Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is leading the latest community charge to save the majestic Loews Kings Theater on Flatbush Avenue from City Hall bulldozers.
Markowitz is trying to persuade the Bloomberg administration that the future of the gritty avenue’s business district hinges on restoring the neglected 77-year-old historic jewel, which closed in 1979.
Reviving the 75,000- square-foot former picture palace and vaudeville house, he said, could also be the centerpiece for a bigger project that includes building residential space, a boutique hotel and retail shops above the theater.
“Restoring a magnificent grand theater as a multi-use performing arts center would be a magnet to bring people to Flatbush Avenue,” he said. “The site represents the epitome of theaters of the early 1900s, and should be preserved and retrofitted to the current needs of Brooklyn and beyond.”
Officials say it would cost tens of millions of dollars to restore the 3,195-seat theater, whose interior suffered from decades of roof leaks and pigeon droppings.
Janel Patterson, a spokesman for the city’s Economic Development Corp., said the city “would like to preserve as much of the historic theater as possible” but recognizes that the site’s dilapidated condition makes restoration “a very expensive endeavor.”
She said it is too early to guarantee the building would be saved but added that the city would work “to find the right mix of retail, residential and cultural uses that will sustain the property and at the same time be sensitive to the history and unique architecture of the building”
Ron Schweiger, the borough historian, said it would be a tragedy if the city opts to tear the down the theater, which once employed Hollywood stars Barbra Streisand and Sylvester Stallone.
Legend has it that Streisand, while working as an usher in 1958, vowed that one day her name would be up in lights on the theater marquee. It was 10 years later when she starred in “Funny Girl.”