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RKO Bushwick

Built by Percy Williams as a vaudeville house. Sold in 1912 to Keith's and became part of the RKO circuit. Became a church around 1969 before being abandoned.

I stumbled upon this theatre in the mid 1990s when it's fabulous terra cotta cherubim peered in at me while I was riding the Z train through Brooklyn. You can see photos of the decayed building at FadingPad and Forgotten-NY.

I returned in 2003 to find the building under renovation. The interior apparently had decayed beyond recovery, although it would probably have been in the owner's interest to say that even if it wasn't true to keep all us single-minded preservationists at bay. However, this struggling neighborhood has no use for an old movie palace, so the shell was restored very nicely for the new ACORN High School for Social Justice and, later, the Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology.

Next: RKO Chester