Strand Theatre

The story

Houdini once performed in a building that later became a bowling alley, then a print shop, then a glass factory. Thomas W. Lamb designed the Strand Theatre at 647 Fulton Street for vaudeville, giving it a capacity of nearly 4,000. After vaudeville collapsed it cycled through incarnations: movie house, opera home under Alfredo Salmaggi, Warner Brothers affiliate, bowling alley, print shop. The city took it via tax foreclosure and gutted it. UrbanGlass moved in in 1991, BRIC followed in 1993, and a two-year renovation completed in 2013 returned the old hall to cultural life.