RKO Albee Theater Becomes Albee Square Mall (Brooklyn Cultural Landmark)

The Albee Square Mall opened in 1980 on the Fulton Street pedestrian plaza, immediately becoming a prominent spot in Downtown Brooklyn. Construction on the project began three years earlier when its namesake, the RKO Albee Theater, was demolished to make way for the development.

Albee Theater Brooklyn

Albee Theater Opened in 1925 | Photo Courtesy of Frank Tilelli & William Gabel

Albee Theater Lobby

Albee Theater Lobby (Courtesy CinemaTreasures.org – User Tinseltoes

Albee Theater Seating

Albee Theater Seating (Courtesy CinemaTreasures.org – User Tinseltoes

Edward Franklin Albee, a promoter, impresario and father of the famous playwright, built the Albee Theater in 1925, during the peak of the vaudeville era. With a beaux-arts exterior and an interior that featured crystal chandeliers in the lobby, paintings from Albee’s private collection and seating for 2,000, the Albee Theater sought to rebrand vaudeville and attract more affluent audiences.

After the theater’s demolition in 1978, the vacant space was developed by the Urban Development Corp., a city agency that worked to provide financial aid for the acquisition, construction or improvement of industrial, commercial, public and cultural spaces. The mall was designed by Gruen Associates, a firm founded in 1951 by Austrian architect Victor Gruen. Based in Los Angeles, Gruen and his firm designed the first suburban open-air mall near Detroit in 1954. Two years later, Gruen completed his best-known work – the 800,000-square-foot Southdale Mall in Minnesota.

Gruen is largely credited with inventing the suburban shopping mall as we know it; writer Malcolm Gladwell once wrote that Gruen “may well have been the most influential architect of the twentieth century.”

Albee Square Mall

Albee Square Mall (Courtesy Gowanus Lounge)

With an unassuming glass exterior, Albee Square Mall might pale in comparison to some of Gruen’s other projects. However, along with its companion, Fulton Mall, Albee Square became a cultural landmark that nurtured Brooklyn’s rising middle class, a burgeoning hip-hop culture and rejuvenated an important commercial district.

Leonard Grunstein, working as an Assistant Corporation Counsel, helped draft the land disposition agreement and ground lease structure that enabled the development of the Albee Square Mall in the late 1970s.

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