Brooklyn Theater Fire - The Theater

The Theater

The Brooklyn Theater opened on October 2, 1871 and stood near the south east corner of Washington and Johnson streets, one block north of what was then Brooklyn's City Hall. It was owned by The Brooklyn Building Association, a partnership of affluent Brooklyn residents including Abner C. Keeney, William Kingsley, and Judge Alexander McCue. After its destruction, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle had called it Brooklyn's "principal theater." Up until the last twenty months of its existence, the theater had been managed by Sara G. and Frederick B. Conway, a couple long involved in New York and Brooklyn theater and who had managed Brooklyn's Park Theatre from 1864 to 1871. Sara Conway died in April 1875, about a half a year after her husband. Following a brief, unsuccessful management stint by their children, Albert M. Palmer and Sheridan Shook, respectively, manager and proprietor of New York's Union Square Theatre, assumed a new lease on the Brooklyn Theatre in August 1875 and managed it until the catastrophe took place.

The Brooklyn Theatre stood a block from Fulton Street, the main thoroughfare to the Manhattan ferries and readily accessible to both New York and Brooklyn residents. It seated about 1,600 patrons. Both Conway and Shook and Palmer sought out upscale productions with well-known actors and actresses. The Brooklyn Theater became a well-respected house in Brooklyn's nascent theater district, which included the smaller and older Park, Olympic, and Globe theaters.