The biggest stage

Walking by the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Saturday, we happened across the crew of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” setting up for taping his annual week of shows from the borough of his birth. And we happened across Jimmy Kimmel himself.

With a handshake, we welcomed him home and asked why not bring his show here permanently from sterile Hollywood?

He chuckled and said maybe. But we’re not joking.

Late night TV was invented here, with Steve Allen as first host of NBC’s “Tonight Show” (not that we’re partial to Allen because he read Voice of the People letters on air). Successors Jack Paar and Johnny Carson also used the center of the world as their stage until Carson took his wagons west in 1972, disregarding a warning that Groucho Marx gave Johnny on his very first show, in 1962: “Don’t go to Hollywood!”

Fortunately, Jimmy Fallon brought “Tonight” back here to 30 Rock in 2014, just blocks from CBS’s “Late Show” with David Letterman, and now Stephen Colbert, in the Ed Sullivan Theater (not that we’re partial because Sullivan was a longtime News columnist).

New York, or even better, Brooklyn, is the place for Kimmel. The city itself is a character and there are plenty of entertainers around seeking to promote their latest film, TV or music.

The three network news broadcasts are from here (CBS should reconsider its silly decision to decamp to DC) as are the three cable news channels’ anchors. All that’s missing is a kid from Mill Basin.