As I noted in an earlier post, the Gates was never an exclusively porn theater, though it did clearly occasionally sink to that level. It also hosted a number of Kung Fu pictures as it strove to keep afloat during the very trying 1970’s. (As the late Sam Horwitz, a former City Councilman and longtime movie theater manager, once told me, Kung Fu films were the salvation for many inner-city movie houses during that era.) But the 1977 blackout was the knockout punch for the Gates – and the Madison as well.
Tisloeas, that was exactly the point that I was trying to make. There may have been a few – or maybe more than a few – porn days at the Gates, but it basically functioned as a regular theater until its demise just after the 1977 blackout.
LM, I am so glad to know that you are doing well in retirement. (I should be so lucky!) Let me hope that you take advantage of “semi-retirement” status to (1) continue to peruse the movie picture pages of interest on this site and (2) provide a comment or two when you have something to contribute.
All of us “regulars” really miss you and, I am sure, hope to hear from you soon.
By the way, I have been informed that the old Cordon Bleu catering hall has, in fact, reopened at this location, though it now only occupies a smaller portion of the building.
Gerald, I have spent the better part of the day perusing the fascinating comments that you have submitted regarding the past and current movie houses of (mostly) Rhode Island. While I will probably never visit most of these places – though I did spend a weekend in Woonsocket many years ago and have visited Newport on several occasions – your vivid descriptions – and vintage pictures – of the old movie palaces and the communities they served was most enjoyable. It also revived memories of my own early cinematic experiences when growing up in Greenpoint Brooklyn.
This is one of the reasons why this is such a wonderful site.
Peter, in place of Warren and LM, you may always be our Grover Whalen, whether you want to be or not. That just means that we all love you – and we do.
Re Lost Memory, the problem is that he has not submitted anything since very early 2010. His most recent post re the Howard to which East Coast Rocker refers was actually submitted in the first half of 2009. So, the question of where LM is – and HOW he is – remains an open one. Hope, on my part, that he is doing very fine.
At the risk of provoking an avalanche of comments – just as occurred when I asked the same question about Warren last year – does anyone know what has become of Lost Memory? He has not, to the best of my not so lost memory, posted anything for quite a while. Perhaps the list of organs that were installed in old movie houses finally ran out! Seriously, I hope he is doing well – and I very much hope to hear from him soon.
Thanks for the update, Peter. By the way, the stuff that suddenly appears and disappears inside the outer lobby gate belongs to the site manager, who uses the place as an outdoor storage bin. When I last passed by, the area was filled with air conditioners and auto tires. These miraculously were gone by the time of your visit. So this is not much of a mystery.
Bway, good to hear from you – and thanks for the pictures. I totally agree that the garage option would mark a truly horrible end to the Ridgewood – wonderfully retained facade or not. We must do all that we can to avoid such a result! (Hopefully it is no longer an option.)
As noted by the pictures, it appears that the old Michigan is doing horrible business even as a parking garage. There is certainly no lack of available parking apaces. So I guess Detroit is in as bad shape as the news reports would lead us to believe.
I was able to visit the Ridgewood yesterday. The “available” sign and the telephone number no longer appear on the marquee. Don’t know what to make of this.
I was also fortunate to run into the site supervisor who confirmed that, due to lack of financing, nothing has, to date, come to fruition. He is just providing basic maintenance to the building. In addition to the catering hall plus movie theater plan that he told me about last June, he noted that another possibility concerned the conversion of the building into an interior garage. I certainly hope that dreadful idea is dead.
So, I guess we still have a long way to go on this.
Thanks Peter for the updates. Since I have been out of the country for nearly three weeks – in very sunny Italy – it was great to be brought up to date. Hopefully, we will soon see some positive action at the old Ridgewood!
Jayar, it was great to hear the good news about the new movie theater in Williamsburg. (The vacant lot that was once the Commodore is just so depressing.) So I guess that the community that was able to open a bowling alley will now bring back the movies!
The 1947 picture is really terrific and also, at first sight, appears to be even older than it is.
A very interesting page – and a wonderful picture, albeit the fact that, as previously noted, the elevated train line mysteriously disappears from the scene.
If I had not stumbled across this picture when viewing some of Jayar’s photos on the Bushwick RKO page, I would never have learned about this fascinating theater. Since I usually search theaters by zip code, the fact that it is not indicated at the top of the page means that I never found the Broadway during my previous searches. To address this, I hope that management will add the Broadway’s zip code – 11206 – to this page.
Jayar, while I thank you for posting these pictures, they apparently have been blocked and cannot be accessed. Hopefully, you will be able to resolve this problem.
I don’t believe that the post of the photo that you just referred to came through. Since I am really looking forward to seeing it, please try again – and welcome back.
This is a silly – though not an entirely irrelevant – question. After whom were the two Nixon Theaters named? I do not think this question has been addressed in the thread. Specifically, what Nixon was significant enough in Steel Town USA to have a theater named after him – or her? I very much doubt that it was Richard M.
In looking at the terrific picture that Bway posted last Febeuary (that I reprint below), I noted that the featered movie was “Forbidded Paradise”. It was a silent film directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch that starred, among others, Pola Negri and Adolph Menjou. The film was released in 1924. Thus, if it was in initial release, this film was shown during the brief period – 1921 to 1925 – when the Parthenon was situated in Brooklyn. If not, it was probably shown just after the Parthenon’s location shifted into Queens during 1925, when the county lines were revised.
This is, at least to me, fascinating stuff. Enjoy!
Wow. Bway, where did you find this picture and when was it taken? By the looks of it, it seems that this occurred right after the Parthenon opened. It could even have been shot during the very brief period when this theater was still situated in Brooklyn.
I recently was able to visit this site. The old building, such as it is, still exists and is occupied by some sort of commercial use. More importantly, the old theater is situated one block west of the portion of Green St. that was actually named for George Apen. This makes the address designation appearing at the top of the page not only confusing but downright incorrect. (In fact, I could not even find a “George Apen St.” sign in the portion of Green St. that was actually named after him.)
Thank you Bway and Warren for this terrific vintage picture. I just can’t believe that such a significant theater existed on this corner. I just have two additional comments to add:
When one reads – or re-reads – “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” – one can really think of The Folly as a place where the principal characters of this wonderful novel went to enjoy a silent film and/or a stage performance on a Saturday night. Perhaps Jimmy Nolan even performed here. This was clearly one of the crown jewels of the “Ghetto Street”.
It is interesting to think that the very stately Folly was situated just down the block from the far more mundane Lindy Theater. But I guess that’s how things were those days.
As I noted in an earlier post, the Gates was never an exclusively porn theater, though it did clearly occasionally sink to that level. It also hosted a number of Kung Fu pictures as it strove to keep afloat during the very trying 1970’s. (As the late Sam Horwitz, a former City Councilman and longtime movie theater manager, once told me, Kung Fu films were the salvation for many inner-city movie houses during that era.) But the 1977 blackout was the knockout punch for the Gates – and the Madison as well.
Tisloeas, that was exactly the point that I was trying to make. There may have been a few – or maybe more than a few – porn days at the Gates, but it basically functioned as a regular theater until its demise just after the 1977 blackout.
LM, I am so glad to know that you are doing well in retirement. (I should be so lucky!) Let me hope that you take advantage of “semi-retirement” status to (1) continue to peruse the movie picture pages of interest on this site and (2) provide a comment or two when you have something to contribute.
All of us “regulars” really miss you and, I am sure, hope to hear from you soon.
By the way, I have been informed that the old Cordon Bleu catering hall has, in fact, reopened at this location, though it now only occupies a smaller portion of the building.
Gerald, do you know if the Casino has re-opened? If it has, do you know what events are being scheduled there?
Gerald, I have spent the better part of the day perusing the fascinating comments that you have submitted regarding the past and current movie houses of (mostly) Rhode Island. While I will probably never visit most of these places – though I did spend a weekend in Woonsocket many years ago and have visited Newport on several occasions – your vivid descriptions – and vintage pictures – of the old movie palaces and the communities they served was most enjoyable. It also revived memories of my own early cinematic experiences when growing up in Greenpoint Brooklyn.
This is one of the reasons why this is such a wonderful site.
Keep up the good work!
Peter, in place of Warren and LM, you may always be our Grover Whalen, whether you want to be or not. That just means that we all love you – and we do.
Re Lost Memory, the problem is that he has not submitted anything since very early 2010. His most recent post re the Howard to which East Coast Rocker refers was actually submitted in the first half of 2009. So, the question of where LM is – and HOW he is – remains an open one. Hope, on my part, that he is doing very fine.
At the risk of provoking an avalanche of comments – just as occurred when I asked the same question about Warren last year – does anyone know what has become of Lost Memory? He has not, to the best of my not so lost memory, posted anything for quite a while. Perhaps the list of organs that were installed in old movie houses finally ran out! Seriously, I hope he is doing well – and I very much hope to hear from him soon.
Thanks for the update, Peter. By the way, the stuff that suddenly appears and disappears inside the outer lobby gate belongs to the site manager, who uses the place as an outdoor storage bin. When I last passed by, the area was filled with air conditioners and auto tires. These miraculously were gone by the time of your visit. So this is not much of a mystery.
Bway, good to hear from you – and thanks for the pictures. I totally agree that the garage option would mark a truly horrible end to the Ridgewood – wonderfully retained facade or not. We must do all that we can to avoid such a result! (Hopefully it is no longer an option.)
As noted by the pictures, it appears that the old Michigan is doing horrible business even as a parking garage. There is certainly no lack of available parking apaces. So I guess Detroit is in as bad shape as the news reports would lead us to believe.
I was able to visit the Ridgewood yesterday. The “available” sign and the telephone number no longer appear on the marquee. Don’t know what to make of this.
I was also fortunate to run into the site supervisor who confirmed that, due to lack of financing, nothing has, to date, come to fruition. He is just providing basic maintenance to the building. In addition to the catering hall plus movie theater plan that he told me about last June, he noted that another possibility concerned the conversion of the building into an interior garage. I certainly hope that dreadful idea is dead.
So, I guess we still have a long way to go on this.
Thanks Peter for the updates. Since I have been out of the country for nearly three weeks – in very sunny Italy – it was great to be brought up to date. Hopefully, we will soon see some positive action at the old Ridgewood!
Jayar, it was great to hear the good news about the new movie theater in Williamsburg. (The vacant lot that was once the Commodore is just so depressing.) So I guess that the community that was able to open a bowling alley will now bring back the movies!
The 1947 picture is really terrific and also, at first sight, appears to be even older than it is.
A very interesting page – and a wonderful picture, albeit the fact that, as previously noted, the elevated train line mysteriously disappears from the scene.
If I had not stumbled across this picture when viewing some of Jayar’s photos on the Bushwick RKO page, I would never have learned about this fascinating theater. Since I usually search theaters by zip code, the fact that it is not indicated at the top of the page means that I never found the Broadway during my previous searches. To address this, I hope that management will add the Broadway’s zip code – 11206 – to this page.
Jayar’s pictures now come in fine and are great. This was probably just a temporary thing.
Jayar, while I thank you for posting these pictures, they apparently have been blocked and cannot be accessed. Hopefully, you will be able to resolve this problem.
Looking forward to seeing really good stuff!
Bway, great to hear from you.
I don’t believe that the post of the photo that you just referred to came through. Since I am really looking forward to seeing it, please try again – and welcome back.
I also found this great ad for a Mae West movie among the photos that Jayar just posted. There is a lot of great stuff here.
View link
This is a silly – though not an entirely irrelevant – question. After whom were the two Nixon Theaters named? I do not think this question has been addressed in the thread. Specifically, what Nixon was significant enough in Steel Town USA to have a theater named after him – or her? I very much doubt that it was Richard M.
In looking at the terrific picture that Bway posted last Febeuary (that I reprint below), I noted that the featered movie was “Forbidded Paradise”. It was a silent film directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch that starred, among others, Pola Negri and Adolph Menjou. The film was released in 1924. Thus, if it was in initial release, this film was shown during the brief period – 1921 to 1925 – when the Parthenon was situated in Brooklyn. If not, it was probably shown just after the Parthenon’s location shifted into Queens during 1925, when the county lines were revised.
This is, at least to me, fascinating stuff. Enjoy!
View link
Wow. Bway, where did you find this picture and when was it taken? By the looks of it, it seems that this occurred right after the Parthenon opened. It could even have been shot during the very brief period when this theater was still situated in Brooklyn.
Thanks again for this wonderful picture.
I recently was able to visit this site. The old building, such as it is, still exists and is occupied by some sort of commercial use. More importantly, the old theater is situated one block west of the portion of Green St. that was actually named for George Apen. This makes the address designation appearing at the top of the page not only confusing but downright incorrect. (In fact, I could not even find a “George Apen St.” sign in the portion of Green St. that was actually named after him.)
Here is the Times newsweekly story about the Ridgewood.
View link
Thank you Bway and Warren for this terrific vintage picture. I just can’t believe that such a significant theater existed on this corner. I just have two additional comments to add:
When one reads – or re-reads – “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” – one can really think of The Folly as a place where the principal characters of this wonderful novel went to enjoy a silent film and/or a stage performance on a Saturday night. Perhaps Jimmy Nolan even performed here. This was clearly one of the crown jewels of the “Ghetto Street”.
It is interesting to think that the very stately Folly was situated just down the block from the far more mundane Lindy Theater. But I guess that’s how things were those days.