Still putting the finishing touches on its highly anticipated restoration, Brooklyn Paramount is getting ready to open its doors March 27 as a live-music venue.
Newly-released renderings of the 1928 Fort Greene theater, closed for decades, show an impressive Roccoco fantasy interior with a columned marble lobby and theater with an elaborately adorned gold-painted ceiling with glass backlit in blue.
The exterior marquee is more modern than the original but still has some vintage flavor and pizazz with a wraparound sign, rows of lit-up bulbs, and dots and stripes of light.
The 2,700-capacity theater at 385 Flatbush Avenue Extension, now operated by entertainment giant Live Nation, already has tickets on sale for 45 shows, including PinkPantheress, Norah Jones, Busta Rhymes, Mariah The Scientist, Bikini Kill, Belle & Sebastian, the Descendents, and Black Pumas.
Along with music, the new theater will bring more than 250 jobs. A job fair is set for February 22 from 5 to 8 p.m., February 24 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and February 25 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., a spokesperson told Brownstoner. There will also be a music internship program for students at Long Island University, which owns the property.
Designed by Rapp & Rapp and built by Paramount as a movie palace, the theater later hosted music greats Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Buddy Holly & The Crickets, and Miles Davis, among many others. In the early ’60s, it became a basketball arena for Long Island University — likely the world’s most elaborate.
Long Island University inked a deal with developers to restore the theater in 2015, but the plans seemed to fall apart — and the future of the theater was unclear until 2021, when Live Nation announced it had stepped in to finish the job.
A version of this story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site Brownstoner.
