Good-bye to a Local Legend

Pour one out for Brooklyn’s rowdiest theater.

- MATT ZOLLER SEITZ

WHEN THE Regal Court Street Stadium 12 opened more than two decades ago at the intersection of Court and State Streets in Downtown Brooklyn, it would have been hard to envision anyone mourning its demise.

This was no fabulous mid-century movie palace like the Ziegfeld and the Loews Astor Plaza (both since shuttered) or the Paris (which would have been a goner if Netflix hadn’t snapped it up). No, the Regal UA Court Street, as it was called when it closed down in mid-January, was one of those gigantic, bustling suburban-style multiplexes that old-timers used to lament were “ruining cinema.” In accordance with East Coast urban norms, everything was stacked in a multilayered vertical space, the levels joined by escalators and elevators; if you went to the Regal often enough, you learned to factor in ten extra minutes of travel time in case your film was playing on the top floor (at least the view was lovely).