Ridgewood Theatre
55-27 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
55-27 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
29 people
favorited this theater
Showing 3,326 - 3,350 of 3,537 comments found
Thanks for the compliment ! I have a Hagstrom NYC 5 boro pocket atlas, and Brooklyn and Jamaica USGS quad sheets handy. They help alot. I still go to MapQuest for building numbers, though.
Thanks Peter. I think that I’ll give up on Map Quest and just ask you from now on. (just kidding)
Myrtle and Knickerbocker Avenues intersect between Bleecker Street and Greene Avenue. The Knickerbocker-Myrtle-Greene triangle thus formed is about a third of the linear dimensions, and hence about a ninth of the area, of the larger Knickerbocker-Myrtle-Bleecker triangle. Triangles are formed, because Myrtle Avenue is at about a 45 degree angle to both the streets and avenues of the Bushwick-Ridgewood rectangular street grid.
The sports arena called the Ridgewood Grove was located on St. Nicholas ave and Palmetto st. It was a poolroom in the 60’s. Before that it was a bowling alley. Before that it was famous for boxing matches. Thats before my time.
In the articles that I read, one refers to a theater on Myrtle near Knickerbocker as the Grove theater. That was in the 20’s. The other article from the 30’s called it the Knickerbocker theater. There is no address given. I don’t know what “near Knickerbocker” means. Is it on the corner of Knickerbocker or 2 blocks away from there or what? I gon’t have a map handy, but I believe the intersection of Myrtle and Knickerbocker aves is near either Greene ave or Bleecker st.
The 1931 Film Daily Year Book lists a 600-seat theatre named the Rige at 474 Wilson Avenue. In the 1926 volume, it was listed as the Wilson Theatre, so it apparently had some name changes over the years. In 1926, there was also a 600-seat Tip Top Theatre at 357 Wilson Avenue.
As I have posted elsewhere, Cinema Tour lists a Grove Theater, closed, at 474 Wilson Avenue in Bushwick. The nearest cross street, according to Map Quest, is not Grove Street, but Jefferson Avenue.
Yes, there was a “Ridgewood Grove” building, that at first glance does sort of look like it may have been a theater. I is just north of the Myrtle-Wyckoff El station, on the right hand side of the el if going north. It is currently a huge Chineese Buffet, and Hispanic Restaurant-Nightclub, and also a Billard Hall.
It may or may not be what lostmemory remembers. There is a “Grove Street” that does interstect Knickerbocker Ave about a block or two from Knickerbocker-Myrtle, and many theaters are named for the Street they ajoin. The Ridgewood Grove is fairly far from the Knickerbocker-Myrtle intersection. I’m still thinking it may be a former name for the Rivoli, but really have no idea. Maybe there was yet another theater right near there.
Wasn’t there a sports arena called the Ridgewood Grove? Perhaps you’ve confused the theatre with that.
Maybe it was the “Rivoli” Theater under a different name?
The Rivoli is at the Knickerbocker Ave station of the M line (on the Queensbound platform side). It is curently a church (like so many other theaters).
Here’s a link: /theaters/7087/
I don’t know if the Rivoli was called the “Grove” at some time, or if this is the theater you read about, but many theaters went through numerous name changes.
Instead of being called the Grove theater, could it have been called the Knickerbocker theater? I read something about a Knickerbocker theater being located at Knickerbocker and Myrtle. Maybe the first article calling it the Grove theater was incorrect.
I came across an article that said there was a theater called the Grove theater located on Myrtle ave near Knickerbocker ave. Has anyone heard of this theater?
I think most people post other Ridgewood theaters here because they see the name Ridgewood and assume it covers everything about Ridgewood.
I don’t want to overload you with too much innfo at once Bway, but I have another theater for you. It was called the Ridgewood Folly. It showed silent movies. I don’t know where it was located but I have a link to a Times Weekly article that I will post here. There is a photo of the theater from 1910. The photo is near the bottom of the article. I hope that you enjoy it.
View link
(If you can’t click on the link, just copy and paste it in your browser)
I always thought there should be a place on the site where you can ask general questions about theaters that you don’t have enough information about, like: “I know there was a theater at the corner of Myrtle and Seneca, but am trying to find more information about it”, or “What’s the theater next to the el tracks in this photo?”. It would sort of help prevent what has happened to the Ridgewood Theater page (not that it’s a bad thing, because I have found this theater page very interesting, not only because I have fond memories of the the Ridgewood Theater, but also because I was a resident of Ridgewood for over 20 years), and it seems to cover the theater and every other theater around Ridgewood too.
The Evergreen must have been a good sized theater considering they expanded the theater in 1915 by 1,500 seats. I wonder how many seats it originally had. I’m just as surprised as everyone else about the number of theaters in the area.
Maybe there should be a place on here where you could post about new theaters that you find. After you have enough info, then you could start a new section for it. Something like a research section. Its just an idea.
Neither can I. I think I will try to get a bit more information about the Evergreen Theater, and then add it to the site.
Amazingly, the Ridgewood Theater page has become the gathering point to try to put together all the pieces for all the other theaters in the Ridgewood-Glendale area. This is among one of the largest theater pages on this site. I have been trying to find out for quite some time about the theater at Seneca and Myrtle, and finally I have a name to go by now.
Thanks Warren too for the “Whitney” information; I will check my “Old Queens” book when I get home.
I cant believe all the theatres in Glendale-Ridgewood. This site is a true history lesson.
There was a theatre called the Whitney, at 829 Fresh Pond Road. Early Film Daily Year Books claim 1,000 seats. A 1912 photo showing part of the exterior can be found on page 115 of “Old Queens, N.Y.” The Whitney was right next to the Fresh Pond Rd. station of the Myrtle Avenue subway line, and apparently fell victim to its enlargement. The Whitney did not survive the coming of “talkies.” The stage housing was twice as high as the auditorium, which probably had only a ground floor.
Bway….I saved the text from the article about the Evergreen theater. I’m going to paste it into this message.
In 1921, Joseph Hartman and his son-in-law, Phoebus Kaplan, built a row of brick store fronts with a dwelling on the upper level, on Myrtle Avenue and Anthon Avenue (60th Street). In 1911, they had built and operated an open air movie theatre at what is now Seneca Avenue near Myrtle Avenue, called the Evergreen Airdrome and also at the same time, the Van Cortlandt Airdrome on the northeast corner of Myrtle Avenue and Van Cortlandt Avenue (71st Avenue). In 1913, they built the Evergreen Theatre adjacent to the Evergreen Airdrome. In 1915, they expanded the Evergreen Theatre by 1,500 seats. By 1920, the Van Cortlandt Airdrome was closed. In 1921, possibly to take advantage of the tax exempt legislation and to fund their building the row of store fronts as noted above, they sold the Evergreen Theatre and Evergreen Airdrome.
Lostmemory! Peter and I were trying to figure this one out (I don’t know if it was here in the Ridgewood section or not, and I don’t feel like reading all the responses here to find out). Somewhere I had mentioned that I remember reading that there was a theater at the corner of Seneca and Myrtle Aves, where the C-Town and Banco Popular (former Chase Manhattan bank) are now.
For some reason I thought I remember reading that theater was an “open air” theater, but don’t know for sure. If you find anything else out about the “Evergreen” please let us know, or start a new page for it when you have a little more info. Now that I know the name, I will try to research it some more too.
In one of the early messages here, someone asked about another theater on Myrtle ave. I don’t know if this is the one that you were thinking of, but I came across an article that mentioned an Evergreen theater located on Myrtle ave near the corner of Seneca ave. Other than the name and location, all it told you was, this theater was already in operation in 1914.
I have never heard of this theater. Maybe someone else has some info on it.
Fast Eddie…….Are you sure that you were in the Ridgewood theater? With all that “making out” that you claim to have been doing, maybe you were in another theater and didn’t realize it.
I’ll agree that the RKO Madison was the nicest of the theater’s in Ridgewood. But the Ridgewood theater wasn’t such a bad theater either. I don’t know what years you went there but I certainly wouldn’t compare it to a homeless shelter.
THE RIDGEWOOD THEATRE was not the best theatre in town in the 70s the MADISON was like TRUMP TOWER and RIDGEWOOD THEATRE like a homeless shelter.
Well, in that we agree. While the Ridgewood maybe not have been as extreme as a homeless shelter, the Madison wins hands down for ornateness, and size, and just about everything elseyou want to compare the two with.
However, it didn’t get it much. Look at the fate of the Madison compared to the Ridgewood, it became a burnt out hulk before being gutted to it’s bricks and now is a junk store while the Ridgewood still putters on as one of oldest continually operating theaters in the New York area.
Ellen…..What was the name of your friend that lived on Greene and Seneca? Would you or your friend remember a movie theater on that corner called the Majestic theater?
Peter K: — yes, I believe the Michael Sheridan you mention is the cousin of my friend (who lived on Greene and Seneca) Michael
would be the right age (a little older than I am) .
Capone’s I believe owned the Ridgewood Grove at the time you are talking about — ‘70s
lostmemory :
I’m glad you remember Ciro’s Restaurant. Didn’t it have a white stucco exterior, and dark windows with neon beer signs in them ?
I went to Sal’s Barber Shop on the western corner of St. Nicholas and Woodbine for haircuts, 1964 ? through 1970. I remember sayings in round circles on the big glass windows : “Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Cry, and you cry alone !”
I never hung out in the Ridgewood Grove Poolroom, but my high school class of 1973 had a rowdy, brawling, drunken “reunion” eight days after graduation, in mid-June 1973, in Capone’s Bar, on the first floor of the Ridgewood Grove building, right at the eastern corner of St. Nicholas and Palmetto.
I don’t think the Imperial Theater at Irving and DeKalb Avenues has a page on this site. I think there’s a page here, though, for the Rivoli, which stood at 1374 Myrtle Avenue, on the south side, between Knickerbocker and Wilson Avenues, Harman and Himrod Sts. It’s adjacent to the Metropolitan Avenue-bound platform of the Knickerbocker Avenue station of the Myrtle Avenue el (M train).