Thanks for posting that, stukgh. I have a similar memory of the spring 1968 engagement of “Bonnie and Clyde” at the RKO Madison (q.v. on this site) Theater in Ridgewood, Queens.
Rich D – I remember Walter Winkowski very well. At the cursillo we were both on, Wally made the remark : “Lunch is ready – napkin sandwiches !” Rich Dittus was there also, and credits me with remembering the remark, although Wally made it.
I didn’t know you were godfather to Wally’s son. That’s good.
Thanks for the info on John Kiely. I enjoyed his performances, and those of other Treaty Stone members, at the SFC folk concerts. Also Joe Kuceluk, who turned me on to Dylan in 1973, and with whom I still keep in touch.
I remember going to the Krazy Kountry Klub (Warm beer, lousy food)in Bay Ridge with some college friends from Staten Island in mid-November 1979. From Ridgewood, by subway, into Manhattan, then back into Brooklyn. Going home I remember a very crowded L or R train at Union Square, and a guy saying, “Looks like a full house but we’re gonna make it home tonight” then to me “Step aboard, young stud, before the doors close on you too !” At least 1 ½ hours each way.
Bway, good point about Polish subtitles at the Ridgewood Theater. In the ‘80’s I worked with a Yugoslavian man who lived at Catalpa and Shaler in upper Ridgewood whose name was Anton Tomic, or Mr. “A.Tomic”, as we called him. I was reminded of him this past Monday when I saw the current film, “The Terminal”, with Tom Hanks as Viktor Navorski from Krakozhia.
DABOC, thanks for the heads-up on all the Ridgewood stuff sold on e-bay. I suppose standing on the arms of one’s chair and screaming is standard rock concert behavior, and has been for at least four decades now.
Warren, thanks for the info on the Corona Plaza, and Creative. Sorry to read the Plaza is now closed. When I saw “Godzilla” there in May 1998 it was like being a small kid again, and seeing “Reptilicus” at the RKO Madison, summer of 1961.
Good point, Warren. Does Creative Entertainment own and run the Corona Plaza at 103rd St. and Roosevelt Avenue in Corona ? I saw the Matthew Broderick “Godzilla” there Thursday May 28, 1998 and it was subtitled in Spanish. Yes, Ridgewood now has a large Hispanic population, probably comparable to Jackson Heights and Corona.
“Flock to the Ridgewood from all over Brooklyn” ? The Ridgewood Theater is in Queens, a block or so from the Brooklyn border. Due to the inadequacies (or adequacies, depending on one’s point of view) of mass transit in Brooklyn, Ridgewood is very hard to get to from
some Brooklyn neighborhoods, like Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay, East Flatbush …
I think we were last face to face right after the closing of the cursillo we both made at St. Paul’s Center on Humboldt Street, Greenpoint, Bklyn, mid-January 1975. I remember Mike Daley being there also. “The eighth sacrament”, as I think John Keily, the St. Francis College “folkmeister”, put it.
Cooper Avenue near 64th St. would be in the area of Glendale known as “Liberty Park”. Action Records (“Where the action is”) was on the south side of Myrtle just east of Cornelia Street and Martin’s Paint Store. I remember a John’s Bargain Store on the northwest side of Catalpa Avenue between Myrtle and Seneca Avenues, where KB Toys is now.
My St. Brigid and SFP classmate of 12 years, James Kennedy, pointed out to me the great rock albums you could find in the “Rock and Roll” section of Action Records, like Zephyr : From A Mile High. Their vocalist sounded like Janis Joplin.
Kresge’s and Woolworth’s were on the north side of Myrtle, a block further east, between Seneca and Onderdonk Avenues.
Home Federal Savings and Loan is now a North Fork Bank. My father worked for Ridgewood Savings Bank, both at and out of the main office at Myrtle and Forest Avenues, for 42 years, 1945 to 1987, when he retired. I am in Ridgewood Savings Bank’s main office at Myrtle and Forest every month both to visit Ridgewood and to do business for my father. The building still looks great, and there is a sign in the lobby, “Mowimy po polsku'(Polish spoken here).
I agree with you. I suppose the July 13 1977 blackout, and the looting and arson that resulted, was a “low point” of the 1970’s. Another would have been late Sept. / early October 1975 fiscal crisis, when NYC asked President Ford for financial assistance, Ford refused, and NYC almost went into default on its bonds.
The supermarket at the west corner of Wyckoff and Putnam that opened in the late ‘80’s did very well, I think, because it was the only store of its size in the square mile or so, of which it is the center. Similarly, I think the RKO Madison and Ridgewood were the only movie houses in the surrounding square mile, after the Oasis stopped showing movies. Consequently, I think the Madison would have done well, had it been multiplexed.
Thanks, Bway. That’s very interesting ! My father claims to remember a singing star (Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, or Georgie Jessel) coming out of the subway at the southeast corner of Myrtle and Wyckoff, near Optimo Cigars and McDonald’s, and asking for directions to the RKO Madison. My dad remembers telling him, and getting free passes to the show as a result.
My dad also remembers seeing live Shakespeare at the Madison, and the (for its time, 1951) racially controversial film, “Pinky”, introduced live on stage by Ed Sullivan, at the Madison also.
Movie stars leaving their cars and stepping into the RKO Madison, into the late ‘60’s ? I picture Ray Milland doing this for “The Man With The X-Ray Eyes” in 1964, or Susan Oliver for “Change Of Mind” in 1969 ! Please ask your dad about this some more. Thanks in advance !
Thanks, Bway. You can just barely see it at the right edge of your image. I passed by it last Friday around noon, on the M to lower Manhattan. The building is painted pastel yellow and orange. I still don’t know what it’s used for now, if anything.
Warren, sorry about your “carpal tunnel and wrist syndrome”.
EllenA, please give me your e-mail address, so we can communicate about Ridgewood directly, and keep our private chat off this board.
I remember Victor Baresi and Joe Gasperetti very well. Ironically, Joe G seemed to have the most respect for me after we had both graduated the Prep, and we would meet by accident on the subway or in the Ridgewood library, although we started hitting it off better our senior year at the Prep, starting fall 1972.
Where was your high school, St. Angela Hall, located ? I vaguely remember it, along with St. Nick’s.
I live in Dobbs Ferry, NY, a near lower Westchester suburb of NYC, and work in lower Manhattan, so I am in NYC every weekday. I am in Ridgewood every month to do my father’s banking at Ridgewood Savings Bank.
I thought the “low point” of the Ridgewood was in late 1979, or early 1980, right before it began to be multiplexed. Bway, please comment on this.
Thank you, EllenA. I take it “Cypwood” comes from Cypress Hills and Ridgewood.
So you lived on Menahan near St. Nicholas, near my friend and classmate Stan Piccirillo. What was St. Brigid’s like when you graduated in June 1971 ? Did you know or have Br. Gerald Patrick (Donatus, when I had him in 7th grade, 1967-68) or Br. Eugene Thomas Devine (he started at Saint Francis Prep in Fall 1971). I visited with Br. Gerald Patrick in April 1972 and he said discipline at St. Brigid’s had utterly collapsed by then, though parents still clamored for it in parent-teacher meetings.
Thank you, Matt A. Which side of the building appears in that photo ? Dekalb Avenue, I would think. You must also know that the former RKO Bushwick Theater at 1396 Broadway is now the Bushwick High School For Social Justice.
Also, there was an article in the June 27 2004 Sunday NY Daily News about a group of Bushwick H.S. students performing their unique updated version of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” at, I think, a theater in Bushwick at Central Avenue and Hart Street.
Thank you, Monica ! I think you’ve got a good site, and I hope you keep adding to it, and improving it !
Warren, the Imperial Theater was at Irving and Dekalb Avenues in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. My Uncle John, who just turned 83 this past Tuesday, June 29th, saw the Lugosi “Dracula” there as a boy of eight when it first came out. He lived nearby at 412 Harman Street. About a dozen years later, returning home from WW II military service with the Signal Corps in North Africa, he found that the Imperial had become a Robert Hall clothing store, and went there for some needed new civilian clothing.
Interesting thought, Camden, to move Film Forum to the RKO Commodore in Williamsburg, Bklyn. So the revival / avant garde movie buffs will follow the yuppies from SoHo and the East Village into the Brooklyn neighborhoods closest to Manhattan.
There are many more closed theaters on Broadway, Brooklyn, southeast of the RKO Commodore ! I would love to discuss them with you !
Bill Huelbig, I recall part of the live music then was “The Power Of Brass', in particular, the theme from "Rocky”, which has just come out the previous year. I recall an audience reaction similar to your memory.
I saw Tony Bennett at Radio City, with my wife and aunt, Friday September 28 2001, and saw “Wheel Of Fortune” being taped there, with my wife and son, around Sept. 11 2003 (a Sunday). Hokey, but fun.
I remember Joan Crawford in “I Saw What You Did”, now that you mention it. She played the mistress of the man who had just murdered his wife before the girls made their “fun” phone call. I think she deserved star billing. Anthony Hopkins was on screen only 27 minutes in “The Silence Of The Lambs”.
I heard about the Elgin from a friend but never went there. I thought it was near 23rd and 8th. My friend went there in 1973 or 1974 for a double bill of the Betty Boop festival and “Night Of The Living Dead”.
Vincent, glad you liked the Biograph. So did I. What is your preferred scope screen to theater ratio for optimum viewing ? You read like the “El Exigente” of the cinema. Thanks for the bit about Frank Crowley and the Regency. I saw “Fantastic Voyage” and “Planet Of The Apes” on the same bill at the Regency in August 1985.
There was also a shabby little theater, called the Hollywood, on the west side of 8th Avenue between, I think, 49th and 50th Sts. where, pre-renovation, I saw a double bill of “Vertigo” and “The Birds” summer 1985.
OK I won’t watch Hennessy or Petrovka.
Bill Huelbig, thanks for the anecdote. Did your dad end up paying for the damaged drive in speaker ?
Thanks for posting that, stukgh. I have a similar memory of the spring 1968 engagement of “Bonnie and Clyde” at the RKO Madison (q.v. on this site) Theater in Ridgewood, Queens.
Rich D – I remember Walter Winkowski very well. At the cursillo we were both on, Wally made the remark : “Lunch is ready – napkin sandwiches !” Rich Dittus was there also, and credits me with remembering the remark, although Wally made it.
I didn’t know you were godfather to Wally’s son. That’s good.
Thanks for the info on John Kiely. I enjoyed his performances, and those of other Treaty Stone members, at the SFC folk concerts. Also Joe Kuceluk, who turned me on to Dylan in 1973, and with whom I still keep in touch.
I remember going to the Krazy Kountry Klub (Warm beer, lousy food)in Bay Ridge with some college friends from Staten Island in mid-November 1979. From Ridgewood, by subway, into Manhattan, then back into Brooklyn. Going home I remember a very crowded L or R train at Union Square, and a guy saying, “Looks like a full house but we’re gonna make it home tonight” then to me “Step aboard, young stud, before the doors close on you too !” At least 1 ½ hours each way.
Bway, good point about Polish subtitles at the Ridgewood Theater. In the ‘80’s I worked with a Yugoslavian man who lived at Catalpa and Shaler in upper Ridgewood whose name was Anton Tomic, or Mr. “A.Tomic”, as we called him. I was reminded of him this past Monday when I saw the current film, “The Terminal”, with Tom Hanks as Viktor Navorski from Krakozhia.
DABOC, thanks for the heads-up on all the Ridgewood stuff sold on e-bay. I suppose standing on the arms of one’s chair and screaming is standard rock concert behavior, and has been for at least four decades now.
Warren, thanks for the info on the Corona Plaza, and Creative. Sorry to read the Plaza is now closed. When I saw “Godzilla” there in May 1998 it was like being a small kid again, and seeing “Reptilicus” at the RKO Madison, summer of 1961.
Good point, Warren. Does Creative Entertainment own and run the Corona Plaza at 103rd St. and Roosevelt Avenue in Corona ? I saw the Matthew Broderick “Godzilla” there Thursday May 28, 1998 and it was subtitled in Spanish. Yes, Ridgewood now has a large Hispanic population, probably comparable to Jackson Heights and Corona.
“Flock to the Ridgewood from all over Brooklyn” ? The Ridgewood Theater is in Queens, a block or so from the Brooklyn border. Due to the inadequacies (or adequacies, depending on one’s point of view) of mass transit in Brooklyn, Ridgewood is very hard to get to from
some Brooklyn neighborhoods, like Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay, East Flatbush …
Rich D :
I think we were last face to face right after the closing of the cursillo we both made at St. Paul’s Center on Humboldt Street, Greenpoint, Bklyn, mid-January 1975. I remember Mike Daley being there also. “The eighth sacrament”, as I think John Keily, the St. Francis College “folkmeister”, put it.
Cooper Avenue near 64th St. would be in the area of Glendale known as “Liberty Park”. Action Records (“Where the action is”) was on the south side of Myrtle just east of Cornelia Street and Martin’s Paint Store. I remember a John’s Bargain Store on the northwest side of Catalpa Avenue between Myrtle and Seneca Avenues, where KB Toys is now.
My St. Brigid and SFP classmate of 12 years, James Kennedy, pointed out to me the great rock albums you could find in the “Rock and Roll” section of Action Records, like Zephyr : From A Mile High. Their vocalist sounded like Janis Joplin.
Kresge’s and Woolworth’s were on the north side of Myrtle, a block further east, between Seneca and Onderdonk Avenues.
Home Federal Savings and Loan is now a North Fork Bank. My father worked for Ridgewood Savings Bank, both at and out of the main office at Myrtle and Forest Avenues, for 42 years, 1945 to 1987, when he retired. I am in Ridgewood Savings Bank’s main office at Myrtle and Forest every month both to visit Ridgewood and to do business for my father. The building still looks great, and there is a sign in the lobby, “Mowimy po polsku'(Polish spoken here).
Hello Rich ! Good to be back in touch with you. I work in lower Manhattan and live in Dobbs Ferry NY across the Hudson from you.
If I may quote Bob Dylan, “We have much to talk about, and much to reminisce !” even though we are a year apart.
Hello “rich d” : Are you my classmate, Rich Dittus, from Saint Francis Prep, 1969-73 ? I guess not, as he went to Fordham.
Are you Rich Danderline, SFP Class of 1972 ?
I saw “Three Stooges In Orbit” and “Mothra” on a double bill at the RKO Madison, summer of 1961, without seeing the Stooges in person.
Please give me some examples of “dud” movies from the late 1950’s and ‘60’s. Thanks in advance.
I agree with you. I suppose the July 13 1977 blackout, and the looting and arson that resulted, was a “low point” of the 1970’s. Another would have been late Sept. / early October 1975 fiscal crisis, when NYC asked President Ford for financial assistance, Ford refused, and NYC almost went into default on its bonds.
The supermarket at the west corner of Wyckoff and Putnam that opened in the late ‘80’s did very well, I think, because it was the only store of its size in the square mile or so, of which it is the center. Similarly, I think the RKO Madison and Ridgewood were the only movie houses in the surrounding square mile, after the Oasis stopped showing movies. Consequently, I think the Madison would have done well, had it been multiplexed.
Thanks, Bway. That’s very interesting ! My father claims to remember a singing star (Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, or Georgie Jessel) coming out of the subway at the southeast corner of Myrtle and Wyckoff, near Optimo Cigars and McDonald’s, and asking for directions to the RKO Madison. My dad remembers telling him, and getting free passes to the show as a result.
My dad also remembers seeing live Shakespeare at the Madison, and the (for its time, 1951) racially controversial film, “Pinky”, introduced live on stage by Ed Sullivan, at the Madison also.
Movie stars leaving their cars and stepping into the RKO Madison, into the late ‘60’s ? I picture Ray Milland doing this for “The Man With The X-Ray Eyes” in 1964, or Susan Oliver for “Change Of Mind” in 1969 ! Please ask your dad about this some more. Thanks in advance !
I wonder what church in Ridgewood or Bushwick might have taken over the RKO Madison Theater.
I will e-mail my Uncle John your questions about the Rivoli, and will wait and see if he can answer them.
What does this site give as the seating capacity of the RKO Madison, compared to 900 for the Rivoli ?
Thanks, Bway !
Thanks, Bway. You can just barely see it at the right edge of your image. I passed by it last Friday around noon, on the M to lower Manhattan. The building is painted pastel yellow and orange. I still don’t know what it’s used for now, if anything.
Warren, sorry about your “carpal tunnel and wrist syndrome”.
EllenA, please give me your e-mail address, so we can communicate about Ridgewood directly, and keep our private chat off this board.
I remember Victor Baresi and Joe Gasperetti very well. Ironically, Joe G seemed to have the most respect for me after we had both graduated the Prep, and we would meet by accident on the subway or in the Ridgewood library, although we started hitting it off better our senior year at the Prep, starting fall 1972.
Where was your high school, St. Angela Hall, located ? I vaguely remember it, along with St. Nick’s.
I live in Dobbs Ferry, NY, a near lower Westchester suburb of NYC, and work in lower Manhattan, so I am in NYC every weekday. I am in Ridgewood every month to do my father’s banking at Ridgewood Savings Bank.
I thought the “low point” of the Ridgewood was in late 1979, or early 1980, right before it began to be multiplexed. Bway, please comment on this.
Thank you, EllenA. I take it “Cypwood” comes from Cypress Hills and Ridgewood.
So you lived on Menahan near St. Nicholas, near my friend and classmate Stan Piccirillo. What was St. Brigid’s like when you graduated in June 1971 ? Did you know or have Br. Gerald Patrick (Donatus, when I had him in 7th grade, 1967-68) or Br. Eugene Thomas Devine (he started at Saint Francis Prep in Fall 1971). I visited with Br. Gerald Patrick in April 1972 and he said discipline at St. Brigid’s had utterly collapsed by then, though parents still clamored for it in parent-teacher meetings.
Thank you, Matt A. Which side of the building appears in that photo ? Dekalb Avenue, I would think. You must also know that the former RKO Bushwick Theater at 1396 Broadway is now the Bushwick High School For Social Justice.
Also, there was an article in the June 27 2004 Sunday NY Daily News about a group of Bushwick H.S. students performing their unique updated version of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” at, I think, a theater in Bushwick at Central Avenue and Hart Street.
Agreed, Bway. It was still going strong as a bank main office when I was last there last Friday July 2 2004.
Mark W., I was paying Monica H a compliment, not asking her for a date.
AGAIN,YOU’RE MOST WELCOME, MONICA ! HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND !
YOU’RE MOST WELCOME, MONICA ! HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND !
P.S. I WAS IN RIDGEWOOD THIS MORNING, BUT AT RIDGEWOOD SAVINGS BANK, NOT THE RIDGEWOOD THEATER. I AM THERE ONCE A MONTH.
I thought of you on the way from Ridgewood, in to work in lower Manhattan today, because of all the pretty young women I saw on the M train.
Thank you, Monica ! I think you’ve got a good site, and I hope you keep adding to it, and improving it !
Warren, the Imperial Theater was at Irving and Dekalb Avenues in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. My Uncle John, who just turned 83 this past Tuesday, June 29th, saw the Lugosi “Dracula” there as a boy of eight when it first came out. He lived nearby at 412 Harman Street. About a dozen years later, returning home from WW II military service with the Signal Corps in North Africa, he found that the Imperial had become a Robert Hall clothing store, and went there for some needed new civilian clothing.
Thanks, byranb, for the update on the Elgin !
Interesting thought, Camden, to move Film Forum to the RKO Commodore in Williamsburg, Bklyn. So the revival / avant garde movie buffs will follow the yuppies from SoHo and the East Village into the Brooklyn neighborhoods closest to Manhattan.
There are many more closed theaters on Broadway, Brooklyn, southeast of the RKO Commodore ! I would love to discuss them with you !
Bill Huelbig, I recall part of the live music then was “The Power Of Brass', in particular, the theme from "Rocky”, which has just come out the previous year. I recall an audience reaction similar to your memory.
I saw Tony Bennett at Radio City, with my wife and aunt, Friday September 28 2001, and saw “Wheel Of Fortune” being taped there, with my wife and son, around Sept. 11 2003 (a Sunday). Hokey, but fun.
I remember Joan Crawford in “I Saw What You Did”, now that you mention it. She played the mistress of the man who had just murdered his wife before the girls made their “fun” phone call. I think she deserved star billing. Anthony Hopkins was on screen only 27 minutes in “The Silence Of The Lambs”.
I heard about the Elgin from a friend but never went there. I thought it was near 23rd and 8th. My friend went there in 1973 or 1974 for a double bill of the Betty Boop festival and “Night Of The Living Dead”.
Vincent, glad you liked the Biograph. So did I. What is your preferred scope screen to theater ratio for optimum viewing ? You read like the “El Exigente” of the cinema. Thanks for the bit about Frank Crowley and the Regency. I saw “Fantastic Voyage” and “Planet Of The Apes” on the same bill at the Regency in August 1985.
There was also a shabby little theater, called the Hollywood, on the west side of 8th Avenue between, I think, 49th and 50th Sts. where, pre-renovation, I saw a double bill of “Vertigo” and “The Birds” summer 1985.
OK I won’t watch Hennessy or Petrovka.
Bill Huelbig, thanks for the anecdote. Did your dad end up paying for the damaged drive in speaker ?