THE French Renaissance Grand Prospect Hall, 263 Prospect Avenue just south of 5th Avenue in Park Slope, was familiar to NYC viewers from its ubiquitous commercials: “We make your dreams come true!” It was constructed as a grand banquet hall in 1892 by John Kolle, who hired Ulrich J. Huberty, the architect of Prospect Park’s Tennis House and Litchfield Villa. The interior was indeed ornate. William Jennings Bryan, Enrico Caruso, Lena Horne, Fred Astaire and Al Capone were all patrons; the Jack Nicholson vehicle Prizzi’s Honor was filmed here. The Hall was under the ownership of Michael & Alice Halkias from 1982-2020, and the couple appeared in the commercials.
Despite its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, that is an honorific only and is no protection against the desires of developers. In 2020, the Halkias family sold the Hall to developer Angelo Rigas, who quickly set about razing the building. Before the sale went through, the Halkias family had auctioned off the lush interior furnishings. Michael Halkias passed away from coronavirus complications in 2020.
Andrew Dolkart, a professor of historic preservation at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, told me that Prospect Hall had been on the landmarks commission’s radar since the nineteen-seventies, when he worked for the commission, “but it just never got done.” [New York Magazine]
My relationship with the building was strictly tangential. I’ve never been inside, but I was once invited to a wedding here–and the invitation was later rescinded, when the bride explained she had gone over budget and had to pare the guest list! As it happened I was in Park Slope the day of the wedding and went by Prospect Hall in a friend’s car and saw her in her gown outside the building! (The newlyweds, who moved to New Hampshire decades ago, later had me over for dinner as a consolation prize.)
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5/4/23