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The theater "opened on June 17, 1925 with Blanche Sweet and Ronald Colman in The Sporting Venus," says Cinema Treasures. It served as a popular movie and vaudeville house for years. The Hilton Sisters (Daisy and Violet, not Paris and Nicky), a pair of jazz-playing Siamese twins, performed there.
Writes cinephile Warren G. Harris at Cinema Treasures, "Attempts [in the 1960s] to appeal to the area's large Jewish community by presenting stage revues like 'Bagels & Yox' failed." Finally, in the 1970s, the Shore became a porn movie house and shut down.
via Coney Island Playground
The theater was purchased in 1978 by the Kansas Fried Chicken king Horace Bullard, who remains the owner today. Where Nedick's used to be, then the Gayway Bar & Grill, his fried chicken restaurant has long been shuttered, the untouched interior collecting dust, "mothballed," until redevelopment can come to it.
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The theater's interior is a bit more grand. Before it was gutted to become a bingo hall, it seated 2,387. The proscenium arch was done in rococo style--I imagine gold and peacock blue. Today, the paint is peeling and the ceiling plaster is falling in.
via Warren Harris at Cinema Treasures
Said Brooklyn Paper this week, "The future is uncertain for the Shore Theater... If it’s deemed a landmark, its upper floors could be converted to apartments, but the exterior would be unalterable and the theater would be restored."
Mr. Bullard made his plans clear in 2007, saying, "If hotels are coming, then I’ll put a tower up the back of my building."
via Warren Harris at Cinema Treasures
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