Majestic Theater
494 Seneca Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
494 Seneca Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 101 - 107 of 107 comments found
Peter…..I’m going to have someone else try and scan that picture on a different scanner. If it comes out better than the one that I have, maybe I’ll upload that one to this site.
I try not to write personal things on a public site like this, but I think you and I know alot of the same people. If your the Peter that I’m thinking of, you graduated high school with my sister. I won’t mention names but I believe your old high school is having an open house this Sept. If you would like to see this photo, I will email it to you. If you don’t want to post your email address, but would like the photo, I can get your address from a mutual friend. I hope your not too confused, I’m not paranoid, I’m just cautious what I write here.
lostmemory, I’m glad you liked my idea. I’m also glad it’s now been estabished beyond any reasonable doubt that 494 Seneca Avenue was indeed once the Majestic Theater. Will you be posting that photo of your younger sister in front of the Majestic on this page ?
By all means, try to find answers to your questions. The Old Timer of The Times Newsweekly may be a good place to start. He seems fairly knowledgable. You may not find answers to all your questions, but, if you never ask any of them, of anyone, you will never find answers to any of them.
Now that it’s been said repeatedly that the Majestic Theater became a funeral home, I’m expecting a comment from Bway about how a funeral home compares to a church as a post-theater function of a building that was originally built as a theater. How is a funeral home like a theater ? One comes to view the body of a loved one instead of a film. There are seats. It’s dark, quiet, sometimes there’s organ music. The body is a focal point of the grief and mourning and remembrances of the patrons, just as cinema spectators press their emotions and fantasies upon the images on the screen.
A similar comparison can be made between a theater and a church.
Peter….Thats a good idea, I might give that a try. I’ve been getting alot of emails about this theater. Most are just memories of it but one of them actually remembers going to see movies there. I’m trying to get more specific answers from this woman and when I do, I’ll post them here.
I have a younger sister who has a very large collection of old photos. When I told her that I was researching the Majestic, she went through those photos. She found one of her taken on Seneca ave near the corner of Greene ave. Behind her is the movie theater. The picture is dated 1958. Its old and probably taken with a Kodak Brownie camera. If you use a magnifier, you can read the marquee. It says “MAJESTIC”.
She tried scanning this picture. When you do that you can no longer read the marquee. I have a copy of it on my computer now in .bmp format. There is no longer any doubt that this was the Majestic theater.
What I’m trying to find out now is, when did it open. When did it close. What kind of movies did they play there. If possible, I’d like to know who owned it. I might never find the answers to these questions but I will give it my best shot.
lostmemory, why not e-mail or paper-mail write to The Old Timer at the Times Newsweekly, and ask how to get in touch with the person who mentioned the Majestic Theater in the May 13, 2004 installment of the “Our Neighborhood” columnn ?
I’m feeling more and more like the “new Old Timer” !
Hi Bway….I took your advice and moved that message here. That building is still a funeral home. From what I understand that it has a different name now. I believe its called the D'Angelo Funeral Home Inc.
In a message on the RKO Madison board, Warren said he looked up the Majestic in the 1931 Film Daily Year Book and it lists a seating capacity of 600. That sounds like a realistic figure to me since it was a small theater. That book also lists the address as 424 Seneca ave which is incorrect. Whoever did the research for that book must have made a mistake.
If your wondering how I can be so sure that there was a movie theater on the corner of Seneca ave and Greene ave, I’ll explain it to you. I grew up there. The theater was closed at the time, but it was still there. I walked past it just about everyday. The side of the building was on Greene ave. I played handball against that wall. I also played stickball on Greene ave. Home plate was even with the back of the theater. I hit the ball north towards Seneca ave. I also hit many balls onto the roof of that theater.
The marquee in the front had a drain pipe running down from it along the front of the building to drain off the rain water. As a kid, I climbed up that pipe to get on top of the marquee. Yes, I was very daring in my youth.
The building had a rear door which was sealed tight. It also had a side door on Greene ave that was locked until someone “opened” it. Although I never saw a movie playing in this theater, I was inside this theater many times. My friends and I explored this building looking for a way to gain access to the roof to retrieve the many balls we had hit up there. After all, a Spalding was around 25 cents back then and none of us were rich. One day we discovered that in the booth where the projection machine used to be was an opening in the ceiling that led to the roof. You can imagine how happy we were to discover that.
Anyway, I don’t have a vivid memory of the interior because it was dark inside when I was in there. The seats were still there, but not much else was intact. Over the years that it stood vacant someone pretty much cleaned this building out. Indeed there was a theater at that location. Is it the Majestic? I’ve heard from enough people that also believe it is the Majestic theater and unless someone has proof that this theater has a different name, I’ll continue to call it the Majestic.
Lostmemory, you should copy and paste that great childhood story about the Magestic you put in the Madison section here about the handballs and stuff. It is so interesting that the building stood vacant for so long.
At some point the Magestic was converted to a Funeral Parlor. Is it still a Funeral Parlor today?