7. Bushwick Theater, 1396 Broadway
The Bushwick Theater opened on September 11, 1911. The venue “was once Brooklyn’s largest and most magnificent vaudeville theater with seating for 2,500 patrons,” notes Brooklyn’s Bushwick. Ethel Barrymore and Lily Langtree were among the stars to perform there. Brooklyn Relics reveals that a unique feature of the Bushwick was its animal room, “an area underneath the stage built to house the many animal acts that were once included in vaudeville shows. Its design was sufficient in size to accommodate dogs, monkeys, horses, elephants and other beasts.”
Comedian Phil Foster recalled in How Sweet It Is that Gleason made some of his earliest appearances at the Bushwick. “Jackie must have been around sixteen or so. I know he had quit school, as that was the legal age. We all entered amateur contests at the Bushwick Theater. He bombed like the rest of us but he kept trying.”
A movie screen was added in 1930 and the theater became part of the RKO-Keiths chain until it closed in 1969. The Pilgrim Baptist Cathedral reopened the building as a church in 1970. Today the building houses the Brooklyn University High School for Law.
