Majestic Theater
494 Seneca Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
494 Seneca Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 107 comments found
I might have solved the mystery of the train tracks. I’ve done alot of research and many people have given me info pointing me in the right direction. One “old timer” has helped me tie all this info together. He remembers those train tracks and he tells me that there were other tracks like that. He told me that there were similar tracks further north just before Forrest ave. That would be somewhere near Grandview ave I think. The best piece of info he gave me was this. Most if not all of the bricks that Ridgewood was built from were made by Kreischer Brick Manufacturing Company of Staten Island. Those bricks were brought by barge up the East River to a pier or dock somewhere in north Brooklyn. They were then loaded on trains and brought to Ridgewood. Those weren’t really sidings where trains were parked, they were more like job sites.
All the raw material was brought in by those trains. Bricks, mortar, sand, lumber etc. Also on those trains was the heavy machinery like steam shovels to dig the foundations for the buildings. There should be no doubt now that those tracks were there before the Majestic was and they did play a role in the size of that theater. Without those tracks/trains, there would be no Majestic theater.
If any of you are railroad buffs, maybe you could find out when those tracks were installed and that would give me a better idea of when the Majestic was built. This story could have been alot longer, but I didn’t want to bore anyone. I gave you the Readers Digest condensed version.
lostmemory, you’re welcome to the links about P.S. 81.
I’ll pass on Roswell, too. I am not a paranoiac Roswell conspiracy theorist-fanatic. I’m not waiting for my savior to step out of a U.F.O. I’ll stick with Ridgewood.
That is a great observation Bway. If the Majestic was as rundown as these people say it was, why not go to the Madison or Ridgewood theater and spend your hard earned money? My take on this is, these people knew this theater was doomed and they were trying to breathe some life back into it. It was a neighborhood thing. These people grew up with this theater like I did and didn’t want it to go. In a way its like losing an old friend. Like one of those people wrote, you could send your kid there alone and not worry about them. They felt safe there. That was something that they didn’t feel with the larger theaters. And I guess that it is kind of ironic that it became a funeral home just like the Grandview did.
Great comments! Apparently, the buildings fate didn’t change too much as people continued to go to “The Magestic” feeling depressed as it became a funeral parlor….
Obviously, the theater did last into the 50’s as a movie theater.
Peter…..That was funny. Going back to Ridgewood is one thing, I think that I’ll pass on Roswell. Thanks for the links about PS81.
Back on topic…..A few more replies that I have recived on the Majestic.
“We used to call it the Dumps but I think it was the Majestic. I also saw Roy Rogers and other western movies there”.
“My parents used to call it the Dumps too. I always thought it was because when you were ‘down in the dumps’ you were sad or depressed and going to the movies cheered you up? Why did they call it the Dumps”?
“We called it the Dumps because it was very old and well.., dirty.
Back then, kids could go to the movies without a grownup. On
Saturday mornings it was filled with young kids all eating candy and
popcorn. We sat there eating sunflower seeds. You can guess the
mess we made, even though I know I tried not to get any sunflower
seeds or shells on the floor. Kids tend to spill things.
The film was shown on the old movie reels. The film would often
break in the middle of a movie and the kids would go crazy waiting
for it to be spliced together again”.
I have no years to go on with these replies but they would be in the early 50’s due to the age of the people writing these replies. It seems like the Majestic was in a state of disrepair in the early 50’s and its end was very near.
lostmemory, there’s several recent articles about PS 81 in the “Our Neighborhood” column of the Times Newsweekly that you may want to check out at :
http://timesnewsweekly.com/
Just click on “Archives”.
Your assumption about the brown boxcar being dismantled and trucked away is probbaly correct, but as the starship Enterprise has been known to travel back in time to the 20th century, as in the episode “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” of the original series, Scotty may have beamed it somewhere after all. Or maybe it’s in that Air Force hangar in Roswell, New Mexico ….. for more info, see “The X Files”.
Bway…..I asked a few people about those tracks and this person confirms what you said. It was a siding. He believes the tracks ended somewhere around Linden St. So, those tracks would go from Linden St west past the Majestic. I know that those tracks were gone by the 50’s.
I thought the Majestic was a mystery, here’s another one. Sorry for going off topic but here goes. As a kid I attended PS81 which is located on Cypress Ave between Bleecker and Menahan St. (The school is still there under another name) When school was let out, the girls exited at Bleecker st and the boys at Menahan st. I lived closer to Bleecker so I had to walk an extra block. I would walk north on Menahan to Seneca ave. To my right I could see this big brownish colored boxcar about 20 feet from the street sitting on a track. There was a fence in front of it to keep wacky kids like me from going in there and climbing on that car. Now, the tracks that went across Menahan st were already gone. The question that all the kids used to ask was, “How are they going to get that train out of there”? (we called it a train). To this day, I don’t know the answer to that question. All I remember is, it disappeared during one summer vacation and was gone when school started again in Sept.
I assume that it was dismantled and trucked away. Since Star Trek wasn’t around at that time, I doubt that Scotty beamed it somewhere.
OK, Bway, will do.
Here’s a link to an old image of Seneca Avenue five blocks southeast of the former Majestic Theater, facing southeast to the Seneca Avenue el station of the BMT Myrtle Avenue el station over Palmetto Street. The “DeKalb” trolley car is the predecessor of the current B-38 bus, and must have gone over the Brooklyn Bridge to “Park Row” in downtown Manhattan, as well. Note the cobblestone paving of Seneca Avenue :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?30992
The Wyckoff Theater stood at 247 Wyckoff Avenue, eastern corner of Wyckoff Avenue and Bleecker Street. It was before my time, so my earliest memory of it is as a Jehovah’s Witnesses Hall, about 1960 or 1961. My oldest aunt went there with her mother to see “Seven Brides For Seven Brothers” for an adult admission of ten cents. It was not air conditioned at first, but my oldest aunt recalls going there as a kid in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s for a nickel, and having a “grand old time” there, seeing double features with cartoons, newsreels and short subjects.
I thought the Colonial in Bushwick had its own page here, until I tried to go there and didn’t find any !
Please add pages for those theaters too, you know a bit more about them than I do, so your descrpition obviously would be much better.
DO you know anything about The Wyckoff, I don’t think that one is listed either.
I didn’t even know the Colonial didn’t have a section yet!
Glad you’re on the case, Bway !
BTW, I just submitted a page to this site for the Colonial Theater at 1746 Bway (at Rockaway Avenue, and Chauncey St. in Bushwick). I hope your recent photo of it, as the Wayside Baptist Church, and information on it, supplied by Warren, on the RKO Bushwick and other pages on this site, eventually finds its way onto the new Colonial Theater page.
Perhaps I should also submit pages for the Decatur, Empire, and Monroe Theaters, while I’m at it.
Lostmemory, this is very interesting. I always knew about the tracks of the LIRR Evergreen Branch between Irving and Wyckoff, but never knew about the ones next to Seneca. They were probably a freight siding branching from the Bushwick branch about 13 blocks to the north. I am sure that obviously the Right of Way for those tracks did limited the depth of the Majestic Theater.
This is interesting though. I will do some more research on this.
lostmemory, thanks for the additional detail about the tracks between Cypress and Seneca. All I can think is that they either led into the car barns at Seneca and Dekalb or the Bushwick Branch of the LIRR. Beyond that, I’m stumped.
This might be a job for Kevin Walsh’s “Forgotten NY” site, or Tom Scannello’s “Forgotten NYC” site.
My parents, aunts and uncles remember the Car Barns well. I think there was also a vacant lot there that circuses and carnivals would set up their tents on. I think it’s a playground and running track now.
It’s almost ironic in the 50’s that the big barns remained and the smaller houses closed. In a few short years those small theatres would become the norm. I cant wait to hear what The Majestic was like inside. I had friends over there for years and did not know it was a former theatre all the times I passed it. I always thought the marquee looked theatre like. This must have been a cute place when it was open, I bet it never had air-conditioning like the Glenwood.
Peter…..The Majestic had similar tracks running behind it like the one’s that you remember near Wyckoff were. I never saw a train running on those tracks, but I did see a boxcar parked on one in the 50’s. This boxcar was sitting on those same tracks between Menahan st and Grove st. Its easy to tell where those tracks were and Bway might be able to confirm this on his next trip to Ridgewood. Start at Cypress ave and head north toward Seneca ave. Look at the houses starting near Cypress. As you approach Seneca ave, You will get to a point where those brick houses will end. That is where the tracks were. This doesn’t just apply to Greene ave. Do the same thing on Harmon st or Bleecker st and you will find the same exact thing. The old brick houses will all end at the same point on the block where the tracks were. There might be new houses built there now, I have no idea what goes on there today.
The trolley tracks ran along Seneca ave. That was before my time. The trolleys were replaced by those electrified buses that used the same power grid that the trolleys used. After that came the regular buses that ran on Seneca ave which you are familiar with as the B-38. There was a place on Dekalb and Seneca ave called the Car Barns where trolleys were stored and repaired and later buses were also. The trolley tracks on Seneca ave were paved over sometime in the 50’s.
lostmemory, I never knew there were train tracks behind the Majestic Theater (between Seneca and Cypress Avenues). All I can think is that they were trolley tracks.
The northwest to southeast tracks that ran parallel to and between Wyckoff and Irving Avenues began in the late 19th century as the Evergreen Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. They then became a freight line, connecting Bushwick Terminal at Bushwick and Montrose Avenues to the Connecting Line + Bay Ridge LIRR east of Cooper Street, near where the 14th Street Canarsie Line comes out of the ground between Halsey St. and Wilson Avenue stations. I and my family knew them as the “dummy tracks”. They serviced local industry such as Dietz Coal and Fuel Oil, and Tulnoy Lumber, at Ridgewood Place, between Putnam Avenue and Palmetto Street, and Wyckoff and Irving Avenues.
My mother grew up near the “dummy tracks” on Harman Street, and, as a girl, liked to put pieces of glass on the tracks, and watch passing
trains crush them to powder. I last remember trains on those tracks on a clear sunny morning in October 1962.
As to the size of theaters in Ridgewood, some were small, others were built larger, deliberately. From 1945 to 1955, television seemed to have put the smaller theaters, like the Wyckoff, Parthenon, Majestic, Glenwood, and the Grandview, out of business.
As for the length or depth of the building looking south from Seneca ave, there was a limiting factor there also. Anyone that has lived in Ridgewood from the early 60’s or before that should remember seeing lots of train tracks running through many of the side streets. There were tracks that ran east and west directly behind the Majestic. If you go further south past Wyckoff ave, you would find tracks there also running east and west. To the best of my memory, these trains were not running in the 50’s. The tracks that crossed Greene ave had already been paved over by that time. The tracks down past Wyckoff were still visible in the 60’s. As far as I know, these were freight trains and had been running since the turn of the century. All construction had to be done around these tracks. Those tracks limited the depth of the theater.
Were these the reasons that the theater was small? We might never know for sure. All I can do is speculate on that. It doesn’t hurt to speculate because that won’t change the fact that the Majestic did exist at that location. Maybe it was intended to be that size. Maybe the property was priced so good that they couldn’t pass it up.
I forgot what the buildings to the right of the Magestic looked like. If I remember correctly (gee it was only yesterday!), there is still an empty space to the right of the theater, but I can’t picture what the buildingnext to it lookd like, I was too busy looking at the theater building. I didn’t get out of my car, and again, unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me. I plan to be back in Ridgewood in a couple weeks, and will give an update then, and hopefully take a few photos.
Bway….Did you happen to notice how many buildings were on Seneca ave where the Chapel is? From Greene ave to Harmon St there used to be only two on the entire block. The other building used to be a large factory that was a knitting mill years ago. I’m curious if it is still there.
We keep wondering why that theater was so small. Was it by choice, or did other factors make the decision for the builder. I might have an answer to that.
In the early fifties there were three buildings on that street. Between the Majestic and the factory building was a wooden house. The way I understand the story is as follows, That old house was one of the first houses built on Seneca ave. I’m told that it was there before the theater was. The owner, for whatever reason wouldn’t sell. The west wall of that theater was within inches of that house. That would limit the width of the theater. At some point in the fifties, that house burned down and the property was bought by the knitting mill. It was cleared and used as some sort of loading dock for trucks.
I’ll talk about how the length of the theater could have been limited next time.
Well, today I had to go to Kew Gardens on business, and decided to take a detour to Ridgewood (as I usually do when I am in Queens or Brooklyn), and drove down Seneca Ave. The Majestic is indeed 494 Seneca Ave, it says it in big numbers right under the door. The old film paper must have had a typo. There are just your typical “Ridgewood” turn of the century homes where 424 would be, so I doubt there were two theaters within a few blocks of each other.
Anyway, it was a very small theater as lostmemory mentioned. The marquee still exists, and it has “Seneca Chapels” written on it. I couldn’t tell if it was still a funeral parlor, or if the building was vacant. It wasn’t really run down, but it wasn’t in “pristine” condition either. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera today, so didn’t get a photo. I may be back to Ridgewood in about two or three weeks, so may snap a photo of it then.
Peter, you are right about the theater, especially such a small one such as this, having a good after use as a funeral home. I don’t know what it looks like inside, but can just picture the casket on the “stage” with everyone looking over to it. A bit sad that people used to come to this theater to laugh, and now they come to cry. A big difference.
I also wonder when they stopped playing movies in it. The Seneca Chapel sign does look like something out of the 60’s.
lostmemory, I received your private e-mail with the picture. Thanks.
Your comment above, and the reasoning it contains, is the essence of the detective work of “urban archaeology”. Keep up the good work !
Here’s the e-address of the Internet Movie DataBase, if you don’t already have it, for further film research :
www.imdb.com
I have an e-pal who graduated Franklin K. Lane High School, on the Cypress Hills-Woodhaven, Bklyn-Queens, border, in 1954. I could ask him about movie ticket prices for kids when he was a kid.
Peter…..The check is in the mail. Oops, I mean the picture.
I received another email about this theater. This person is about 7 or 8 years older than me. This is part of the email: “We
would go there every Saturday morning and see Roy Rogers movies. I loved Roy back then. They would show at least seven cartoon’s along with the feature movie for the cost of fourteen cents."
I’m trying to find the year this person went to see these movies. I did some research. It seems that Roy Rogers last "big” movie was “Pals of the Golden West (Republic, 1951)”. His tv show started around 1952. Using the new math, I figured the latest this person could have been in that theater was 1952. I wish I could find out what year it was that tickets cost fourteen cents. Every little bit of info helps.
Warren….I’ve been thinking along the same line as you. I was thinking this theater started out with vaudeville acts and then switched to showing movies. That sure would explain the small seating capacity.
lostmemory, my e-mail address is :
.army.mil
Please e-mail me the photo of your sister in front of the Majestic.
Thank you.
I’ve written lots of personal things on the Ridgewood Theater page, and, so far, nothing bad has happened as a result.
I graduated St. Francis Prep, Bklyn NY, in June 1973, the next-to-last all boys class and also the next-to-last class to graduate from the old building in Williamsburg, Bklyn.
The Majestic is listed in the 1926 Film Daily Year Book, the first one to give addresses and seating capacities for movie theatres operating in the Greater New York area. Given that early date and its small seating capacity, the Majestic probably started as a nickelodeon, of which Ridgewood had many.