Brooklyn Lyceum building to hit auction block

Theater has outstanding lien of $5M

The Brooklyn Lyceum building
The Brooklyn Lyceum building

The headquarters of the Brooklyn Lyceum in Park Slope, a former public bath house used as a café and theater space, is slated to hit the foreclosure auction block later this month, PropertyShark.com shows. The Lyceum’s owner, an LLC headed by Lyceum founder Eric Richmond, is facing an outstanding lien of $5.05 million on the property, which Richmond converted to a cultural space in the 1990s. A final foreclosure judgment on the property was granted by a New York State Supreme Court judge in September. The building will be auctioned Feb. 28 at 360 Adams Street in Brooklyn.

The property, at 227 Fourth Avenue at President Street, served as a public bathhouse from 1908 until 1937 and served 150,000 residents in the area, according to Open House New York. It re-opened as a city-run gymnasium in the 1940s before closing in the early 1970s. It was then used by a transmission repair business. Richmond converted the property, which was in a state of disrepair, into a theater space and café in the 1990s. The building has three separate theater spaces.

Richmond bought the property at an auction in 1994, public records show. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the foreclosure.

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The $5 million lien on the property is made up of four separate mortgages granted to the owner of the property between 2003 and 2006, according to public filings. An LLC named P.B. #7 holds the debt on the property.

It was not immediately clear if the Lyceum will continue its scheduled programming amid the foreclosure activity. A phone number for the theater appeared to be no longer in use.