POTW: Majestic Theater Follow-up

[View of Fulton Street.], 1959, V1974.9.13; John D. Morrell photographs, ARC.005; Brooklyn Historical Society.

After we posted this image of the Majestic Theater, taken in 1968, and described it’s  transformation into today’s BAM Harvey Theater, we heard another story behind the historic Brooklyn landmark. We contacted Shay Wafer, Executive Director at 651 Arts, to fill in the details about this fascinating story:

In 1988, the Majestic Theater Advisory Committee, a group of community leaders in the arts and representatives of Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Borough President's Office recommended that a new non-profit entity be formed to develop multicultural programs from a base within the Majestic Theater. The result was the formation, and incorporation of 651 ARTS.

As Shay Wafer explained, “The inaugural season of programs included Blue Lights in the Basement with the Original Dells, Jerry Butler and the Impressions; The Brooklyn Church in Concert with Don Shirley, Hilda Harris, William Warfield; The Palladium featuring Tito Puente, Ray Barretto and more. Our third season was an eight-week concert series, 100 Years of Jazz and Blues with headliners Donald Byrd, Archie Shepp, Max Roach, Abdullah Ibrahim and others."

Wafer went on the say, “There is a legendary story of Harvey and Peter Brooks finding their way into the boarded-up Majestic Theater -in the 80s and discovering a perfect venue for the mounting of Mr. Brook's 9-hour stage play, Mahabharata.”

And that’s what’s so great about Photo of the Week—it crowd sources history and allows us to deepen our knowledge of Brooklyn’s myriad places. If you have information about photographs highlighted on our blog, please reach out with your stories and comments. We’d love to hear them!

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org