This study discusses how motion picture spectatorship practices in Brooklyn developed separately from that of any other urban center in the United States between 1893 and 1928. Often overshadowed by Manhattan's glamorous cultural districts, Brooklyn's cultural arbiters adopted the motion picture as a means of asserting a sense of independence from the other New York boroughs. This argument is reinforced by focusing on the motion picture's ascendancy as one of the first forms of mass entertainment to be disseminated throughout New York City in congruence with the Borough of Brooklyn's rapid urbanization. In many significant areas Brooklyn's relationship with the motion picture was largely unique from anywhere else in New York. These differences are best illuminated through several key examples ranging from the manner in which Brooklyn's political and religious authorities enforced film censorship to discussing how the motion picture was exhibited and the way theaters proliferated throughout the borough Lastly this work will address the ways in which members of the Brooklyn community influenced the production practices of the films made at several Brooklyn-based film studios. Ultimately this work sets out to explain how an independent community was able to determine its own form of cultural expression through its relationship with mass entertainment.