcorn and sell commercials," said Mark Bender, 40, an oil salesman whose graduation from Madison High School was held at the theater.
Bender and...