Content area
Full Text
The Loew's Kings Theater stands amid a clutter of stores, fastfood restaurants and record shops on Flatbush Avenue. Like an unbroken geode, its unprepossessing exterior belies the opulence inside.
Built in the 19th-Century Beaux Arts style, the structure was a $3-million project when it was completed in 1929. Art deco glass prism chandeliers hang from the vaulted, coffered ceiling of its monumental grand lobby. Giant corinthian columns of fluted wood, dark wood paneling, a grand curving marble staircase leading to the mezzanine foyer, and mirrored French windows are other features of that section.
A bell-shaped auditorium with a 90-foot ceiling and seats for more than 3,000 is ornate with 25-foot-high murals, laughing gargoyles and other mythical figures. Heavy drapery, art deco marble water fountains, and a marble fireplace in the ladies lounge add to the effect.
The orchestra pit can be raised and lowered. Basketball tournaments among ushers from various movie houses were held on a court in the basement, and the building is cooled and heated by water from an underground stream beneath it.
A white elephant since 1977 when...