The Strand Theatre, sometimes known as the 1918 Strand Theatre, at 647 Fulton Street and Rockwell Place, adjacent to

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...

's Harvey Theatre, was a

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

house that is currently home to

BRIC BRIC is a grouping acronym referring to the developing countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which are identified as rising economic powers. It is typically rendered as "the BRIC," "the BRIC countries," "the BRIC economies," or alte ...

and

UrbanGlass UrbanGlass, located on Fulton Street in the historic 1918 Strand Theatre in the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District is the New York metropolitan area's leading glass-blowing facility. UrbanGlass was founded in 1977 by three artists and was origina ...

following a two-year renovation from 2011 to 2013.

History

The theatre was built for vaudeville with a maximum capacity of nearly 4,000 by architect

Thomas W. Lamb Thomas White Lamb (May 5th, 1870 – February 26th, 1942) was a Scottish-born, American architect. He was one of the foremost designers of theaters and cinemas in the 20th century. Career Born in Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom, Thomas W. La ...

, and was constructed by the T.A. Clark Construction Company, and hosted talent including Houdini. Following the demise of vaudeville, it was converted into a movie theater. From 1920 to 1927 the theatre was managed by Edward L. Hyman, a popular exhibitionist that attracted audiences with his elaborate musical productions. The theater was affiliated with Warner Brothers in the 1940s prior to its sale to Fabian Theaters in 1948. In 1953 it became

Alfredo Salmaggi Alfredo Salmaggi (March 4, 1886 – September 9, 1975), was an operatic impresario who staged bargain priced productions. He was born in L'Aquila, Italy. He married Elvira Canzano (?-1963). One of his sons was Felix W. Salmaggi who managed the ...

's opera company's home. It also spent time as a bowling alley and a print shop. Subsequent to that, it was gutted internally and converted into a glass factory when the city took it over due to

tax foreclosure A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

, which it remained until early in the 20th century when UrbanGlass moved in 1991UrbanGlass: New York Center for Contemporary Glass
. NYC Arts The Complete Guide. Retrieved 2022-03-29. and BRIC followed suit in 1993. When a printing company that operated on the first floor left in the mid 1990s, UrbanGlass and BRIC began discussions of renovating the space.

References

External links

*
Brooklyn Strand Theatre and Majestic Theatre
circa 1941. Online at the New York Public Library, image ID: 706529f. Three movie titles can be seen (use the zoom feature)
''The Nurse's Secret''''Roar of the Press''
an
''Caught in the Draft''
all from 1941, according to the ''Internet Movie Database'' website. Vaudeville theaters Theatres in Brooklyn Downtown Brooklyn {{NYC-stub