The Shore Movie Theater

Iesha Brothers

The theater opened on June 17, 1925 and seated 2,472 people among that date. Shore Theater was both a vaudeville theater and a movie house during Coney Island’s early days. The building also contained several stories of office space above the theater. It’s the tallest building around Coney Island’s amusement area where it is conveniently across the street from the famous Nathan’s and the Stillwell Ave. train station. Unlike many of the plaster and wood structures built on a small scale in Coney Island in the early days, the Shore Theater was tall, solid, fireproof, and a permanent fixture in the Coney Island skyline. The interior design included Henry Hudson’s ship, the Half Moon sails the waves on the ceiling and the mosaic decoration.

It’s been vacant for over 30 years and is one of the Coney Island’s unused assets. Even after super storm Sandy, the Shore Theater still manages to say in one piece minus the shore sign that was damaged and removed. This theater has been part of Coney Island and its history for so long and it hasn’t been used for quite some time now and for it not to be a landmark is just outrageous. It has great potential to be a performance space in Coney Island and it can be also enhance the revitalization of the area and it deserves to join the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel, the Parachute Jump, and the Child’s restaurant as an official Coney Island Landmark.