Whitney Theatre
67-05 Fresh Pond Road,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
67-05 Fresh Pond Road,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
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Showing 51 - 61 of 61 comments found
Right. The first building is the same address as the bus depot, and the TA property.
The first building after the “shack” is the Greenpoint Savings bank building.
Okay, is that the Whitney where the water tower is located in the QueensPix photo? I think the confusion is due to the street addresses. Didn’t they use a different numbering system back then? The Whitney appears to be the first building. That little “shack” if owned by the transit system most likely had no address. That “shack” is the property that shows up on current records as the 31 ft lot.
Ken, I have the “Old Queens” book that Warren mentions. (not here, so I can’t check now). However, if it’s the photo I am thinking of, it is similar to photo 053 in the Ridgewood section of Queenspix.com
Warren…If you click on the link above where Bway posted the current photo and tell me if the photo in your book looks anything like the current bank building.
Warren, if you look in my photo above, there is a small space between the “theater site” and the tracks. Currently, a one story building occupies the corner parcel, and houses “Minimart”. A search on the ownership of the building found that the New York CIty Transit Authority owns the little minimart building, suggesting that what you said is absolutely correct. In fact, the minimart building is slightly under the elevated tracks.
The building that is now on the site, although does look “theater-like” was not the same building that housed the Whitney theater. The Whitney is just out of view in this photo (linked below) in a timesnwesweekly article that lostmemory sent me a few weeks ago. The building is different, but is indeed in the same location (note the “elevated tracks” were on the ground until 1914, but the tracks are just in the foreground).
View link
By the way Warren, I have updates on the Century and United Theater sites that you had asked for in their sections (you submitted those theaters), check there later when I post the info. I figured I’d tell you to check here, because you never posted in the Century section, and wouldn’t get a “someone just posted email”.
Bway
It’s funny you mention looking at the building. I did the same thing as a kid and always thought this had to have been a theatre at one time.
FDYBs say the Whitney had 1,000 seats. The photo of the Whitney in the book “Old Queens” suggests that. It seems to have had a single floor auditorium, with a two-story stage housing at the rear of the building. This 1912 photo also shows a narrow plot between the train platform and the theatre, which had some sort of tin-roofed shack fronting on Fresh Pond Rd. It might have been a waiting room for passengers. Perhaps that was what was demolished.
Below is a link to a current photo of the Whitney site. The corner building is Minimart, and is sort of under the el structure.
The current 67-03 and 67-05 were built as one structure, and I assume the the Whitney also took up both properties.
Interestingly, if I hadn’t heard that the Whitney was demolished (is that accurate, or was it just “closed in 1926?”, I would have assumed the building was a theater. This building always fascinated me since I was a kid. It is “theater-like”, but I guess it was actually built for a bank.
Click here for Photo
That date is accurate. Whatever was located at 67-05 was demolished for “violating city ordinances”, whatever they were. Does FDYB list a seating capacity for the Whitney? It’s possible that the Whitney was located on the smaller adjacent property at 67-03 Freshpond rd.
The Whitney was listed in Film Daily Year Books for the last time in the 1927 volume. Perhaps that demolition date was 1926 instead of 1916?
According to documents I have read, this theater was demolished on July 25, 1916. As of now, I cannot find a valid reason for the demolition.