[RKO Kenmore Theatre bldg on Church Avenue.]
RKO Kenmore Theatre bldg on Church Avenue between E. 21st Street Flatbush Avenue. #2101 Church Avenue at far left (on corner); then 2103 Church Avenue (Lee Corset Shop).
1961
[RKO Kenmore Theatre bldg on Church Avenue.]
RKO Kenmore Theatre bldg on Church Avenue between E. 21st Street Flatbush Avenue. #2101 Church Avenue at far left (on corner); then 2103 Church Avenue (Lee Corset Shop).
RKO Kenmore, June 11, 1961.
Built as a vaudeville house for the B.F. Keith Circuit in 1928, the theatre was originally called the Keith-Albee Kenmore. The auditorium had 3,025 seats under a 60-foot-wide dome. The balcony design included murals painted by children's book illustrator, Willy Pogany, who also created interior art for Manhattan's Beacon Theatre. The building's Italian-born architect Eugene DeRosa created more than 30 theatres around the city. The exterior was designed in a subtle Colonial Revival style.
The theatre continued to present vaudeville until the early 1930s. In 1932 it became a single screen movie theater. It remained a movie theatre until 1999, and was split into a four-plex in the late 1980s after being sold to the Cineplex Odeon chain. A gang-related shooting occurred in 1999 during a showing of the movie 'The Life,' which left one person dead and two others injured. The NYPD closed the theatre. A few years later the building was sold and gutted for a Modell's Sporting Goods Store.